With much excitement throughout the last 5/6 months comes much apologies! I seem to have not updated you on our physical meets since the Berkshire Special in 2024. Let’s correct this right now…
After the Berkshire Special, there was a general high from the Thamesiders in attendance, and we spent most of November’s physical meet just taking it easy. There wasn’t much photographic or video evidence of our enjoyment, so you’ll just have to take our word for it. What became apparent however fairly quickly was our desire to perhaps help host another convention like it again. As of writing this, that possibility is about to start being planned, potentially with the same partnership, but watch this space.
We confirmed this fact during the AGM and Christmas Lunch held in December. We were slightly light on attendees, mostly because of the storms causing trouble for the travellers needing to take the Dartford Crossing, for example, but for the most part, the usual attendance of the physical meets were present. Notable decisions from the AGM included holding our annual Open House (now the NMRA BR Summer Meet) on 21 June, aiming for another Quiz night, as well as the general agreement of hosting another NMRA BR Convention in 2026.
The same committee were elected, and at the time, the intentions were to hopefully catch up with these updates back then. Well… we all know how that went! With the meal done, we closed off another successful year for the Thamesiders. Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to at least one member, because understandably the commute to and from St. Osyth was taking its’ toll for this person based at least 2 hours away.
This seemed to be our only concern for the moment moving into 2025; we noted a similar issue with one visitor early in 2024, whom couldn’t join us because the trip to and from the location was too much for them. For the moment we are doing okay enough for it to not be at the top of our list of issues, but it shall become a point to contend with if we lose other members in future.
Our return in January saw us rearranging and sorting our storage at St Osyth. Myself aka publicity officer was unable to attend due to still recovering from a particularly nasty migraine which lasted most of the week before, but the other regulars seemed happy with the outcome and from what I have seen of both the stage and garage, everything seems to be in a more logical location. I know it was tough in November ’24 trying to get everything we needed for the meet out, and the general comparison to our experience in February ’25 confirms a difference was indeed made.
Moving on to February, and our first proper running session of the year. I took this opportunity to finish up with any outstanding work on the “recovering” Peach Meadows board, mainly aligning the track properly to the Clark Junction board in situ. I was pleased with the outcome; we had effectively removed one pain point for several members, but as it was one of several, the work continues. I was pleased to hear Chris C was satisfied with the join; before we did anything about it, his coal drag was a regular patient, but afterwards, it glided effortlessly across without decoupling, promising an almost a trouble-free run until it hit another problematic location down the line.
It must be said however, if I had the space, I would probably take the boards home with me and completely replace the foam foundations in favour of plywood. There may be hope in possibly achieving that in future, but that relates to my personal update which I’ll stick at the very end. The foam unfortunately serves as a very poor base for modules which get thrown about practically every month, and I can see it causing an issue later on during its life if something more permanent isn’t done about it. I know the top scenic covering is still loose; however with the track secured it isn’t as much of a disaster for the moment. It unfortunately doesn’t look very good!
Some noteworthy moments from February included Dennis K’s Grand Canyon, trying to run on the N scale layout. Unfortunately, one of David’s modules developed a power problem, and through pressured troubleshooting, the rest of the layout kept shutting off frustrating the other members. David acknowledged this, and relented during the meet to allow the others a chance to run their trains in some capacity. He may also be relenting on the relay/Arduino solution in favour of frog juicers. Time will tell; after all this is a hobby and it’s one thing to be pressured by the needs of a group, but it’s completely something different to personally face the horrors of ripping out and replacing components. March seemed to be better; there didn’t seem to be as much frustration or sudden silence-restarts going on.
I, having recently (and finally) received my Gallery Commuter Cars from Rapido, was very pleased to run them on the HO. They performed very well, surprisingly resisting the issues which tended to frustrate other modeller’s trains. I was expecting difficulties because the truck mechanisms seemed very tight, or at least, more fine compared to the many Walthers cars I have operated on to improve reliability. Perhaps asking us to fork out roughly £100 a car means something to Rapido, and they proved themselves very well. Keep an eye out for a video in the near future; they rival my El Capitan in terms of visuals, but because they aren’t the Santa Fe, they’ll never be that close to my heart! I only got them because of my sheer joy of seeing them in person in Chicago once upon a time, plus I could potentially get away with the BNs in particular running in the background of my (hopeful) future Chicago-based terminus layout.
