Perth Post Mortem

Last weekends Perth Model Railway Show saw Coldblow Lane, SE14 on its first outing.

Despite being scenically incomplete, the layout was well received and behaved itself remarkably well.  As always there are somethings that need tweaked or changed, and the biggest offenders over the weekend where the 3rd Rail, uncoupling magnets and couplers.

Dealing with the latter first, the issues we had with some couplers was due to not having a standard setting for the trip pin, this will be relatively easy fix, ableit time consuming.

The magnets didnt pose too much of a problem, but need attention.  The main problem was finding the blooming things as they arent marked!  The magnets are two strips of 3mm by 2mm neodymium between the rails.  The first issue was some loco's stalled passing over them as the wheelsets came in contact of both ends of a strip and shorted the track circuit out.  Easily fixed at the exhibition by removing on of the magnets.

The next issue, which isnt really an issue as such, was that their locations weren't marked, a member of the public suggested that we use four strips of magnets which is something we'll try out along with adding markers to indicate their position.

On a couple of sections of the layout, the 3rd rail is sitting too high in relation to the running track, causing a couple of loco's and some rolling stock to ground, so this will need to come up and be relayed at a lower height.

Overall though, Coldblow Lane, SE14 performed well and we have received two provisional invites to shows next year, see out Exhibitions Diary page for more details, and see the layout's Gallery page for some photographs!

Thoughts have turned to adding an extension to the layout, on the left hand side as viewed from the front. This would be an industrial park giving more operational scope and providing extra employment for the Sentinel loco!  However in the meantime, we'll crack on with adding to the scenics, starting with the low relief buildings along the backscene, details of these will be published on the Coldblow Lane, SE14 Updates page. Our aim is to have these completed by the next outing at the Ayr show in September.

To all those who stopped by over the weekend, thank you for your time and comments.