Preparation Continues!

I have offered to show Innsdorf at the Stamford Model Railway Show this May 9th and 10th, organised by the Market Deeping Model Railway Club, and my offer has been accepted, so although the layout is fully operational at home, I now have a number of relatively minor tasks to complete to make it exhibitable. These are now well in hand and I still have four months left – although I know how fast time can pass, especially when I’ve been persuaded to blog abut progress …

Most importantly, I need to complete the fiddle yard. Track has been laid and various experiments have been carried out on dealing with the pantographs as they come off the overhead on entering the hidden sidings and glide back onto the overhead as they return to the visible part of the layout. The final system for the latter will be the subject of the next post. Today I am reporting that I have installed the cable and plug to connect the hidden sidings to the station, a copy of the plug on the mountain section of the layout installed in the railway room at home, and that work continues on painting the background. At the end of the station is a large hotel in traditional Swiss timber style and this has to be very flat indeed in order to fit in at home, so is simply a piece of card stuck to the backscene: very low relief! But it looks OK: do not study closely – well, you can’t study very closely in that location anyway, and there is plenty of other detail to take your attention. It should be fine.

Still to come are a low screen to the front of the fiddle yard, a little attention to the fiddle yard points, a curtain around the bottom of the layout, and brackets for mounting the control panel behind the layout (it is in front of it when installed at home). Then learning to load and unload the car!

Preparing to show the layout in public for the first time is a little scary. It will be the first time I have exhibited (other than club layouts) since 1981 and there are many aspects of this particular layout which are new to me. But it works OK at home, so I am (fairly) confident …

Like all model railways there will be continuing improvements after May, but then I should like to concentrate on building the mountain sections and the third station, a mountain village terminus. Unless I get invited to exhibit elsewhere, of course.

Finally, for now, if you are interested in following my “adventures” on the railways of Switzerland, and the UK and many other European countries, then do subscribe to my weblog www.mwtrips.co.uk and to my YouTube Channel @Marks_Rail_Adventures, where you’ll also find an archive of the videos shown here on innsdorf.com. See you there!