ESNG Open Day 2025

The dust has settled on this year’s Open Day/Show.  We can report a good number through the door, and it was especially good to have a fair number of local residents visit with their children – many below school age.  All the kids were very good, and fascinated by the tiny moving trains.

Work started on the Wednesday afternoon.  The church was not being used for the rest of the week, so we set up the N-mod layout, and used it for the club night.  We had 7 members attend and help with the work (and a special mention to son Michael, who helped me stack a lot of heavy chairs.)

Saturday was hard work.  We were down a couple of members, one with covid, and the other with a gammy leg.  Special mention to Brian, who had demolished an aluminium ladder, whilst standing on it, and despite bruises lasted the day and took the video.

Moving on to my pictures.  Chris kept the N-mod moving….

Opposite him, Martin ran his Dav-Tree. Still a little plywood to cover, but the scenery is coming together well.

Sean was running Forrestone, and showing off his new Revolution 66.  Mr Bean is still driving his Mini across the bridge….

Beginners corner.  Sean’s son Lucas was running his layout in a box, Oakley Lane, and my son Michael ran Windermere.  Both very much their own work, with some advice from dad!

Neil was showing Rhine Rails.  This layout has some history.  I remembering coming to our show in the Methodist church many years ago.  The builder died a couple of years ago, and the family offered us the layout.  Neil took it on, and it’s back for another show with ESNG.

 

I brought along my lockdown layout ‘Kuritu II’ as a diorama, as I was too busy trotting around to do any running.

Our second modular system was the N-Club International double track layout.  Richard was meant to bring some modules, but found he had double-booked himself.  So I was shocked to find that I could make a respectable layout with my modules – bar one, Allan’s temporary Toblerone bridge! 

Essential support services.  Lily and Ian did their usual fine job managing the coffee and cake, whilst Derek and the club shop, and Neil’s emporium, seem to have sold a fair amount.

Derek also showed a few of the ‘Johannes’ mini-modules, designed on a length of Kato track as an entry to the hobby for young people.

Everyone was very good helping putting the church and hall back together.  The day, of course, finished with 16 of us retiring for an excellent curry and we well-earned beer.  We had a little while to wait for the curry house to open, so Sean captured the “ESNG Care Home”….

A good day!  Very hard work, and for several days beforehand, but worth the effort.  Next year?  Who knows.  I seem to have failed in my attempt to resign as exhibition manager.

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Bexhill MRC show 2025

Finally, August 9th and it must be Bexhill!

Canute Road Quay (OO).  A favourite little shunting layout, that captures the SR dockside.

Queen Charlotte’s Dock (O) gets better every time I see it.  Rapid progress!!

More docks with Richborough Port (N).

More shunting at Gas Street Yard (O).

And a few other pictures….

I’ve postponed the ESNG report till the dust settles after the show!

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Shoeburyness MRC show 2025

Back to 5 August and a visit to the Thames Estuary….  Bit of a photo-dump with this busy week leading up to the show!

Pennard Road (O).

Daisy Lane TMD (OO).

St Seeb (OO).

King Street, Blackburn (OO).

Pitzalbahn (HOe).

The Blitz (OO).

And a selection of other photos – where I couldn’t work out the layout!

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Next Saturday! ESNG Open Day 2025

After a years break, were back with the friendly ESNG open day. Our open day this year will feature both modular systems the club uses – the UK 4-Track n-Mod and the European 2-Track N club International system. We’ll also have a number of other layouts from club members. There will also be some new and pre-loved items for sale and the usual real coffee and cake.

The hall is our usual meeting place and is walking distance from Earlswood station, a little further from Redhill, and on a bus route. There is parking at the church and in the local streets.

Layouts

  • N-Mod Modular (22’x6′) UK Trains
  • N-Club Modular (22’x14′) Continental
  • Dav-Tree (16’x3′) UK (Contemporary)
  • Oakley Lane (4’x1′) UK Northern Trains
  • Forrestone (5’x1′) UK Southern (Contemporary)
  • Windermere (4’x2′) N-Mod Module
  • Kuritu II (3’x2′) Japanese Trams
  • Stocktondorf (10’x4′) German (Contemporary)

Trade

  • ESNG shop
  • Neil’s Emporium

I hope that a few local readers will get to the show….

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Silver Fox MRC show 2025 #2

A second look at this rather good show.  We’ll start today with Gilly North’s loco scrapyard.  I still thing this, her first layout, is her best.  I understand that she went round the club asking, “Have you got any old, dead locomotives?”  This is the result!

City Basin Goods (N) is an old friend, but still one of the best.

Lovely GWR broad gauge in the Parlour Railway.

Leigh St George (N) has stretched since it was at N Gauge Southeast!

Giffard Lane (OO) was very well presented…

Real TT120 – US style – Sorrento Park.

