Scalefour Crewe

The show in Crewe was an excellent experience. Very friendly and Tredethy Wharf received many compliments, it even gained one lady (with no connection to myself) voting it 'Best in Show'.

That said I've taken the decision to pack the layout away for a couple of years and concentrate on my Scalefour Jubilee Challenge layout,  Rospeath Lane. This is for a number of reasons;

• Time: September 2026 will soon be here and due to getting Tredethy Wharf ready for Crewe I've lost about 5 days when I should have been working on Rospeath Lane.
• Rusting Track: I need to solve the issue with the steel rail rusting on Tredethy Wharf. This winter I plan to install a dehumidifier along with some background heat in the log cabin. Next year I'll take a look at the track and if it is still showing signs of rust I'll have to make one of two decisions. To either scrape the layout and salvage what I can or replace the track with Hi-Nickle silver.

Depending on the above decision;

• Scenery: On seeing a few photos taken at Crewe I'm starting to feel that some of the trees look a little naff and other parts of the layout are starting to look tired. I know I could now construct better trees and possible better scenery.
• Backscreen: The back screen was a hasty replacement for the previous blank white background. It has always been my intention to add some subtle detail to the background but never plucked up the courage.
• Cassettes: These have always been a problem. Some being very difficult to use. I'm going to   build a different style of cassette for Rospeath Lane and if they work better than Tredethy Wharf's will scrape the cuurent ones and change to the new style.
• Locomotives: Before Tredethy Wharf's next outing I would at least need to complete the Beattie Well Tank. This has been on hold while I make a decision on converting the layout from DC to DCC. Rospeath Lane will be DCC which should help me to finally make that decision. I've also a GWR 13xx to build for the layout.
• Rolling stock: I have a Brake Van Special to complete along with building a few clay hoods to go behind a blue Class 08.

So, as they say, a layout is never completed, but I really do now need to focus all my hobby time on Rospeath Lane.

SolRail 2022

I'd been invited to show Tredethy Wharf at SolRail 2022, this is the Working Model Railway Exhibition held in November each year. After dragging the layout out of storage, our house is undergoing some major renovations so the layout was hiding behind stacks of furniture. I set it up in our living room, which had just had a new level floor laid but was still a building site. There were a few things that needed fixing especially one turnout that was not working. Eventually after a little tinkering it sprang into life. All rolling stock was checked and the the whole layout packed and ready to go.

The organising committee had agreed to a have mini Scalefour element as part of the show naming it as Scaleforum Cumberland. This was in one of the side rooms where there was tables laid out for three demonstrators plus room for three small layouts, Tredethy Wharf being one of them. Set up went well during the Friday evening prior to the show  and I managed to have a cheeky meander around the show. It looked like it was to be a exhibition with a good cross section of the hobby and I left with anticipation for the coming two days.

All ready for the next two days

Saturday morning, my trusted helper, Nick Cook, arrived early to find me setting up the rolling stock. All looked good until I tried that pesky turnout that I fixed the day before. Unfortunately it is the preferred turnout used for shunting the wharf sidings. This dramatically reduced our operating to just running trains through the layout. That is until I tested the turnout during the afternoon and it worked...So we did get some shunting of wagons on Saturday, but we were not as fortunate on the Sunday.

The main surprise for me was being awarded The Jim Harkness Memorial Shield. The shield is in memory of the Workington Transport Heritage Trust's Health and Safety Officer who died of cancer in 2009. It is presented to a layout or display which the judge from the organising committee feels is the most deserving.

The Jim Harkness Trophy being proudly displayed

Talk about being gobsmacked and a tad embarrassed but on reflection quite proud that someone within the hobby thought my little effort was deserving of the award.

Tredethy Wharf at Lincoln show 2017

Last weekend was an excellent experience on a number of fronts.

Firstly for the help I received from Gordon prior to the show and during. Also from a good friend, Nick, who travelled from near Ilkley just to play trains on the Saturday before nipping to Derby to visit his son. He enjoyed the show so much he called in on Sunday morning on his way home to offer help for a few hours. To both I offer my sincere thanks.

Secondly for the organisation of the show. From setting up on the Friday to leaving on the Sunday I cannot fault Alan and Nigel for their help and organisation (along with the friendly banter). May the show grow.

Thirdly my thanks to all the people who stopped to have a chat. I think this was the icing on the cake and what made the weekend a truly excellent experience. Not just because of the kind comments but because people took the time to stop, look and try to appreciate what I was trying to achieve with the layout. This is something that I have not done enough when visiting shows as a member of the public, I must change that in the future.

