kyle 2015 - exhibition post mortem and way forward...
Good afternoon,
A quick update on last weekend and decisions going forward.
Really enjoyed to exhibit at the Uckfield show last week, the first two day show for KoL...must admit I was knackered at work on Monday - might be better to take the Monday off in future rather than the Friday.
Overall it didn't perform too badly and it received some nice comments from peopleseemingly fascinated by the fiddle yard and back scene...and the compactness. Saturday it performed better than the Sunday and only one point in the show on Sunday morning where the turnout at the end of the layout stopped running, I had to flip the scenic section of the layout on its side One of the drawbacks of the layout being built for box files was that all the wiring is trapped between the layout and support structure - in the end we think it might have been some fibreglass fibres trapped between the turnout blades Thanks to Nigel A and fellow operator Andy H for helping in sorting that one due to my lack of electrical prowess!
Good to see Nigel and his rolling stock and as he suggested, the first kettle on Kyle - shame it didn't seem to see eye to eye with my Pictroller...which my Farish and Dapol blue boxes run nicely with. Good to also seem some fellow RMWebbers at the show too. Still one or two issues with DG's to resolve but I need to make a new jig and set them all to this - hope that irons that one out.
Also received 2 potential invites to shows whilst there so just waiting formal follow up of these. Someone arrived on Sunday morning to tell me he had seen the layout on the Uckfield news website so nice bit of coverage there.
I had previously decided that next year I would concentrate on rebuilding my CJM layout however after this weekend I was left with mixed feelings. At 4.4metres long it will be a bit of a beast and we don't really have space to accommodate that at present plus there were a lot of nice comments from the show about the size of the layout and the atmosphere that had been incorporated into a small space. Together with the support structure, legs, rolling stock and workbench it all takes quite a bit of space in our VW (clean diesel) Touran
So with this in mind, I have decided to resurrect my previous idea to build an extract of Thurso, which will use the existing fiddle yard (slightly modified) and will keep within the constraints of Kyle so be 132mm wide. The length may be longer pending mapping out of the track plan. This will use very similar stock to Kyle, namely class 26's and 37's and some freight.
Am quite excited about this and the idea is to try and improve upon my track building skills as well as make the break to DCC...a sound fitted class 37 will add an extra dimension, something that perhaps is lacking from Kyle.
I have started sketching so expect a new blog, some sketches and mock ups to appear soon. Whilst I would still love to redo CJM, I think the compactness and time available to me at present makes this a more realistic proposal. Whilst a separate line to Kyle it could even be added to form a double ended layout giving a '2 for 1' option for shows, which was what my original sketch of a few years back had hinted at.
Here's a few pictures from the show including some interlopers
In other news, Kyle will feature in Model Rail next month on sale 19 November 2015 and I must say Chris Nevard has taken some fab pictures...
Comments welcome as usual,
Pete
- 20
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