Lastly for the meet in February, I took along my newly-acquired Roka Models tank cars. Like the Gallery Cars, they ran wonderfully, and were only hampered by a coupler height problem occurring on the 2nd hand baggage-combine car I also brought for testing. It seemed the ScaleTrains couplers on the SD45 are a tad too thin for the relatively small height change between the board joins, so the car itself may have been innocent. As mandated by me, they have since been replaced with Kadees, which was the original plan for the March meet but I never got around to it until afterwards.
Lastly, but not at all the least, brings us nicely into the March physical meet. This was generally a positive one again with running on both layouts, and this time I took my El Capitan. What stood out for me during this meet was working out how to command the points with my tablet, which I was doing for the latter half of the meet with shunting operations. The videos I captured may not see YouTube for a little while yet as I pad out the queue of livestreams and videos from February, however the session did remind me of the few meets I had just after I joined the Thamesiders, and the eventual inspiration behind “the Essex Belt adventures”. With experience and use of the tripod (and now understanding how to easily level it), I was able to get some decent footage, rivalling some of that accidental high quality footage of years gone. This post’s first photo and thumbnail come from that very footage.
That generally wraps up our catchup. If I remember correctly, our escape times for the physical meets has always been earlier than on the kick out hours of years past. That again is thanks to those of us whom are able to attend, as well as the trollies as provided by Chris C. Albeit it being important to have a decent level of attendance if we wish to run trains, at the end of the day, this is a hobby we are paying to enjoy. My own experience of being pressured into attending, and then being mocked and/or being the centre of expelled “hot air” in relation to not being able to attend, left a sour taste in my mouth. With this in mind, I say to you, if you find the time, and ability to do so, please consider coming to St Osyth and run some trains.
Driving up and down the A12 for an hour each way once a month, spending hours setting up and breaking down, is all worth it for the few hours we get running trains, progressing little projects, and dare I say, even fixing small problems. Provided my health and finances keep up, I don’t think I’ll ever stop, because those few hours have made me a model railroader. They also have put the Thamesiders near the front of my planner each month, and if there ever was a clash with other clubs’ events, the Thamesiders will win out because I really do enjoy those few precious hours. I hope you are able to experience a similar satisfaction some day, even if it isn’t with the Thamesiders, but we sure would love it to be.
My final recommendation before dedicating a paragraph for my personal update is this; if you would like to come down but find yourself limited to one visit, please consider 21 June. This is our main event this year, and is probably where you’ll get to see the layouts in top form. All are welcome.
Neal K
Santa Fe all the way
(My personal update below)
A personal update
Part of the reason of failing to post the regular physical meet posts is because of mine and Kat’s house hunting situation was in serious flux during this period. To surmise, we lost our original buyer and the house we were going for. However, we did manage to secure another buyer and find another house. This took a lot of time, effort and as you could imagine, emotion. We’re now almost where we were before the previous’ chain collapse, and are hoping for a move date soon, albeit will be remaining cautious of the fact the deed isn’t done until the contracts are set and exchanged.
We are looking forward to moving and settling in to our future house, wherever it may be. I am personally excited for being able to properly setup a train space which I will know will be mine, and not contested as is the case for my flat’s loft at the minute. It may take some time to get a space situated, but when it is, I have no doubt it will be full speed ahead with my own layout/modules. Kat has also been… open… to letting me run a line around the future garden, so that may happen before the train space is up and ready.
If I can catch up with the Ditchlights as well, we’ll be back to good health for the website overall. In future I may also try to encourage members to submit posts, but getting articles in the Ditchlight will suffice.
Neal K
Thamesiders MRG 