Thamesiders Physical Meet – Saturday, 26 November 2022

Thamesiders' Physical Meets

Our first arrivals for the last St Osyth meet of the year showed up at around 09:15, and they included the returning Paul P after his amazing holiday. We were also pleased to see again Mike A, bringing up Laxton which is now in the group’s storage, and Michael T to bring us some more interesting trains to run. Suffice to say the HO group had favourable numbers this time around and that was reflected by the Essex Belt Lines being almost completely ready to run by 11. This is also despite some final repairs being done to the central staging yard board, and some track levelling on the Dan and Patrick modules with many thanks to Paul P’s handiwork.

Paul P and Neal K’s combined super-superliner making her run past Peach Meadows. Train is being lead by Neal K’s two F40Phs.


The N Scale wasn’t far behind and a focal point for today’s meet was considering the tunnel ceiling and scenery for the left-hand return loop. There were also some recorded operations, with a much better quality compared to past footage with thanks to remembering to bring my tripod this time. The HO also squeezed some sequences in, but I still aim to favor the N Scale over the next few months, especially when we have the buildings and scenery out on the boards.

The consist making her way over the bridges


We did have a couple of visitors interested in the trains, but it is worth mentioning we had a small crowd’s worth of people coming in throughout the day looking for the St Osyth church Christmas fayre…?! The sign outside didn’t help… but I bet we’ve sowed some seeds of interest in the back of their minds…

Neal K’s Southern Pacific mixed freight arrived at the Ethanol Plant to drop off the tank cars, while Michael T’s 4-8-0 takes a hopper train to Peach Meadows.


My personal highlight for this meet had a tie between getting some great footage of the N Scale, and Paul P and I linking our Amtrak superliners to create a super-superliner consist! Regarding the former, I especially liked David’s Santa Fe long hoods and Dennis’ (aka dad to me) log train. The HO did have some difficulty with their trains, showing the behaviours I saw during the last meet where my F7A refused to respond to any commands. However, there was sufficient stock behaving themselves enough to run the layout, including my ethanol tank cars which were switched out and parked at the ethanol plant, and when it came time to pack up, being spotted to be taken off the layout.

A junior member’s Milwaukee Road G7m is going to retrieve the tank cars to pull from the SP’s consist and hold at the plants’ sidings. It will need to do a run-around before it can drop them off into the plant properly, but to do that, the SP train needs to leave. Hence getting the tank cars out of the way first…

And this is the locomotive after successfully completing the run around and now pulling back in to drop off into the dedicated areas for loading unloading, visible on the left where the model gent is standing on a catwalk.


One straight forward and almost on time pack up later, we are now ready for the AGM and Christmas lunch. We were sorry to hear of our usual caterer for the lunch falling into ill health, where Chris C very kindly moved us to the Swan to allow them to rest and where we all hope in good time, return to good health.

Dennis’ 4-4-0 American, in Minneapolis & St Louis RR, moving a freight car across Taggart’s bridges.

Dennis’ Milwaukee Road Baldwin VO-1000 switcher moving an empty log train.


If I don’t see you at the AGM or Christmas lunch, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a very happy new year.


Neal K

David A’s Santa Fe long hoods crossing the bridges at Taggart.

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