Should be fun! 2ft narrow gauge AND a model railway show! And a big whoops – dates were wrong on the flyer…….
I’m almost able to start some modelling again. The loft is well tidied and rearranged, helped by investment in some more Really Useful Boxes. And here are a few pictures to stir the modelling juices.
Starting with an interesting one. Bournemouth, just before electrification, with a Class 73 electro-diesel paired with a driving trailer from 6PAN unit 3027. The early Maunsell EMUs were beautiful coaches. I was most disappointed to find that unit length, window details, and just about everything else was different from the Dapol Maunsell coaches. I had hoped to be able to do a simple cut-and-shut on them.
Some Southern Railway elegance at Salisbury….
Pre-grouping LSWR at Botley (1905) and Bournemouth….
More LSWR; Swaythling and Stockbridge (with an interesting MSWJR 4-4-4T hauling the train.)
And Grately. A T9 in its original form before superheating and the smokebox being extended, getting rid of the lovely shape of the smokebox door.
Finally, all this style contrasts with the concrete blockhouse of West Sutton in British Railway days! Nice Vauxhall Cresta, though, and it’s interesting to note how long into BR days the ‘Southern Railway’ name remained on the station. I’m sure that one can model the period 1930 to 1960 with little change to the railway infrastructure – most of the changes were to the world outside – the road vehicles and the fashions.
Progress continued with the new ESNG fiddle yard this afternoon. We’ve probably got the section switches sorted out, and Derek found some excellent toggle switches of indeterminate vintage (cost 6/- or so.) A pleasant afternoon, and we’d have got more done if we hadn’t talked so much….
The Swiss Railway Society AGM was at the Crewe Heritage Centre, and Ron sent me these photos.
And Waterloo in 1911. The old link to the SECR and London Bridge is on the left. You could, at least till recently, see the position of the other end of the link at Waterloo South Eastern. 
We didn’t get to run trains today, but had a thoroughly useful afternoon. Just the four members turned up initially, and seemed content to take a comfy chair and chat. Allan was hoping to make a few repairs to ERIC (the roundhouse). Then the first surprise of the afternoon when Phil turned up – first time we’d seen him since the pandemic started. Lovely to see him, though conversation was limited as he had lost his ear trumpet.
We then started thinking how to fit the new fiddle yard into the storage cupboard, and had a profitable rearrangement of things, and threw a few bits out. Derek has been able to get rid of the two new club corners from his lounge, and we will be able to use them on club nights. We still have to make a few changes to the shelving in the cupboard, but that will be for another day.
And the afternoon finished with the usual curry.
Elsewhere, Alpenbahn didn’t get to the ESNG show, but did get to the Swiss Railway Society AGM. Paul took these pictures, and says that it all ran reasonably well, with the odd gremlin!
Martin’s Dav-Tree did get to the show, in pristine plywood. Martin has since started to block in the scenery, though there’s a long way to go still.
With the exhibition over life is beginning to return to normal. It has taken 2 weeks for the layouts in the lounge to return to the loft. I’d made such a mess moving them out, that a little reordering was needed. So a lot of modelling time has been spent tidying things up – and it’s looking a little better, especially after buying some more Really Useful Boxes to stack things in.
Plus I’ve got out into the garden to face the usual battle against weeds and grass in the wrong place. And discovered a number of new muscles in the process…..
But two questions now remain. Firstly, what do ESNG do for a show next year. Do we aim for something bigger, with its inherent risk, or play safe with another small show like 2022? I know that some members would prefer one, others the other. We shall see, but whatever we decide, we need to get going soon if we are aiming for a bigger show.
The second is to choose another project (or three) to work on. I really ought to finish some of the things that I have started. Layout wise, I need to finish my N-mod modules, and I have a couple of N-club boards that could be finished. I also need to return to my Minories. Model wise, I have too many kits in boxes needing attention. I really just need to get on with something!
Tomorrow, it’s back to an ESNG Sunday meeting. Looking forward to it!
Let’s close with two pictures of Southern passenger trains at the same location near Chiselhurst.
And a fine picture of Winchfield station on the LSWR.
It seems a long time since we had a normal club meeting – if any of our meetings can be considered to be normal. We had a good turnout of seven members, and it was good to see the treasurer back after a bout of covid.
It was North America night to start with. I’d brought along the trains that I’d taken to the exhibition, including the stock from my micro layouts. So I started with a short Lehigh Valley goods train.
Chris ran a rather longer Canadian Pacific goods.
Martin had a number of modern trains to run.
Sean and Lucas had this interestingly liveried Class 66 running…
And I gave my Japanese trams a run out, too.
And we’re back on Sunday for another running afternoon.
Just the one picture today – it’s enough of a modelling challenge for anyone.
Parking in New York in the 1920’s. What a great model this would make!!!!
