A popular layout back on YMRC

The weather forecast for Saturday is a perfectly respectable 23C with some sun after morning rain.  Should be a good day to run trains.  So far I'm aware of about six people coming to share the afternoon.

My neighbours, who are Dutch, spent Christmas in Holland and returned with a small gift for me.  A pack of Noch "Wanderers" (or backpackers if you prefer) who have now joined the previous "Hikers" at points along the coastal path.  A newly-arrived couple rest and take in the views at Penhayle Head with one of the previous pack on the cliff steps in the background.





And with some good early morning light over Wheal Julia what better place to be to start the week?  ;-)

I have uploaded a large number of photos from today.  Ten visitors enjoyed a most convivial afternoon in a very comfortably sunny 18C which while unseasonably cold for high summer made for perfect conditions in the railway "room".

Some were first-time visitors and ages ranged from 5 upwards.  One of my teenage neighbours enjoyed his first ever model railway operating session with a couple of hours at the panel.  By the end he had begun to master the array of fifty-four levers which control the points and relate them to the signalbox-style track plan and was routing trains and working out which to stop and start where.  

With my fiddle yard in full use there were ten trains available for service and a couple more short ones which made a few trips but were otherwise on display in sidings.  Ponsangwyn Yard saw some clay trains and held a pool of reserve locos which made an interesting display in themselves.

No theme was set - I offered trains representing the mid-Sixties through to the mid-Nineties.

The full gallery is here: Penhayle Friends Day January 2015 - gwiwer

I'll just add a few sample views below.

Nice sample pics mate but i cant get into the main one you gave for the other,s. Needs a password to get in?


Phill

Try now Phill.

I made some security changes to the host site which seem to have been applied across all my galleries not just the one I intended.  I've hopefully undone them on the link posted.

I have saved the link if thats ok, as its such a lovely layout i like to browse at leisure. So much to take in, so i shall be looking them over later tonight.


Phill

This layout is simply superb. I shall look at this thread every time I get the silly idea that I may be getting even half competent at N gauge modelling. It really brings me down to earth and shows me I really belong in a beginners forum for a few more years yet. I found the thread via the weathered Class 22s in a weathering thread - I even liked them despite not being a fan of some other folks attempts.

I have most of the same locos too so it really strikes a chord with me.

Thank you so much for your kind comments.

When you browse this topic do please bear in mind that this is the first layout I have ever built and to date the only one in a state of operational completeness.  

99% of it is my own single-handed self-taught work as I have no affiliation to any club with it own layout and have had no sort of coaching and training in techniques.  I did no more than read a couple of quite basic books and ploughed into the build headlong.

What you see is the result of my own efforts, not all successful, modified and adapted by membership of this and other forums and through developing friendships with other local modellers largely as a result of those memberships.

We all start somewhere.  This is as much a beginners forum as it is for the seasoned expert.  We can all share tips, thoughts and questions among ourselves on a level playing field knowing there is no judgement and no stupid question - except perhaps the one you never asked.  

It was Chris Trerise of Kernow MRC who first suggested to me that I might benefit from membership of a forum he "just happen(ed) to be a member of" and who put my name forward for membership some years ago.  I bought a couple of items from him (and there have been a great many since!) and sent in a picture of the layout for his shop website where it is still displayed.  I have never looked back.

Penhayle Bay now brings delight, fascination and friendship to countless thousands of people around the world, and hopefully draws at least a few into the hobby in a bigger way, because of its internet presence.  It forms the basis of a book currently in preparation and I am regularly asked where the location is as it cannot be found on a map but seems so real.  Despite all that probably fewer than 100 people have ever actually seen it.  

From little acorns ……….

Some early morning sun over the church despite grey skies in the background and with a train emerging from the tunnel into the morning light.

A weathered class 08 shunter trundles sedately through Penhayle Bay in the sunlight.  

This summer has been a quiet one on Penhayle Bay. The weather hasn't been much like an Australian summer staying (by our standards) cool and damp through until the end of January then again from the beginning of March. We've only had a handful of days when the temperature has reached 30C. None has topped 35C when 40 or more is typical. It feels like winter again already.

The change of jobs has had some effect on my modelling time. I have mostly been on a late shift thus far getting home at around 9pm with little enthusiasm to go out into the cold and dark to run trains at that hour. There has also been a ban imposed on any train running past Sharon's work-room window while she is there studying. She is finding the challenges of full-time work combined with the later stages of writing her PhD thesis quite tough and doesn't need trains running around to distract her.

I am also building the portable N-gauge layout to bring over to the UK in April and which is taking precedence when I do have hobby time.