One couple kindly gave the two characters on the layout names, the Wharfinger is now Nancy, the farmer is Tom. One surname proposed by Nick is Trevorrow. So Nancy Trevorrow it is, just need to decide whether Tom is her husband or neighbour.

My only regret from the weekend was not being able to fully appreciate the other layouts at the show. Though Diesels in the Duchy was very close by I was able to sneak off a couple of times to take in this excellent layout.

A few pics of Tredethy Wharf taken over the weekend.

Overall view of Tredethy Wharf

A very busy Wharf

Wharf close up

Tom and Nancy

A less busy wharf towards the end of the show.

Show outcomes:
Apart from building up my own loco roster, Beattie Well tank is a must, other outcomes from the show are:
1) The layout requires more storage cassettes,
2) One point needs looking at as it stopped working,
3) A few wagons need looking at due to poor performance,

Other work required on the layout will include:
1)  The installation of auto-uncouplers and finally decide on type of couplings,
2) I'm not sure about the back screen. Might look at creating one the wraps around the corners and is continuous which will remove that join line,
3) I'd always had plans for a couple more trees and still think they are needed,
4) Tom requires a dog,
5) Some live stock are required at the right hand side of the layout, not many just enough to add a little cameo.

Item one on the "other work" list is because I became very aware that shunting wagons in the wharf meant standing in front of the public and blocking their view. Oh... and operating three link couplings while being watched gave me the willies, the result is often pulling a wagon off the track after ten attempts at coupling the darn thing :-).

So enough to get on with and keep me busy for a while.

Cleethorpes 2013

After all my pre-show nerves last weekend passed too quickly. Unfortunately I wasn't able to do justice to the whole show, only managing to get a quick half hour on Sunday afternoon to have a look around. There were some excellent layouts on show. I was especially impressed by Melton Mowbray North. It is a very large N gauge layout with superb buildings and scenic detail. It was a shame I couldn't spend more time appreciating the layout.

Melton Mowbray North

Melton Mowbray North

Melton Mowbray North

Another layout I really liked was Rowntrees Sidings. I'm not really a DEMU modeller (well not yet anyway) but can fully appreciate the skill at depicting the current scene that we are all still living in rather than one that we can only depict from photographs. The guys behind the layout were also a very friendly bunch.

Rowntrees Sidings

Rowntrees Sidings

Other layouts that I've seen before but still worth a mention are Barrowfleet (with its mix of 009 and 00),

Barrowfleet

along with Peakdale (a rather nice depiction of a mainline through the Peak District in N gauge).

Peakdale

In the same room as Tredethy Wharf was Gordon's P4 Fish Dock Road, which attracted a lot of local interest.

Fish Dock Road

Along with the layouts, there was a demonstration stand where a lady making trees was very helpful in answering my questions.

My apologies for not getting photos of the other layouts on show, but as I said, this was only a frustratingly quick half hour around the show. I probably missed some worth a mention and certainly did not spend enough time appreciating what I did catch glimpses of.

Overall an excellent weekend. Tredethy Wharf performed reasonably well for its first outing, though I've come away with a 'to do list'.

Tredethy Wharf

Just a final indulgence, and as a thank you to Clive for loaning a substantial amount of stock, above is a view of his little Hunslet (which ran as sweet as a nut all weekend) about to enter the woods (stage left). Also, to all who took the time to drop by and take a look at Tredethy Wharf, and pass comments, thank you.

Pre-show nerves

Well... my first exhibition this weekend and I think I'm all set up for the show at Cleethorpes: http://www.cleethorpesmodelrailway.co.uk/events.htm The curtain has been made by my very understanding wife and I think it is the finishing touch to the presentation. I'm very apprehensive as to how my little offering will be received, as I feel it is not much of a layout with a lot to do scenically and also building appropriate rolling stock.

All set-up and ready for tomorrow

Our area group have three offerings on show:Tredethy Wharf; Fish Dock Road; and the very early stages of Swan Yard. Other layouts at the show include four N gauge (one being a German/Swiss layout); one OO; one OO/oo-9 gauge; one O gauge; plus an EM gauge. So a good spread of gauges and interests ...

 Stage left is one area that is beginning to look how I have visualised it.

If anyone following this blog is able to make it to the show please make yourselves known as it would be good to have a chat. Hope to see you there.