With Brettell Road’s final show of the year about a month away at Stafford, one of the things on the layout that I really wanted to revisit was the signal wires (Among the usual pre show maintenance)

The old signal wires had become a bit battered and so was some of the point rodding.  For some reason the ezline i used had turned quite a bright green. I had originally used brown. I don’t know why this happened but I think it’s something to do with the weathering of the track because the same ezline used in other places hasn’t changed colour.  Also some of the wire mounts had become broken.

Replacing the wires can best be described as a bit of a fiddle.  The new wires are 14/0 fly tying thread in silver which I felt better matched the real thing.  I’m not sure if I need to tone it down a little yet or not.

I am fully aware that 95% of visitors to any show probably won’t even notice but the 5% that are left are usually into their signals and signalling so they tend to be a little overly observant about this sort of stuff.

Also a break from the essential but at the same time mind numbingly boring pre-show tasks I took a couple of videos.

Eastern region milk train.  This won’t actually run on Brettell Road.

This is a bit more representative. A train of condemned wagons is brought in to be whisked away for the Round Oak furnaces