esngblog

A very hot day and a very busy afternoon – 10 members plus one visitor.  A good number of trains were run, and there was a lot of talking, too.  Dave brought along his canal basin, so we set up a 2×1 module layout (that gave Dave room to get inside the circuit to operate his module.

We tried the DCC track again.  Simon’s diesels ran fine, but we didn’t have much luck with anything else.  Possibly operator problems – Sean, come back, all is forgive – we need a technocrat!

Chris ran a Canadian goods, that ran faultlessly for most of the afternoon.

Dave’s canal basin stocked with an interesting selection of locomotives.

British pick-up goods and Channel Tunnel maintenance from Derek…

A Class 28 and Conflats and a new Dapol M7 from Nigel….

I had a Western parcels afternoon.  It was also one of those afternoons when it was difficult to keep everything on the track and coupled….

And good to see Brian for a brief visit – and for a resulting brief video, including sound from Nigel’s Class 28….

Another work party before the evening meeting on Wednesday.  Five of us met to work, and another two joined us to run trains in the evening.  We did have things to do on the fiddle yard and corners, but opted for a spring clean and modifications to the store cupboard shelving.

We managed to compress some of the ‘stuff’ stored in the cupboard into a few storage boxes, and a number of old tins and boxes went for recycling.  Having raised the shelf in the cupboard, the layout fit fairly neatly underneath, and the support equipment fits on the shelf above with room to spare.

The usual circuit, but this is easy to put together, and works well….

With the DCC system wired up, Simon successfully ran a diesel set.  However, we were unable to get his steam loco to perform.  It may have been due to two people trying to operate one loco.  Typical ESNG – DCC allows two locos to run on one track.  ESNG tries to have two people run one loco.  Obviously we still have more to learn!

Simon had bought a Wisconsin Central loco for Allan, to go with his EWS locos.  Same owner, same livery.  It didn’t want to move though….

Elsewhere, there was plenty of UK stock on view….

Back on Sunday, then the next Wednesday meeting is the ESNG AGM.  No doubt there will be the usual keen competition for places on the committee…. 

Allan reports….

Good morning Gents.

Hopefully Sean with the help from Jon will have the DCC up and working by the end of the day.  By 12.30 everything seem to be working OK.

And later…

Good afternoon, Gents.

We had a quick working morning today with Sean to sort out the DCC track.  Hopefully by the time most of you have read this. Every thing should be working……. I hope?????

It is indeed working….

I finally mailed the ESNG members…

And yes, it’s now all working. A couple of hiccups on the way, but all sorted and tested. Many thanks to Sean for spending the morning doing the DCC wiring, and to the Catering Manager for his occasional advice and getting the treasurer out of bed to borrow a cutting disc…. 

So we’ll have red track available for DCC running, if required, next meeting!

Mid-afternoon the weather broke and we had an hour’s thunder and lightning, plus a short but heavy shower of rain.  But a whole 10 members braved the heat and potential wet to run trains.

Trains on the back straight….

Plenty of continental stock on view….

And the occasional British interloper….

I ran in my new Sonic J50.  Very smooth, straight out of the box, and just a lovely model.  I’m tempted to get another one!  Only negative is that the chassis won’t be much use for other prototypes due to the long, high, tanks on the J50.  These are all filled with the chassis casting, making a model with a different shaped tank difficult.  It looked very much at home on a short train of coal wagons.

I also finally got to test my Gatwick Express Class 73.  Bought from someone in Germany off N Gauge Forum, I got it sent to my Ruth in Berlin to save postage.  We met up twice and forgot all about it.  It was finally given to me last month, the day before her wedding!  It runs well, after all that.  I also ran two of the new NGS ferry wagons.  A little light, and could be more free-running, but lovely models.  I may buy two more….

Lucas joined in the British freight theme with this Q1 and another train of coal wagons.

It was good to have Brian with us again, and for the usual video…..

I’ll be taking blogging easy for the next few weeks, just adding a post when something comes to my attention.  Mind you, last time I said that, I found lots of things to write about….

Another pleasant evening, where seven members ran a few trains and talked a lot.  A second run out for the new club corners, and although there may be a few things to fettle, they seem to be working well.

Simon’s long US passenger train ran perfectly until we commented on this, whereupon it immediately broke into two sections….

Neil was running a range of European stock….

And testing a Stobart ’92’…

And Ian’s Stanier Pacific…

Back on Sunday afternoon for another running session.

All ready for our next project….