Forth and Clyde Area Group at the Perth Model Railway Show 2024

This weekend, the Forth and Clyde Area Group unveiled Mearns Shed to the general public at the Perth Model Railway Exhibition.

A lot of work has gone into the layout in the last few months - much of which has been covered in this blog, but the weekend show, held in the Fair City, was the first time many of the components had come together.

This, atmospheric, shot, shamelessly stolen from Graham, shows a mix of locos on the shed.

An ex-North British C15 sits over an Ash pit, an ex-Caledonian Jumbo waits for the instructions to proceed to the coaling road for a top up, whilst an ex-LMS Black 5 takes on water. 

Hinted in the foreground, a Sulzer Type 2, sits, engine off, wondering what all the fuss is about. Whilst in the very foreground a short engineering train of a Shark Brake Van, four Grampus wagons, a Warwell and an ex-LMS 16t unfitted Brake van rest from overnight duties. 

Most of the locomotives and stock are from the collection of Alisdair - if you search back far enough in the blog, you'll find posts of the construction of all three Steam Locos!

The Coaling stage, built by Alisdair, is based on a Highland Railway example found in Aviemore. The coal bins seen on the stage were used to move coal from the wagons in the siding to the locomotive that sat under the shelter if the roof.

The Shed is based on Abroath, with a similar design seen in Forfar, is a 3D print with etched detailing, designed in Fusion 3D and printed by Graham. The etched detailing is from artwork by Jim. The shed was assembled and painted by Martin, who was still working on it at midnight on Friday before the show. A further design iteration of the shed has been produced and will be assembled and painted in due course.

The grounded van is an Association Midland outside framed van, converted, assembled and painted by Richard.

The water tower is a plastikard construct by Jim, it is detailed with brick paper, the tank being an etch of Jim's design.

The water cranes are designed, 3D printed and painted by Alastair.

The bothy is a plastikard construction by Richard. This does have an open door and an LED to provide the illusion of a warm fire where the shed workers can take a well earned break, but sadly this wasn't wired in or functional this weekend.

The backscene was imagined and painted by Alistair - it gives a fine impression of a Scottish Town, with a mix of residential and industrial buildings backing onto this Shed.

There is lots still to do to finish the layout, but overall, a fantastic first outing.

Of course, whilst the main interest was naturally the Shed, and the moving locos, the Further North Road Show was on hand to extol the virtues of 2mm Modelling to the General public. Modelling demonstrations were ongoing throughout the weekend, and lots of people were given the Sermon according to Alisdair.

FCAG were not the only exhibitors of 2mm Finescale Modelling present at Perth this weekend. In fact, directly next to us were the Grampian Area Group, who had brought along the viaduct module from Dunallander.

This lovely shot, stollen from Graham because someone forgot to get their camera out, captures a mid-1960s scene in Central Scotland. An ex-LNER A4 on its final passenger duties on Glasgow-Aberdeen 3-hour expresses, a Black 5 on a loose coupled freight from Perth to Stirling and Oban - Glasgow trains on the branch towards Callander.

This is hopefully a taster of the whole layout, which may be at Perth in 2025. For more information, please see the Grampian Area Groups Blog.

Now with the excitement of the show out of the way, and a countdown to next year's event, the next meeting of FCAG will be on Saturday 13th July, at Almondell. Further information in the Association Newsletter.

 

June 2024 Forth and Clyde Area Group Meeting

The Edinburgh Society of Model Engineers premises, the Almondel Model Engineering Centre, were a hive of frantic activity this Saturday last, not just because of the (in)famous Taylor Swift Era's tour happening just ten miles down the road at Murrayfield, and an ESME open day on the Sunday.

With just 14 short days until it's debut at the Perth Model Railway Exhibition, the Forth and Clyde Area Group met to continue work on the layout and other projects in 2mm Scale(s).  Present were Alisdair, Alistair, Graham, Andy, James, Simon, Stuart, Nigel, Steve and Martin.