A few random photos that caught my eye!

A little OO9 with Heys Quay and Tidley.

We end with ‘O’ gauge dinosaurs, with Jurassic Halt.  That’s one big brontosaurus (or is it a diplodocus?)

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Silver Fox MRC show 2025 #1

I’ll try and catch up with the exhibition photos Allan has sent me.  We’ll go in reverse order, so start with the Silver Fox show – probably over two posts.  We’ll start with Shau Kei Wan (Hong Kong) tram terminal (OO).  Definitely comes first, as I’ve been there, done that a good number of times over the years.  Needs hundreds more little people, though.  I’ve never seen the place so empty!

Banbury (N) is an old favourite, and always worth a look to see what’s in the station.

Nakato International (N) is a Japanese racetrack, but a lot of fun!  Difficult to take a shot of a train without it blurring past at a blistering speed….

Branch line modelling at East Anstey (N).

Minimum space O with Barway Sidings, and some interesting scenery.

Heavy industry at Morfrail (OO).

A visit to East Anglia; Kimbolton (OO).

Sutton Bank TMD (OO).  Diesel depots can be a bit of a cliché, but this one is nicely done.

Probably Three Bridges (N)!  Love the sweeping curves through the layout.

And to finish for today, the ubiquitous Royal Albert Bridge!

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ESNG meeting – 24 August

Back for the Sunday meeting, and a whole eight members turned out for a little training.

Some modern Swiss (?) stock….

And some more European multiple units…..

A classic bit of the UK railway – a Deltic….

Brian has captured this parcels train just right.  Except perhaps that the GUVs should be more a shade of dirty brown rather than blue!

Some long US passenger trains from Simon….

And a rather shorter contribution from Brian…

The afternoon finished with the usual quality curry.  And once again, thanks to Brian for capturing the afternoon in glorious technicolour!

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On my workbench – N-club loops completed

I’ve been threatening to build some N-club end loops for several years.  Well, it’s finally happened!  We scrapped a puppet theatre at church, and it was made of nice 6mm ply, of sufficient size to cut the baseboard out in a single piece.  The board was constructed in my usual manner – screw the top to the loft floor to keep it flat, and build up the frame in-situ.  Some holes were added to the cross pieces to cut the weight of the thing.

And the final board…

With trackbed added.  N-club uses a 3mm thick track bed.  I use laser quality ply – expensive but accurate in thickness.  I wanted to use code 80 Peco Setrack for some of the loops, but N-club uses code 55.  The difference in height of code 80 and code 55 is near enough 1mm – so the code 80 sections used 2mm ply track bed.  The board was primed, and the loops marked out.  Nothing like a home made trammel for this job.

Next, tracklaying.  And checking the end of the board against another module.

Nearly there….

Point operation is manual, and a set of isolating switches allow trains to be held in the loops.  I like making a control panel with a choc-block between the switches and the wider layout.  Easier to wire up and correct if something goes wrong.  Typical Bartlett wiring – I had some nasty short circuits before reversing two wires!

Test run – nearly lost that Warship!!

And next job – tidy up the workbench.

 

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ESNG meeting – 20 August

Must ease back into the blog, but the summer church recess has been filled with work for the ESNG open day (more later) and lots and lots of gardening, catching up on things.  I believe that 26 large bags of cuttings have gone to the tip.  At least the brambles produced some good fruit before their demise!

However, Wednesday was a railway day, as we started with a working party.  A whole eight members turned up, including Richard and Brian.  The Derek’s investigated the wiring of the fiddle yard…..

Brian repaired some rolling stock, and Richard worked on his station module….

Others just sat and chatted and drank tea!

The Derek’s found the fiddle yard fault (eventually), having resoldered a few things, then found a broken connection in a plug. 

Work was followed by the usual chip supper.  Our local chippy was shut (probably Tommy’s annual holiday) so Allan tried the Salford’s one.  The portions of chips were GIGANTIC.  I ate some of mine and delivered the rest home for Maxine’s supper.  Allan took his home for a chip butty breakfast.

By the evening we had actually lost a couple of members, and no more came, so we ran a few trains and packed up early.

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ESNG meeting – 10 August

Slowing down my blogging for a week or two, though I do have photos from two exhibitions to post.  But on Sunday afternoon eight ESNG members turned out to run a few trains and talk a lot.  Dodgy looking lot…..

Richard, as usual, was first to run a train, a sleeping car express I reckon…

Brian’s 73’s were a bit hesitant running.  Not quite what they seem as one is a dummy.

Coal, ancient….

Modern…..

And somewhere in between….

Finally, Frank ran an intercontinental special!

We finished quite early and had time to try out the electrics of the fiddle yard again.  We left as puzzled as we were on Wednesday!

And more pictures, courtesy of Brian,,,,

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