Happy New Year everyone, and it’s time for a quick look back and forward.  No new year resolutions, though, as they won’t last the month!

2024 was rather interrupted with my broken shoulder, that took out four months of modelling time.  I was pleased to upgrade my N-club airfield module, adding some new details, some drones to stand on the tarmac, and a demonstration by the perimeter fence.  All greatly improved the existing module.  I also made progress on my Minories layout, though I’m still not very happy with it.  Maybe a third incarnation will appear in 2025?  Cliché as it it, I realise that the fun of modelling is the journey as much as the end result.  It’s very pleasing to complete a project, but if you have to scrap something and start again, so be it.

My injury didn’t stop visits to ESNG club meetings, though I didn’t run many trains, just talked a lot.  I’ve also made the most of malingering for a few months, letting everyone else do the lifting and setting up the layout.  I’m back to helping again, though lifting heavy items will still have to be avoided for a month of two more.

As a club, we have met regularly, and though numbers have often been low, we have only failed to set up a layout and run trains on a couple of occasions.  We’ve seen a wide range of models on the tracks, especially when we had an absolute rash of Revolution 59’s in action when the model was released.  (I’ve only seen one ‘Caroline’ in action, though.)  Meetings are also very social, and a number of us have visited exhibitions together.

Despite failing to have our own exhibition, we did take a few modules to TINGS to join in with the German NCI layout.  I was disappointed to miss this with my shoulder, but sent the modules that behaved themselves.  We did, of course, go to Stuttgart and contributed about 32′ of mixed N-club and N-mod modules.  These ran pretty well for the four days, with few derailments.  And the ESNG members who attended had the usual sociable time.

In 2025, what lies in store?  Having got my modelling arm back in action building three aircraft – the Whirlwind that appeared a few posts back, and a Chipmunk and Walrus to come – I need to get back to railways.

At home I really need to get back to my Minories, and I have another small layout project in the planning stage.  And there are a lot of little kits to make.

At ESNG, we need to start another club module – perhaps another N-mod/N-club junction – to work on on Wednesday afternoons.  We had a lot of fun building the fiddleyard together, so a new project would be good.

Of course, there’s always the thought of a club open day or exhibition.  I failed to organise it last year, and that actually worked out well as the show date was just after breaking my shoulder.  But we really ought to do something this year.

I’ll look back at the end of the year and see how much of the above gets done.  Some of it, no doubt.  But the only important thing, really, will be for it to be a lot of fun, making things and running trains with friends.  Hope you all have a good 2025, too.