Hello world .....

.... meet the Isle of Avalon Tramway, my latest EM gauge microbe.

Scenes from an exhibition.

I wasn't sure quite what to expect from the Tywyn show having no prior knowledge of what else would be there. If I'm honest I thought that it might be a little bigger than it was, though the constraints of the venue were to a large extent overcome by a careful and varied selection of layouts. Here's a few of them.

Shell Island at Tywyn

Less than a week away, the Tywyn Model Railway Club's exhibition will be held in the Scout Hut, Neptune Road, Tywyn from 11:00 until 17:00. It's less than five minutes walk from both the Cambrian Coast and Talyllyn Wharf stations. For those unfamiliar with Tywyn Neptune road runs all the way from the seafront past Wharf station, cross the coast road and into the town where it joins with Main Street; the scout hut is on the Wharf station to Main Street stretch.

I'll be taking Shell Island on one of it's few journeys from my playroom, but as I'm such an incurious chap I've no idea what else will be there, though my 'informant' tells me that previous years shows have been well worth the effort of a visit.

The Return of Mojo

It's obviously been a good year for growing as the varied shades of green have spread over most of the pizza. Actually I've gone from happy with the scenery here to a spell of disenchantment with some of the stock I'm putting together for The Isle of Avalon Tramway. I've been doing all the right things, and I'm fairly happy with my workmanship it's just that the result is a bit, well, pants. In an effort to try and get my head in the right place with it all, I spent this afternoon sorting out the pizza's camper/mess van. It was in bits with all the glazing out as I'd removed it so I could waft over some Testors Dullcote, to knock back the high gloss finish of the van body. So concurrent with sticking the glazing back in (5 minute Araldite) I've been tinkering with the chassis to engineer a proper fix. The resulting solution is a plasticard base plate glued into the body, resting on the original road chassis mounting lugs. This base plate has captive nuts front and back which the Kato mechanism is bolted to, obviously there's also a suitably shaped and sized cut out to clear the motor. Overall I'm rather happy with this as I seem to have my modelling mojo back. Hurrah.

Every Cloud.

As the date for the Corris Model Railway Show draws ever closer (August bank holiday weekend if you want to plan ahead) I'm taking every possible opportunity to push the pizza towards acceptability if not completion. A terribly wet afternoon yesterday, meant fencing, undergrowth and a few trees appeared on the layout. I've also added chimney pots and ridge tiles to the cottage which is now ready to be bedded in, though this still remains undone.