esngblog

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….

No running or photos from the Sunday meeting.  I was on home duty looking after the better half, but slipped out for a bit to see what was going on.  Just the three people there and no trains running – so we sat down over tea and coffee and had a good old chat.  I left them still at it!  Even worse, this is the second failed meeting of the East Surrey Curry Club in a row…..

I do have some pictures of the Aylesbury show from Simon.

Took the train to Aylesbury this morning bright and early.  Good high quality exhibition, if a little small.  

A good 2mm fine scale showing.

Loved Kyle of Lochalsh – small but perfectly formed.

Modbury

And here’s a suggestion for our next show?

Novel way of dealing with the little fingers problem – moats.

Some details for your layout.  A Southern Electric sign, existing into BR days, and Victoria platform end in the 1950’s.

And finally, Blackfriars station, on the way home from Ruth’s wedding.  This must be one of the best views from a station platform?

Seven members present today, most of whom were there for the afternoon work party and fish and chips.  It was mainly a testing afternoon.  We set up a large circuit to try out Mr Atfield’s new club corners and a resuscitated dash board.

All worked well, though there’s a bit of ply on one board that may need a bit of fettling.  Back to the workshop now for ballast and perhaps a little scenery.

Elsewhere, we worked out that we’ll need to replace a point in the fiddle yard, as the tie bar is damaged.  And perhaps add more droppers to the boards as one or two sections had a large voltage drop.  Another afternoon’s work may well be needed!

However, the Chairman managed to fix railings to his N-club ‘Temporary Bridge.”  You wouldn’t catch me crossing it in a train, though!

It was mainly an American running afternoon and night.  Funny how that happens sometimes, though it’s rare to have a USA session.  Chris tested his Metroliner EMU.

Simon had a good range of steam pulling fruit express reefers, plus a diesel lash up…

And I got my full D&H passenger train out again, that ran impeccably…

A pleasant and relaxed session (except when the two Derek’s were trying to repair the fiddle yard point!)