Plans and plottings

Well quite a lot, and there again nothing has happened since the last post! I took LG to a practical session at the home of our area group secretary, Richard Rundle. We set the boards up, and were pleased to find that they are only a couple of inches higher than our own system (The Slindon Valley Light Railway), so height will be a simple fix. Chris Davies, the 'Lord High Everything Else' of the Southdowns Area Group 7mm NGA designed the modular parameters for Slindon and he agreed that the only challenge was going to be getting from the track exit of LG, just a couple of inches from the back of the board, to the Slindon standard, in the centre of the board. It was decided, over several mugs of hot beverages, supplied by Richards long suffering wife, and general expert on Resturants, Wendy, the we would manufacture 2 adapter boards, hidden from public view, to;
 a) change from side to centre track crossing,
and b). to enable the use of Peco code 75 to code 100 adapter tracks, as LG is code 70 and the Peco flexi 0;16.5 track is code 100.

I favour a 90 deg turn on at least one board, to enable us to set up a longer run, in a shorter space! The other major work will be to include wings and a back scene, to make it, like the other Slindon modules, a self contained section of layout, connected electrically and physically, but not visually.

The final change would have to be the present very Welsh appearance to a more Sussex one! Much of the scenery needs refreshing anyway, so would you after so many years on inactivity! The buildings will be repainted to represent Sussex Sandstone, the slate roofs can remain. Some of the walls can also become sandstone, the others will either need to become flint or hedges, again both fairly simple tasks! I plan on doing some re wiring as I prefer individual control of each point, rather that one click changes points in a set route. The latter makes it hard to tell if all the points changed, so the former is a little more work, but it allows for not seeing a point, but hearing the "thunk" of the H&M solenoid. We also decided to add a couple of inches to the back, to allow the construction of a roadway, to break up the flat appearance of the board.
All in all there is not a huge amount to do, apart from the obvious, to get LG running with our own modules. One last question is, do we keep the name, Lansdowne Green, or do we go for a genuine place in the right area. Since the railway IS fictional, I'm inclined to go with keeping the name as is, and just adding the place on the map, to a location that fits the scenario.
Finnaly, this weekend just gone saw us going to ExpoNG, at Swanley, where I met up with 2 of the original Cottesmore guys, Laurence Murray and Geoff Thorne, and took custody of the board joining template and the scenery template. These allow lining up modules to Cottesmore standards, and will be a great help in building the connector boards.

 Slindon Vale photo's courtesy of Chris Davies
Cottesmore templates courtesy of Laurence Murray Worton Court Blog.

The Green has its first outing!

Southbourne Men's Shed had an open day and Macmillan coffee morning today, and Lansdowne Green was there! I tried all afternoon yesterday to get it running, but sadly, as well as the mains unit not playing ball, the points on one board would only move in one direction, and the power to the track was also not 100%.so it was decided, rather than having a poorly functioning layout on show, we would simply set it up as a static "work in progress"

 Rather than mess around with the legs, which I need to add to for the second half of the baseboard, I set up on a couple of tables. I intend to make a back scene and wings, as per Slindon Vale (Second layout down on this link), which will, I hope,improve the overall effect.
The layout, and the add on board, were received with much interest, and may people commented on the quality of the modelling on display! Although there were fewer visitors than we might have hoped for, the coffee morning raised over £100 for Macmillan!

So all in all the layout is easy toput up, take down and transport, and once the electrics are sorted I can start to see just what stock will run on the code 70 track!
Watch this space!

Lansdowne Green a new start!

Well it all started with an advert in the newsletter of the 7mm NGA, Narrow Lines. Roy, a member of some seniority, was looking for a new home for his module, Lansdowne Green, part of the Cottesmore Light Railway, an 0:16.5 layout from the 1970's. Not much of the original layout still exists, though one module is being extensively renovated, Worton Court, by some of the founders of the Cottesmore group. Following a series of phone calls, texts and emails it was agreed that I would go and collect the layout fromRoy and his long suffering wife Jenny on the 13th of October. What I had not fully grasped was WHERE I was to collect the layout from. I live in Bognor Regis, and Roy and Jenny have retired to Fort Augustus, on the southern tip of Loch Ness! A one way trip of 620 miles!
Having recovered from teh initial shock, it all became an adventure. I asked Doug, a fellow member of the South Downs Area group of the 7mm NGA, if he would like to join me and share the driving, to which he said yes! A 6am start from home found us passing Winchester before the rush hour began, though traffic did start to build by the time we passed Newbery. The weather was changeable and I was glad that I had the wiper blades replaced on my Peugeot Partner. An accident in the Birmingham area led to us leaving the motorway and having fun and games finding an open on ramp to get back on! I had planned on filling up at ASDA in Carlisle, but we missed the signs for the exit, and soon found ourselves in Scotland. We pushed on, and filled up at Sainsburys in Hamilton, my old home town (Come on the Accies!)
Once again, due to road works, rejoining the M74 was quite a palava, but we made it and then turned off via the M73, M80, M9 and A84 passing Callander and along the shores of the beautiful Loch Lubnaig. Continuing up past Bridge of Orchy we spotted a freight train, carrying Aluminium ore, which we HAD to photograph! (The Network Rail guys working at the station must have thought us mad, but we explained that at home we see almost no freight, so it was a novelty!)

Onward we passed Loch Tulla before heading into Glen Coe, which offered us an amazing sunset!

Then onward in the dark, and trust me it is VERY dark up there, through Ballachulish and Fort William before arriving at our hosts in Fort Augustus. 
Doug and I had a superb dinner at the Lock Inn (yes it is spelt correctly) before collapsing into our beds for a well earned nights sleep! In the morning Jenny, our wonderful host, insisted on making us breakfast, a fantastic bowl of steaming porridge for me, muesli for Doug! Fed and watered we then loaded our treasure into the car, and, after a little sight seeing in Fort Augustus,

we set off via the back road ( the B862) towards Inverness. There was so much to see and photograph we made slow progress, heading south via Boat of Garten, to see the Strathspey Railway

(not running THAT day),Dundee (for the Tay Bridges) and Edinburgh for the Forth Bridges. from here we drove to Washington to spend a night in the Campanile Hotel. A nice clean twin bed room with en suite which didn't break the bank!
Saturday saw us heading further south to make a stop at the National Railway Museum, York 

where we whiled away a good few hours! From there, onward to sunny Sussex, and home!