Having set aside all of Sunday afternoon to work on the layouts I then spent the time instead helping a neighbour with her travel planning. With three weeks until a four-nation trip to Europe she had nothing planned or booked and a head full of confusion. It's all sorted out now.

My Turbostar units are very seldom used so the appearance of the South West Trains class 170 set at Penhayle Bay was worthy of some attention. SWT had a small number of these units in this attractive livery for a very short time before swapping them for through-gangwayed class 158 sets. They were usually found working the now-defunct Reading - Brighton trains.





Equally modern and almost as seldom used is the class 221 "Voyager" unit. These still run on the cross-country routes and at the extreme can be found between Aberdeen and Penzance. Arriva took over the franchise from Virgin Trains some years ago and their units now wear a dark maroon-based livery. Virgin Trains still run some in their bright red scheme on the London Euston - Holyhead / Shrewsbury / Blackpool turns which require diesel traction and on some infill turns in those rosters between Euston and Preston or Carlisle.



Here the unit prepares to do battle with the steep climb away from Penhayle Bay as street and station lights create glints.

I'm not really in to modern trains (if that's the right phrase) Rick, but I do think the livery on the SWT 170s looks very good.

Lot better that the Anglian railways version anyway.


Ed

Ed - I do agree with you.

I'm not so much a fan of either the more modern rolling stock nor the liveries some operators use.

In particular I find the bland all-white-with-coloured-doors used increasingly widely to be a cheap cop-out, unsympathetic and hard to present cleanly unless it's newly-applied.

Abellio Greater Anglia uses this "livery" as do C2C, Thameslink, Great Northern and Gatwick Express soon will.  Southern (whose two-tone green with beige and white is one of the better present-day liveries) will follow suit, as far as I can gather from an ear to the ground, once the new Thameslink, Great Northern, Gatwick Express and Southern franchise is fully integrated.

I have seriously considered selling off the post 1990 "privatisation era" rolling stock on several occasions as it gets the least use by far on my layout and I am drifting steadily into a preference for the 1960s - 1970s period.  But I really can't bear to part with the magnificent freight models released through Kernow MRC which in my case is three whole trains of different bogie china-clay tankers so I still need the passenger stock to run alongside them.

Hi Rick.     Okay,.very impressive! You got me there. I will have to get my skates on " Rome was not built in a day" Kevin

Hi Rick     Very good, impressive, smart, what more can I say about your layout? Since I joined the forum, I have been "Fiddling about":oops: with the baseboard design,baking bread and doing household chores, being my own cook and bottle washer. Now I have just about built the baseboard yet to be Painted/Varnished or WHY and I even have a rough plan (But that started off as a country branch line now that seems to have changed back to a townscape, but it might "all change" again (Railway parlance for get off) perhaps doing the housework has made me indecisive :???: . But I must get my finger out before it is too late! Cheers            Kevin

Rome was indeed not built in a day and neither was Penhayle Bay.

Most of the construction took place over a four year period between 2006 - 2010 though the first trains ran in 2005 and as some bits change every year as maintenance takes place in a sense it has always been a work in progress.  

"Living" is one word that has been used to describe it.  

There are some plans for changes during this winter which will conceal more of the fiddle yard from normal view.  I seldom shunt and re-form trains there as I once thought I might so it really is only a holding area and doesn't need to be open to the Hand of God at all hours.  A demountable cover is what I have in mind - easy to remove in sections if necessary but acting as a practical cover and with a scenic element at other times.

Just to show that things are not altogether dormant at Penhayle Bay here's a green D867 "Zenith" on the china clays first of all rounding Church Curve at Prys Moor



Then passing Penhayle Bay's down distant signal just before plunging into the gloom of Nansglaw Tunnel



A long-awaited arrival now put to good use is the class 03 shunter.  While never very common in the south-west these did provide service on a number of yards and worked branch freights. They were also famously trialled on the very sharply-curved Wenford Bridge line when steam was finally withdrawn but were under-powered for the task.



Back in the days of green diesels many photographs were taken on monochrome film.  If that's how you prefer your 1960s shots try this version.

Nice to see the "Bay" getting use even in the depths of a Melbourne winter Rick. The black and white shot is a beauty.

Still managing to keep the layout dry?

Marty

Still 99% dry thanks Marty.  As good as it's ever been.

I'm also juggling hobby time with the new job roster.  Some weeks I'm on six or even seven short shifts, others I'm on four longer ones.  Railway hours take a little getting used to after ten years away from the industry.

Good to hear. Nice to be back on the railways despite the odd shifts?

The shots of the china clay trains are really good but my favourite is the 03 both in colour and black and white, I just like shunters.


Pete.