Author

Tom Slade

Date

26th April 2018

Reading Time

2 minutes

In the months since our last update much has been done to the layout and the common fiddleyard shared with Putnam (H0) with the main goal of taking Ingatestone (00) to the London Festival of Railway Modelling in March 2018 at Ally Pally. We intended to show the full layout, under construction but with roundie-roundie working of trains.

Our first time out of Keen House was always going to be a milestone and a learning experience for the team. We all pulled together and everything fitted and plugged in OK. The fiddleyard, which is now computer controlled,  worked well too. We had had little time to practice operating the layout, and during the show we discovered that an element of roleplay was good. With one team member as signalperson and two as drivers, things worked well and operation was fun.

There was much interest and positive feedback from our audience. Even though we are not a complete and finished  layout, visitors lined the crowd barrier, were interested in the progress and found the trains we were running interesting too. The brass overhead line equipment proved very eye-catching and impressive in its shiny unpainted condition.

A significant milestone in Ingatestone’s progress has been passed, and that now leads us on to much more work! Over the next two years we will be building the scenic infill; outriders that finish the cutting off are yet to be built. The signals need to be installed and synchronised with the level crossing, which needs a reliable mechanism made. There is a gallows-style signal gantry to be built and station lights to be installed as well as the sounds and action figures … it’s a long to-do list.

I am looking forward to meeting more of our new members, whether they have a interest in 00 or not. As we say at The MRC, the making and painting of things has no scale. It’s all trains and Ingatestone is a club project that has had contributions from many in the club. We will continue to meet on Mondays as our working day and myself and other team members are often in on Thursday evenings too.