July’s PlayDay was a successful afternoon.  We had 10 punters in attendance, including a pleasant surprise in Sean.  Sean had been able to leave work early from driving trains on Southern due to a convenient replacement bus service.  (What, don’t they get you to drive the buses as well?)  The only negative was Mr Atfield’s bad back, that slowed down the building work that we got done.

Construction was by committee, as we started track laying on a new N-mod end loop, to be used in Stuttgart this year, and any time we want an end to end layout at home.  Surprisingly, this worked very well, and there were no fist fights over track laying technique.  All good ideas were taken on board by the committee and firmly rejected.  Just like RailTrack, really.  But here’s the photographic evidence….

On the circuit, we put together an end-to-end circuit, with Derek’s ‘banjo’ at one end and Allan’s ‘Bowler’s End’ at the other.  This does reduce the number of trains running to two, but did also leave room in the middle for the working party.  A variety of trains were on view, including this interesting line of Class 73s…..

However, most of the afternoon was dedicated to Japanese Bullet trains, as Paul had brought a selection of his collection, and Graham had a new luminous yellow unit.  Unfortunately, not all units coped with the tight curves at both ends of the layout.  Surprisingly, it was the Kato units that didn’t like the bends, as Kato stock normally runs over anything.  There was also a minor issue with the units with very long ‘snouts’ catching the tunnel mouth on Derek’s banjo.  Still we had a few running successfully….

Phil’s just checking this one doesn’t get lost in the banjo….

We also had the pleasure of seeing the new Farish Southern N class 2-6-0 in action.  Lovely model, perhaps only spoilt by the large hexagonal heads to the coupling rod fixings.  I was so impressed that I gave in and went home and ordered one.  Now to wait for the Farish Birdcage coaches or the Dapol Maunsells in BR green to pull behind it…..

And of course the meeting finished with an excellent curry!