Martin, who was definately not late to the meeting because he'd left the layout on the dining room table and started driving to the meeting, (no definately not...), had been working on the scenics, and now, the slightly greener layout was re-united with the backscene.

There's still a lot of work to do - James took over, starting to add the LED strips that will form the integral lighting.  Alisdair and Andy worked meanwhile on the main board where the agressive scenic-ing of the layout had foulded one turnout, and another required some gentle persuasion, backed up with threats of violence and other unspeakable acts, to operate reliably...

Graham had brought along the latest print of the eponymous Mearns Shed.  This was dry-fitted and posed to check clearances with Alisdair's Black Five, which had some slight issues with fitting its cylinders through the exactly to scale doors Graham had made.  This time it fitted perfectly, with a whole quarter milimeter to spare on either side, requiring, we think, a "limited clearance" board or two to be fitted as part of the paint job.

Custody of the shed has passed to Martin for assembly and painting ready for the Perth Show.  Something he plans to tackle this weekend with as much airbrushing as possible given the available time...

Elsewhere in the room, and hiding from being handed jobs relating to Mearns Shed, other modelling was occuring.  Stuart had brought along his very impressive Mill Building.  He was working on roofing the extention he had previously been working on.

I'm not sure that the photos give the true scale of this building - the main building is easily a cubic foot, if not greater, and this extention - painstakingly recreated from period photographs, site visits to other mills in Lancashire and various books on the subject - adds at least another foot.  This will be the centrepiece of the layout, being both rail served and having trains running on a long viaduct behind it.  

Simon had brought along some goodies.  Firstly, he was using ESME's American Outline N Gauge layout to run an extrodinarily long train.  Simon has an interest in American outline modelling and occasionally brings along parts of his collection to run.  In the photo below Alistair watches the trains pass - he has volunteered and/or been voluntold to produce a backscene for parts of the ESME layout, and seing the train skim by in the environment seems to be inspirational...

Simon was also working away on some 2FS goodies in the form of six Fuel tankers, formerly of Shop 2 and now sadly out of print.  Simon is modelling Glenfinnan on the West Highland Line Extention which saw some fuel traffic for the various fishing boats and ferries that offer from the port of Mallaig (to this day, though fuel is now transported by road rather than rail).

Simon was finishing up the chassis' at the meeting and had started the next stage of drilling the whitemetal wagon ends to take the stanchions which support the tanks on the chassis.

Heeding the Glorious Leaders call for DCC locos to do some track testing on Mearns Shed, Martin had dutifully (finally) gotten round to fitting DCC chips to his diesel fleet the evening before the meeting.  Then when placed on his test track, all of them had failed to do, well, anything.  Martin had brought along his DCC Controller, a Gaugemaster Prodigy Express, and asked forlornly "help?"

Nigel very kindly answered this plea for help and spent most of the meeting working to fault find with the controller and locos.  Here Nigel is seen fixing the pickups on a set of Class 20 Bogies which were making poor contact thanks to the additional back-to-back space on 2FS wheels rather than N Gauge wheels.  Other issues included, but were not limited to - connecting the DCC handset to the controller by the wrong socket, an upside down DCC chip, and the worm gear not connecting to the top of the tower in a Class 26.

By the end of the meeting, Martin had a working DCC system, and two locos working well under DCC.  Another requiring some further dissassembly to try and understand why there is intermittent issues with the worm and gear train...

The next gathering of the Forth and Clyde Area Group will be the aforementioned Perth Model Railway Show, the weekend of 29th and 30th June at the Dewars Centre, Perth (Scotland).  FCAG will be flying the 2FS flag with both the Further North Roadshow and the public debut of Mearns Shed.  With plenty of other layouts, traders, societies and a dedicated Finescale Zone, it's certainly worth the Trip to visit us, and the Grampian Area Group on Stands 28 and 29, Hall 1.

Our next scheduled meeting is Satruday 13th July at Almondell.  Further details in the Association Newsletter.