We have continued to meet fortnightly apart from the evening of Monday 1 November when the village in which our clubroom is located was without power following high winds and power cables down. At least, unlike the aftermath of Storm Arwen, power was restored to the village within a day. Coincidentally, the evening before saw the third significant railway accident in Salisbury when two trains collided at Tunnel Junction. Removal of the coaches from the tunnel took a week and it was 10 days before trains ran again. Mercifully, unlike the crashes of 1856 and 1906, no loss of life occurred.
We had a reminder that COVID is never far away with one member infected and another member isolating due to possible contacts – in each case work related.
When we did meet we said goodbye to Rob, one of our younger members – he works for a living – who has relocated to North Somerset. We wish him well but we will miss his input, At least he has a preserved line to look at and ride on and we have the control panel for Chitterne he designed and made.
Work has continued on both Parkstone and Chitterne with each team offering the other advice when problems occur. With Parkstone, Mike E and Mike H, together with Jeff and Clive, have continued to work on the baseboards and track. Mike H, who is building the model of the bridge at the Eastern end of the station, has found the plasticard layers delaminating – much to his annoyance.
With Chitterne, Lawrie has been constructing the station building at home and brought it in for a fitting. No problems there. He then made fire buckets and a stand, and is about to create a small garden. This may well go under the station name-board which your scribe is commissioned to produce. Clive R produced two mock ups of the engine shed and we look forward to seeing the final article in due course.
The bridge over the Chitterne Brook has occupied Richard S and Chris B for many hours at their respective homes. Richard has riveted the brass girders – a combination of using a GW riveter and applying many Archer rivets. The first girder looks superb. Chris has been working on the abutments which are proving challenging in the space available.
Thanks to Chris H’s sterling efforts, much landscaping and ballasting have taken place but more remains to be dealt with in the weeks ahead.
We wish all our fellow modellers good health and an enjoyable festive season and look forward to the possibility of attending some exhibitions next year.
This report – written by Joe Newman – appears in issue 231 of the EM Gauge Society newsletter.