our new Z layout 'Shasta' debuts at Millom 2012 model Railway Show

[kevsmiththai]

Emerging blinking into the light 'Shasta' our new Espee layout made its public debut at last weekends Millom Model Railway show. Held at the Palladium theatre in the quiet Cumbrian coastal town the show is small but high quality.

'Shasta' had only been out once before when it appeared at ZEDEX 2011 in 'bare boards' form and that event was used to proof test the superelevated curves (Tony Waitzmans Challenger was also given a chance to stretch its legs)

 

Now as some of you are aware a recent promotion at work has resulted me being in charge of Direct Rail Service's Sellafield engineering facility and this combined with an urgent need to scan in a large portion of my colour transparencies from the 80's and 90's has meant that I have done virtually no modelling for over 6 months with the exception of taking 'Cuyahoga' and 'Midsomer Mardy' out to shows. As the deadline for Millom approached I had to pull out all the stops to get the layout in some form of presentable condition.

 

The scenery was added fairly quickly but the 200 Architrees I had in stock just disappeared into the layout and I reckon I need at least another couple of hundred to fill it out

 

 

An overall view of the layout shows the basic outline, The change of the colour of the front fascia shows where the Z-Bend track interface is. I hope to generate some support for the Z-bend track module system in the U.K as it has been hugely succsessful in the United States

 

 

 

Obviously there is still a lot to do, The lighting canopy and fascia for a start. The big empty green area at the front is going to be Dunsmuir depot in time and the back corner of the 'balloon' module will be Shasta Springs. The yard at the back, in a departure for me, will be scenicked as 'Dunsmuir yard' to allow viewing from both sides. I'm not sure how much I'll get done before Zedex 2012 on 14th of October but I'll keep you posted

 

Perhaps the most pleasing aspect of the weekend was the running of the layout. The AZL SD70s GP7s and MTL GP35s worked flawlessly and we ended up running trains 11 foot long on Sunday afternoon at nice slow scale speeds. The only things that misbehaved were the 5 unit spine cars that at every other show run perfectly and some of the Military train.

 

link to youtube video is here at

 

cheers

KEV

[Bernard]

I really like the winding curves of the layout. What brand of flex track are you using?

[kevsmiththai]

Peco Streamline with Marklin points in the yard. The Dunsmuir depot will have all handmade points using Fastrack templates and I'll post some pictures as that bit of the project develops

 

The tight curves on the 'Shasta Springs' board are superelevated using plasticard shims and certainly look the part when the trains are rolling over.

 

link to the track laying video is here at

 

KEV