Today marked a busy day for us with excellent numbers all around for good set up times overall. The HO was in a state of readiness before the N, and was streaming first. The N Scale however wasn’t far behind. The stream was up 30 minutes late; something I’ll try to avoid during the open house. We also were able to run until 15:30, something which would be dangerous during normal days.
The HO had changed its setup from a 7×0 to a 6×0, to ease concerns around accessibility and general safety around the stage. From what I had seen of items placed on the staging yards, there was still some decently sized trains, including one track holding my long express passenger and local, served by a doodlebug.
Both setups saw a mix of eras; steam, diesel and gas-electric (doodlebugs). The open house will be, in my mind, a very interesting event showing a decent variety of stock and consists. I was also pleased to see some free track space on the HO for those members which were not able to join us, but will during the open house!
There was a lot of fixing and fine tuning for the HO, and it seemed that way for the N as well, especially at the start. When things got going both sides of the hall were able to properly test their trains to a reasonable degree before lunch and pack up time. For me, my main goal was to test my ever closer Super Chief consist, with the recently finished interior detailed and lighted pleasure dome, and some of the other cars which I had recently classified into my fleet such as the dorm-lounge, 10-6 sleepers, the lonely 4-4-2 and the diner.
Unfortunately, several cars had some troubles. Walthers is almost famous for their trucks needing a tune up, and the Rapido dormitory lounge still seems to have some coupler sag on one end, seeing itself quickly shipped off whilst in staging. The pleasure dome was the most disappointing of all; very pretty to look at but her trucks kept binding like no tomorrow. I doubt it is the hard wiring because my observation car had a similar surgery on it and is still running beautifully.
I was also pleased to see Paul H join us for some running with a D&RGW SD9 (I will confirm that) hauling an ore string carefully around the Essex Belt Lines. Hopefully with at least two other backup dispatchers, I’m sure we could give Paul some time to run his own trains again, especially on the open day.
Amongst the pre-Amtrak era steam and diesel consists Mike A’s more modern unit train introduced some auto rack spice, hauled by one of the more modern BNSF machines. Due to the questionable quality of the stream, my camera will need to be out at some point during the open house to create a similar collection of favourites as seen from the May meet last year.
Paul H was kind enough to continue his search for the missing buildings by trawling through his attic, until he came across the missing billboard on Clark Junction, the barn on Peach Meadows and the tower for APT. The original station hasn’t turned up yet, but our stand in has done well (and not just because it’s branded by my road)!
In spite of the errors plaguing my main budding passenger consist, a smaller consist hauled by an E8m with the behaving cars seemed to fare better, and close to pack up time I managed to get a run of the newer freight consist of mine out with an AB configuration of F Units. The only troublemaker on that consist was a reefer toward the end and possibly a branch line box car. Everything else ran superbly and with metal wheelsets and standardised weights, I was entranced by the clickity clacks as the freight passed by.
Speaking of lovely audio, I was a little saddened by the issues I faced still with the audio. By lunch time I was able to isolate default settings on my laptop and upon reviewing the second video’s footage, a conversation with a budding new member and the N scalers was heard; it seems a little patience does pay off. I was hoping to test the range of sounds which could be picked up by the mics during this session, but it’ll have to be at home now before the open house. There’s still a chance you too will be able to hear the rhythm of the trains!
Beyond that, it was noted Laxton was starting to run fairly well by the end of the session. Our younger member, Kian, had his trains moving around the area and we heard how Mike A, Paul P and Tom F had travelled their way there too, to get things going properly. Especially appreciated was Mike A’s head shunt to support operations on the Laxton yard.
On the rundown though it was between myself and Michael T running trains in and out of the staging area before we couldn’t hold off closing time any longer. I noted the return of the centipedes; as well as either the same switcher from last time or a new one come to plague the publicity officer’s terrible identification skills!
In spite of the last few trains stretching things a bit, we still managed to get out and away by 16:45. Definitely looking forward to the open house now!
– Neal K
Thamesiders MRG 