Thamesiders Physical Meet – Saturday, 22 July 2023

Thamesiders' Physical Meets
The Super Cap – With one extra coach at the end she just fit in the staging yard for the 7×0. The power was soon shortened by 1 FB unit as the Pi couldn’t connect to the network, rendering all wifi throttles inoperable.

The battle of the A12 continues, with members either showing up early or a little late for this physical meet. Overall, the numbers were thinner on the ground with emphasis on the limited N Scale contingent. A decision was made to focus primarily on maintenance and fixes on some of the N Scale boards, and Paul P & Paul H took some time to investigate a few problems on the Laxton branch.

Setup of the HO was completed by around 11:30, and we suffered a setback with the raspberry pi not being able to find an IP address, therefore rendering all wifi throttles out of service. This meant one less F Unit for me as I couldn’t consist very well with the Lenz handsets, however it still meant the HO could run trains.

Return of a Thamesiders Veteran; it was good to meet Geoff, former chairman. Here we see him chatting to Paul P as a Pennsy local serves as a tester train for Laxton. All while the Super Cap departs staging in the foreground.

I was personally excited to try out my new El Capitan consist, but instead of just that, I decided to run the full Super Cap. Aside from a rough joint on the centre staging board, and the FA and FB decoupling at Peach Meadows, the only other issue I had with it was the Hi-Level Diner and Heavyweight Baggage car shorting out the layout. We soon discovered it was because I decided to use wheelsets with metal axles! We removed the pair from the Hi-Level diner and regulated the poor heavyweight from the session; hopefully to visit again with insulated axles at some point in the future.

We chose not to worry about a livestream during this meet, and I am personally liking the idea of potentially not running a full one again until the run up of another event. I may put it up here and there on each layout to catch some footage of something different, or to support members unable to attend. Watch this space – the trick to consider with that would be to ensure the chosen layout’s action is sufficient to keep people entertained.

Dennis making use of the N Scale downtime to check out his road-railers. There’s been a small resurgence of these seen recently on social media; I don’t blame him for wanting to get in on the action!

It was good to meet Geoff, former Thamesiders chairman whom kindly visited us to come talk about trains, run some trains, and chat about the history of Thamesiders. We also had a few visitors partly because of a confusion around the location of the St Osyth summer fete, but also because there was some general interest. All parties whom stuck around for longer than a minute soon had leaflets in hand – it was good to remember those this time around!

The Super Cap entering Peach Meadows, with an audience of onlookers including Kian R (foreground), Tom F (background left), Paul P (background right) and Geoff (background behind Kian).

I was very pleased with the performance of the Super Cap. Albeit running with a simple AB consist, and a mismatch of F3 and F7s, the lone powered MTH F3 pulled like a champ. I also gave my ScaleTrains BNSF Tier 4 Gevo a test run; it ran Kian R’s mixed train without any complaints. The locomotive represents one of the remaining few modern pre-orders I have on my list, with only special interest items remaining expected throughout the year. The Gevo is very impressive (albeit insisting on running and recording it with the packaging foam still in place on one side).

My pleasure dome sitting at the first crossing of Peach Meadows.

In terms of the revisiting pleasure dome, I was pleased to say it performed very well and only encountered problems at the staging area around the centre board, and when there were tight turns out of the switch work. I only need to replace the drooping antenna and I’ll be happy with the finished product. Next on my super detailing list is the Super Chief’s diner; I’m already about half way so with any luck, that piece of completed equipment will be present at the August physical meet.

We started packing up at 15:00, and was locked and away by 16:45; an impressive feat considering we were down on some numbers, and had some members not feeling very well on the day. The rain came around mid-day, and didn’t let up until everyone nearby was home and the travellers from further afield were well past the temporary speed limits on the A12.

My BNSF Tier 4 Gevo hauling a mixed consist under the watchful gaze of Kian R.

It was a nice, slower-paced meet for us this time around, and I did enjoy it. However, the following day was also Mid-Essex MRC’s Open Day, so it was quite a hectic weekend for myself and Tom F. I’ll be sharing some screenshots and videos of the action on the Zanesville (HO USA) layout on my personal YouTube channel soon, but you’ll be pleased to know we had a chap from St Neots attend whom showed a big interest in the layout and American ops in general… Naturally he also received a leaflet.

I think that wraps us up very nicely – happy modelling!

– Neal K


Santa Fe all the way

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