RS Tower - Progress of an exhibition layout. | US Outline HO scale on the British exhibition scene…

New Years Day operating session & open house

Posted on December 2, 2009 by Martyn Read

The RS Tower team will be holding an open house & operating session on the 1st January 2010 in the basement of The Salvation Army hall, Friars Gate, Exeter, EX2 4AZ between 10am and 4.30pm.

The entrance to the venue is in Lucky Lane. There is some nearby street parking available (in meter bays) but plenty of nearby parking is available at the Cathedral & Quay car park, there is a step-free walking route from the top deck of the car park to the venue and blue badge holders can also park here free.

Our large RS Tower layout plus a modular branch line will be set up and running all day, showing off it’s large American trains.

There will be the opportunity to come and talk with the team about our approach to model railroading in general, modular model railroading, car card systems, digital control or other subjects, or to come and take part.

Entry is free but there will be a box available to make a donation to The Salvation Army

Please feel free to forward this to any person/group you think might be interested!

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Welcome to new visitors…

Posted on November 20, 2009 by Martyn Read

This blog should now be linked in to www.rmweb.co.uk and viewable from there – a great set of forums and well worth a look. I previously had a workbench thread on a previous incarnation (which is visible at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=24051 if you want to look back at the archives) but the new system should allow updates to link across from here to there.

So, hello there to all the RMWebbers!

Right, admin-ish stuff out of the way, proper content to follow. 🙂

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Tolworth pics

Posted on November 16, 2009 by Martyn Read

A few images from last weekends trip to Tolworth…

A CP SD40-2 rolls an intermodal down the street running trackage

Continue reading →

Filed under: Layout images/video, Shows | 2 Comments »

Tolworth show info:

Posted on October 23, 2009 by Martyn Read

Justa quick reminder time is whizzing by and it will soon be time for Tolworth show, which will take place on the 14th and 15th November – Tolworth is in the South West suburbs of London & easily reachable by public transport (bus links from Surbiton station) or by car from the nearby A3.

The show website is at: http://www.metropolitanrailway.co.uk/showtrain.htm and as you can see there looks to be a good spread of layouts and traders – there’s even some specialist US outline traders which is always nice.

Era and railroad-wise we’re majoring on Union Pacific and Soo line options circa 1995-1999 at this show, expect all the usual variety of stock and operations – a Union Pacific excursion may even bring big steam to the area during the course of the show.

We should have the car cards in use here as well so please come and ask if you have questions.

Don’t forget to keep checking our exhibitions page for more info on upcoming shows, we are now due to be back in London at the Alexandra Palace show in March and we’ll have more shows to add soon!

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Late show update!

Posted on August 18, 2009 by Martyn Read

We’re pleased to announce that we’ll be attending the Cranleigh Festival of Model Railways on the 5th September only – click on the link to open the Cranleigh Rotary club website with details of opening times and admission prices.

Poster for Cranleigh Festival of Model Railways 2009

The show is in Cranleigh village hall, Cranleigh is just south of Guildford – the show is in aid of the Chase Childrens Hospice.

If i’ve read their show plan correctly we’ll be set up in the Girl Guides HQ behind the village hall (no jokes please). 😉

We’ll be running our 60’s/70’s outline for this show, and Santa Fe, Rock Island and Soo Line power of the era should be dominant – come and say hi if you’re in the area!

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Show dates update…

Posted on June 12, 2009 by Martyn Read

We are pleased to announce that we will be attending Tolworth Showtrain 2009 exhibition, at Tolworth Leisure Centre, Fullers Way North, Tolworth, Surrey, KT6 7LQ on November 14th and 15th 2009.

For detailed show info keep checking their show website at: http://www.metropolitanrailway.co.uk/showtrain.htm

See you there! 🙂

PS – you can keep up to date of all future (and past) shows on our exhibtions page.

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RS Tower modules blog…

Posted on June 8, 2009 by Martyn Read

After some great feedback on our chosen method of modular railroading, both with RS Tower at Exeter and operating as a “standalone” switching layout at Gillingham, a separate sister blog for the RS Tower modules has been launched at http://rstowerfreemo.wordpress.com/

Neil Rogers will be handling updates on that side of things – expect some changes on both sites over the coming weeks as we try and make them complement each other more effectively!

It already carries some images & video from Gillingham, and some thoughts on future module design as well…

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After the Exe Show – thoughts…

Posted on June 2, 2009 by Martyn Read

Well the Exeter show has been and gone, the only “proper” exhibition outing in 2009 (we hope to have more for 2010 to tell you about soon!) – although we are considering doing another “open house” later in the year to keep our hand in – i’m interested in feedback on that, anyone want to come play trains for the weekend??

Here’s a quick vid to give an overview of the setup we used, for the first time we were able to have the Freemo-esque modules attached to form a decent length branch line at the show which was a nice way of adding a section of layout with a slower pace than the big mainline action.

Modules used were Dale Yard, Oakdale and two curves created and owned by Neil Rogers and Dale Creek created and owned by Liam Rogers.

Don’t forget that the modules on their own without the main RS Tower layout will be appearing at the Shaftesbury & Gillingham show in Gillingham (Dorset) this weekend.

Continue reading →

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Progress, Show Reminders & Videos…

Posted on May 22, 2009 by Martyn Read

Yes, another one of my horribly infrequent updates! The layout is up and running again – here’s a bit of proof…

That has allowed us to do a few bits more on scenery, the kinds of things that are hard to finish off when the layout is in 4′ chunks but are a relative breeze when you can work on the thing as a whole. Continue reading →

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Car cards and waybills

Posted on April 12, 2009 by Martyn Read

A while back in a thread on operation on RM-Web the use of car cards and waybills came up, and that kicked off a thought process about how best to use them on an exhibition layout. Talking to the guys in the group and whilst some of us were okay moving given cars to an industry and then routing them back using just a bit of knowledge and concentration, others of us would benefit from something a bit more formal, we also have at least one guest operator at Exeter this summer who makes a very enthusiastic switch crew but probably doesn’t know an airslide from an autorack…so here goes…

Continue reading →