Wow, tomorrow is Dec 1st, that’s hard to imagine! The temperatures definitely been dropping, so don’t forget, if you’re laying track to leave some expansion gaps!
Warley 2023
Warley has become a special date in our calendar here. It’s a boys and girls weekend. This year, ‘amumandherdaughter’ booked a hotel in Birmingham City centre and me and the lad booked one at the NEC – it’s not a cheap weekend! Last year we stayed at the Moxy, directly outside the NEC doors but this year we were in the next one over at the Hilton. A few advantages of the Hilton is that the parking (still £14 per 24hrs!) for it is a lot closer, for the Moxy you have to walk around the lake and the Hilton has a pool – small world problems!
Anyhow, we were up early on Saturday and after a very hearty breakfast and a brief walk we were in “holding pen” in front of the doors into the hall – ready for the 915am advance ticket holder opening.
There’s always comments about the “Rucksack brigade” etc but honestly, if you’re at an event like this what other form of carrying device would you use? Side note, when we walked out on Sunday, people were coming out of the adjacent “Good Food show” and were pushing those festival style 4 wheel trolleys! People definitely need to be more mindful of swinging the bag round though and forgetting you have a bag on your back – just ask the lad!
We headed straight to our friend Mark, who owns https://thewagonyard.co.uk/ – we ‘borrow’ space to store our bags and purchases in exchange for the occasional ‘mind the stand’ for those essential comfort breaks. It means we can roam the venue, bag free plus the lad always has a safe space if I want to go and natter.
We really enjoyed some of the more non traditional layouts – not built on a rectangular board. The most memorable was the Z gauge layout built inside a coffee table, the stunning picture frame layout – that’s a layout not a picture and the little Exe holt.
We chatted to our friends on the DCC Train Automation stand, our layout is all going to be controlled by iTrain so it’s always good to see what’s on the horizon – their two sided 009 layout was a delight!
We were quite interested in the “Coming Soon” Digitial MTB point motors. We had avoided MTB motors on our layout as each board would need it’s own control board and if you’re not using all the ports the “cost per point” is quite high – which is why we’ve so far opted for the Cobalt iP Digital motors. The MTB point motors will be available in the same various switch options as their analog counter parts – and fingers crossed will come in cheaper than a Cobalt – they’re also near silent! It’s going to be great to have some more options here as there really aren’t many other ‘out of the box’ digital motor options.
It’s not going to be everyones cup of tea I’ll admit that, but right on the back wall was a 24ft x 20ft PlayMobil layout that is usually in the owners loft! It was fascinating chatting (on many occasions) to Brendan about it’s origins – the 8hr setup and the demise of PlayMobil trains that ended when the EU rules meant that children’s toys couldn’t plug into mains electricity! There was always a good crowd around it – and may exclamations of “I had that one!”
Further ‘novelty’ (although I don’t the owners would see them like that) layouts that have been on the circuit now for a while were Mannin Middle and a layout brave enough to have real water!
and 1st prize definitely went to Revolution models for their ‘behind the urinals’ advertising in the toilets!
We gave ourselves a short lie in after unceremoniously being woken at midnight by the fire alarm going off in the hotel, dumped our bags in the car and headed over to venue – much quieter at 10am!!
Final thoughts – like I said at the beginning, this is a boys weekend away. Trains just add to it. Did we enjoy the show? Absolutely, even after being there for 2 days there are always still layouts that we discover just as we’re leaving on a Sunday! We love chatting to exhibitors, traders and just the general buzz.
Despite being an almost nearly identical floor plan to previous years it didn’t feel so choked as previous years, so that was definitely a bonus!
So what did we purchase? Here’s the haul –
- Graham Farrish Network Rail coaches (Brake Second Open and Tourist Second open) – Kernows (Ironic as I could have just visited the shop here in Guildford)
- JNA Falcon – Hereford Models
- Points – KMS
- Bus Bar connectors – DMG Electronics
- ESU Decoder Tester – DCC Train Automation
…and that’s Warley 2023 done.
Footnote: I’m pretty certain that in previous years they’ve had the dates for the next years show but I’ve not seen anything – hopefully it’s just a case of letting the dust settle before starting all over again!
Layout update
At the end of last month we reported that Board1 was ‘track complete’ and we were moving onto Board2.
There’s a problem with that in that, despite roughly knowing the plan, I hadn’t yet nailed it down in AnyRail, preferring a more “Just In Time” approach. I had the rails coming in from Board1 in place, so first priority was to get that sorted. The previous estimate of 13 point motors on Board2 is now up to 17! It’s going to be an expensive board!
and here’s what that looks like
so we are making progress – being on 3 900×600 boards, I have board2 presently located directly behind my desk in my office so when I need to take a moment I can spin round, lay a piece of track and then get back to work.
In the N Gauge Facebook group a member posted a great video of a perfect engine shed door opening – it was always something we wanted on the layout – so we got in touch to find out more. It’s a vertical opening door and he used a servo, converted to a rack and pinion mechanism to push the door vertically. It was a thin material so he then curled it back over the lines. In our case, the EDU building has a lot of space above the shed doors so we can push the doors vertically – so we’re in the early stages of figuring that out in CAD.
Any how, that’s it for what we got up to in November! We hope Santa is good to you!
Merry Christmas, happy modelling!
