Day 2 of the holiday (though I shall space out the Dawes Days into a week or so – a sort of red shift.)
A cold but bright day. Took train to Davos Glaris to make our way by postbuses to Chur. We then took a return train trip to Arosa before catching train back to hotel.
Filisur
Davos Glaris
And Arosa….
Allan took some pictures at Arosa.
And this interesting vehicle at Sands Depot, Chur. It would make a great model, whatever it is!
Five members turned up for the Wednesday meeting, allowing plenty of running time all round.
I tried running my military train for the first time, having made the NGS Warwell and Warflat kits during the first lockdown. It ran reasonably, but needs a little fettling, as it kept derailing at a couple of locations. Still, I was pleased with it so far.
Chris was running some Metropolitan line underground stock.
I replaced my train with a container rake, that ran perfectly. Chris then gave his re-geared Class 33 a turn on the front of the containers. Graham’s American Union Pacific rake overtakes in the background.
Mr Stroudley turned in his grave at the sight of a Terrier pulling a GWR autocoach!
Whilst a GWR Small Prairie pulled lots of large coaches.
After testing my new modules last Sunday meeting, I corrected the obvious errors. Where I de-crimped the wires when folding the boards (having forgotten to unplug them), I made a new end board, with a slot for the wires to remain connected and loop from one board to the next. A couple of legs fitted should allow the modules to be stored vertically. I also fixed the misplaced track joint where the fishplate had missed. Point control is nearly installed. And a rattle can coat of sleeper grime painted the track in two minutes flat. Next job, ballast.
More from Switzerland in the next post.
Once again, Allan and Ron are off – just for a few days – to their favourite hotel in Switzerland.
Arrived here 8pm last night. It is very cold with lying snow.
Well, Ron, it is Switzerland in winter, albeit late winter! Not that much snow….
They’ve treated themselves to a hotel room overlooking the railway. Allan reports….
View from hotel window. You can really see the snow on the mountain very well in this shot. Lovely and cold this morning but bright and sunny.
A quiet start to the holiday?
Lazy day. Up to Alp Grum on the direct train and back via St Moritz
Bergun
Berina Pass
Alp Grum
Trains at St. Moritz.
And works train at Alp Grum.
More when the next carrier pigeon arrives…..
A little more progress on the club fiddleyard today. We’ll get there eventually. A brace of Derek’s carried on tracklaying.
I got some wiring completed for the point frogs.
This a most impressive layout. Very realistic scenery, especially the forest.
A very quiet afternoon, with just the four members present. Plus Ron, the ESNG honorary auditor, lured south by the promise of a curry. Excuses from other regulars ranged from the reasonable – I’ve a fence to fix – to the unlikely – I’ve got to watch Chelsea lose a cup final.
But we had a very pleasant afternoon running trains, with a track each. Mr Atfield brought along another new module. This has a number of interchangeable scenery sections to show the area around a station at points in history.
My new modules continued their debugging. The new castors and handles that I’d fitted were most useful in lugging the thing around. I found (or at least a train found) a bad joint, and a bit of wire sticking up above the track. A good test session, and I’ll get on and fix these issues this week. The module looks good end on, watching the trains snake through the curves.
We ran a variety of trains, including Allan’s Inga-Net friendship trains, with wagons gifted or bought at Stuttgart over the years.
And the afternoon did indeed finish with a curry. Can’t be bad! No video from Brian today, but here’s his new fence panel….
Just a few odds and ends today.
Not railway modelling, but some interesting modelling techniques, and I wonder how many of us have followed similar paths in our hobby?
Nice tram layout – OO, but 1200 x 800mm. This could work well in ‘N’.
Shunting, no, sorry, switching in Buffalo. Some tight curves here!
And finally, Caterham station in 1977. Takes you back. A year out of university, I was living in Kennington, near the Oval, and had just met my future (and current) wife. A few years earlier, I would have been playing cricket against Caterham school.
Useless information time. Yes, its 22-02-2022….
Meanwhile, back in the real world, a little more progress on the ESNG fiddle yard yesterday, with track laid on the fiddle yard extension board. I’m also feeling pleased with myself, as I’ve also replaced four fence posts!
Another post of odds and ends.
Beautifully colourised film of LA in the 1930’s. Plenty of Pacific Electric and LA streetcars. Note the dual gauge track, as the two systems were standard and narrow gauge. And I was amazed at just how busy the whole place is. A contrast to pictures of London in that era?
Keeping the USA theme, two very nice American layouts, one eastern, one western.
And returning to the tram theme, the 2021 Crich Model Tramways Exhibition.
After Friday’s weather, Sean drew my attention to this little gem – legless in Croydon again! A tram does appear. Actually, this could be any day of the week…..
Probably safest underground in this weather…
Find the deepest station in London here.
And review the current London rolling stock, with Jago Hazzard’s usual amusing commentary.
More next time!
Wednesday’s meeting was a successful one. No new modules this time, but 9 members plus a visitor. Not least, yet another final meeting for Paul – even though we told him no curry this time!
Another last ESNG meeting, but this really should be it! If everything works out, the flat in Redhill will be professionally cleaned and finished around 3pm tomorrow, I can then hand the keys in and return to Daventry before storm Eunice arrives on Friday.
And it was good to see Peter who was in the area and dropped in. We also discovered that Chris had missed a meeting due to Covid, but good to see him looking well again. And Ian was able to come to the meeting – and keen to pay up his subs for the year. Here we have both usual and unusual suspects.
Graham seems to be wearing his MEGA hat – Make Earlswood Great Again? Paul is looking happy – perhaps it’s the effect of so many ‘last’ ESNG meetings….
On the rails, Michael was running fairly modern UK stock.
Chris had brought along some Southern multiple units, including this ‘Thumper.’
Simon was testing an old Roco model, that ran very well, but will probably be butchered into something American.
Modelling challenge of the day comes from the BBC and Storm Dudley…
Or just use this…..
Bet they can’t do this at Miniatur Wunderland! The prop landings are just sideways….
Many moons ago, ESNG renovated Dreibruken, a 25 year old Swiss layout that was donated to the club. Dreibrucken was a firm exhibition favourite, but the old lady was finally a bit past it and retired. In 2005, Dreibruken appeared in the Continental Modeller, with some lovely photographs by Len Weal. The Continental Modeller generously allowed us to reproduce the article on our web site, and it seems long enough ago for us to also post the photos again on the blog.
My main memory of Dreibruken was how heavy those massive baseboard were. I’m not sure that the current aging ESNG members, 15 years on, could lift them any more. As an occasional operator, I found it confusing as to which tunnel the train was going to appear from….
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