Not much modelling done this week. A couple of days were needed to recover from the show! We understandably cancelled the Sunday club meeting the next day. But the week has still flown by. Tidying up loose ends, balancing the books and paying the cash float back into the bank took a little time. Then we had to buy a new dishwasher after our present one went random on us. (It dates from 2009, so it probably doesn’t owe us anything.) Thursday, I went down to Rolvenden for Miles’ wake. And Friday was Good Friday, so off to church. And I still haven’t tidied up the loft, so I have three railways still gracing the lounge…..
Enough rambling! A few nuggets to enjoy….
Rather larger than N, but rather impressive. I hope it doesn’t give Paul too many ideas!
How about a trip on the Regent’s Park monorail?
Two pictures of Andover, c.1913…
An LBSCR H2 Atlantic. A beautiful design, and the BR mixed-traffic black seems to suit it well. Or perhaps you could paint them almost any colour and they’d look good!
But maybe not violet! I know Her Majesty has been around a very long time, and we’re getting extra bank holidays, but is this fair on Taw Valley? I guess that it’s only paint, but….
The newly formed British Railways did try out a purply-blue, before settling on blue for their express locos. But it was a deep blue colour, not a lurid lilac!
Finally, I’m impressed by this module leg design – folds up to nothing. I’m investigating further.
And so to the other, non-modular layouts. We had an interesting variety on show.
Nick Falconer brought along Bahnbetriebswerk Königshafen for its first show. The layout represents a small German locomotive service depot (Bahnbetriebswerk or Bw for short) with facilities for diesel and electric locos. A steam museum now occupies the old turntable and engine shed. The depot is intended to join in with larger modular systems following N-Club International’s standards, however here the main through lines are served by a pair of automated fiddleyards.
Martin’s Dav-Tree was still a bit of a plywood prairie, but he was able to bring along a lot of the buildings to give an idea of how the scenery will look. And it will look excellent when complete. This long layout gives long modern trains a chance to stretch their legs.
Neil brought along Stonecombe, a very neat and compact branch line terminus.
Sean’s Forrestone looked, and ran, as well as ever.
Dan Hull kindly came along to fill a gap after a layout dropped out. He was showing off some of his lovely kit and scratch-built models, many from 3D prints.
Dan was also wearing his Rapido UK hat, and brought along the prototype versions of the proposed Class 28 Co-Bo and Conflat P. Both look excellent and the Co-Bo runs (and sounds) very well. If you’re interested, get an order in soon, to make sure that production goes ahead.
Finally, I put my two lockdown layouts in the refreshment room as dioramas, correctly guessing that I’d be too busy to run trains. Cazenovia has the dubious distinction of having been to two shows (one virtual) and collecting two plaques without a train moving. It does work – really it does…..
And so to next year. I’ve begin thinking about it, I’m afraid. It’s a difficult decision. It would be good to hold a larger show, perhaps having a try at using Reigate College as we nearly did in 2020. Or do we hold another low-risk show at the church, that will be a whole lot easier to arrange? I guess you will find out here in due course!
I didn’t take many photos of the show, as my phone spent the day connected to our e-commerce terminal. But I did sneak a few shots just before opening time. So today it’s the N-mod layout, next time the other layouts on display.
We set the main modular layout up in the church, with a fair sized 3×2 module layout. It’s strange looking at this photograph to think that 24 hours later I’d be sitting at the back of the hall operating the PA system (and keeping awake after the hectic Saturday playing trains.)
A feature of this show was that many of the modules were new ones, built during lockdown and beyond. On the left here is Dave’s canal basin scene, one of the older modules on show.
Derek’s first club corner. The clubhouse in the middle is a model of one in Stuttgart and named after a late ESNG member. These new corners have super-elevation on the track, that looks great watching trains tilt as they go around, but is a pig to clean the track – you can’t do all four lines together.
Derek’s Doverwood has removable scenic sections. These houses can be a building site or a variety of other plug-in scenes. It’s the only module where the scenery moves faster than the trains.
Frenches Road has a passing resemblance to the local scene. The disused branch to British Industrial Sand is in the foreground. On the road itself, the Chai(r)man’s milk float passes the Treasurers house, complete with sheeted caravan and battered Ford Mondeo.
No exhibition is complete without ERIC the roundhouse there. Each time we exhibit ERIC it is filled by a different member, or to a different theme. This time Allan displayed his EWS and DB diesels.
My ‘Saggers Sidings’ had progressed a long way since it was last at a club meeting, a month before. Here a couple of DMU’s stand in the carriage cleaning sidings.
Derek’s second club corner has the usual interesting cameos to see. I hope we remembered to remove the drawing pin box (used to put the curtain around the layout) before opening time!
I’ll put the rest of the pictures up in my next post. In the meantime, Brian’s usual excellent video shows all the layouts operating, and plenty of people around the halls.
Fast forward to this morning. Crossing our local railway bridge, a Class 66 and ballast train was waiting in Earlswood station. I waited to see it accelerate away effortlessly with a long train of wagons.
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