We were delighted to be able to take Navigation Road to the Festival of British Railway Modelling held in Doncaster in February. Members who attended reported that the exhibition was both well organised and very well attended with crowds three deep around the layout for much of the first day. Clearly, recent reports in the popular press of the “Death of railway modelling” were – as with Mark Twain – “greatly exaggerated”!
Operators reported that it was difficult in such a high pressure environment to maintain sufficient movement on the layout even with the aid of the ingenious hidden return track. The decision has therefore been taken to modify the layout to allow round-and-round continuous running when needed. This will also allow trains longer than the fiddle yard cassettes to be run. The current end-to-end configuration will be retained for use at smaller exhibitions.
Layout building effort has now pivoted back to Parkstone with the track wiring being installed.
The DVD included with the March edition of BRM contains an excellent video of Chitterne shot by the talented Jamie Warne. Quite why this wasn’t included in the January edition with the article on Chitterne isn’t clear. The one possible criticism of the video might be that viewers have to put up with rather too much of your humble correspondent!
With Navigation Road back on our storage shelves, it has been possible to re-assemble the test track and a variety of stock has once again been on display at group evenings.
Ian brought his recently acquired Accurascale Class 37. Fitted for DCC and sound, its behaviour was most entertaining when run on our DC test track. When power was applied the model made very convincing engine start and brake noises before moving, but of course this removed the direct relationship between controller position and speed. The engine appeared to have a mind of its own and much amusement was derived from guessing what it would do next. Ian assured us that it behaves far more predictably under DCC control.
Joe showed us his new Kernow GWR Steam Railmotor (K2304) which ran very smoothly and was greatly admired. It is indeed a most engaging model and our other GWR modelling members were rather jealous.
The great “livestock wagons” evening is getting closer and in preparation Lawrie appears to be operating a production line with an entire train of mostly GWR cattle wagons now running in EM.
This report – written by Richard Simpson – appears in issue 240 of the EM Gauge Society newsletter.
Please note that the printed version of this report in the newsletter contains two additional paragraphs which suggest that Sarum Finescale has folded. This is a production error and entirely untrue.