Jeff, who sometimes assembles new kits of buildings for PECO, as part of a video or as a diorama to publicise forthcoming products, showed us his latest work. He recently completed a laser cut wooden kit of Rannoch station; part of their new Highland range. We were most impressed by the detail now possible with this technology, and – as usual – with Jeff’s assembly and painting skills. A video of his assembly of the model is now available to view on YouTube if you search for “Peco Rannoch”.
The really big excitement at Sarum Finescale this quarter was the appearance in January BRM of our Chitterne layout. Joe and Richard S slaved over their thesauruses to get the text and captions as clear as possible and we were once again astonished by the quality of Jamie Warne’s photos. As with Navigation Road a few months ago, Richard took the opportunity to add the unused photos to our website.
In related news, following its appearance in BRM, Navigation Road has been invited to attend the Festival of British Railway Modelling at Doncaster in February. Recognising the need to put on a really good show, the NR team have partly dismantled our test track to allow the layout to be erected in our group room and work has been underway on repairs and improvements. The majority of the enhancements so far have been related to track-side details including cosmetic point motors and concrete cable trunking.
Prior to the removal of the test track we saw a number of excellent P4 trains being run on it. Lawrie (who is perhaps better known for his extensive collection of EM stock) brought an 8750 in BR black based on a Falcon Brassworks pannier tank kit with a lot of scratch built additions. Its combination of Machima motor, Sharman gearbox and Gibson wheels is clearly a good one as it confidently pulled an excellent twenty wagon coal train originally built by Clive H for our long defunct Woolworth Road layout.
Also on show by Mike E was a Lima 94xx heavily modified for P4 including the fitting of a scratch built chassis.
This report – written by Richard Simpson – appears in issue 239 of the EM Gauge Society newsletter.