Coventry out on the road!

Coventry 1839 is now up and running as an exhibition layout, well, sort of. Its first outing was at the Shrewsbury Festival of Model Railways in June and I’m pleased to say that despite a couple of small teething problems we still won ‘Best in Show’.

The points still require the installation of point motors after I gave up on operating them via wire-in-tube from the Scalefour Society lever frame. The little 90 degree cranks and connections just don’t seem to have enough chutzpah to do the job so I will be using the frame to operate Cobalt motors and hopefully things should work from there.

I am immensely grateful to Phil Taylor for wiring everything up in time for Shrewsbury, however, I let the side down a bit by not testing everything before the show. That said, it all worked fine and trains were at least running from one fiddle yard to the other with not a single derailment all day. A few stutters with a couple of pinch points through check rails that need easing back but overall I was very pleased with how things went.

Thankfully the little Bury 2-2-0 has enough clout to pull a reasonable passenger train although a little authentic wheelsman is evident. Interestingly, it seems to be down to careful driving as my good friend Michael Vanns demonstrated. Pull away to sharp and she’ll spin, nice and steady and she doesn’t, so a little practice seems in order. DCC helps enormously here, I’m not sure that operating on DC would be a good idea at all!

Still jobs to do including adding extra tracks to the fiddle yards, raising the whole layout by 6 inches, making more carriages and locos, and then the extension boards. Yes, plans to extend are not too far from my mind although space at home is very limited indeed so I might have to wait a bit (or throw away stuff I don’t need) before committing to that.

Coventry 1839 will be exhibited in 2027 to a wider audience but more of that anon….

Photo Above: Stephenson 0-4-0 with a down luggage.

Coventry with ‘Best in Show’ shield, June 2026. - No.7 pulls away with an up first.