We were a little thin on the ground during this meet, so much so the N Scalers took the opportunity to continue works on the reversing loops, with emphasis on Paul E’s new spacer board seeing some further progression. We were pleased to see our (hopefully new) member Chris J attend as well; by the sounds of things he was able to run a loco or two on the N but it was good to see him around the HO too.
The HO was down by at least one regular but the loss was made up by the arrival of Geoff T at least for the break down in the afternoon. However, we still felt the affects of the missing member in the morning by only completing setup of the layout by 12:00. In terms of operations therefore it was a shorter session, however the use of the setup was not completely lost. Paul H kindly provided a new booster, which took the place of the old faithful Peach Meadows’ booster, which will now hopefully be homed at Laxton… once it has a socket into the modules (of course). Paul P, as a realisation from our near-confused attempts to setup Laxton, painted some identifiers on each board so there is less faff in future.
Never the less, I was extremely pleased to get my favourites out on the layout. This time I opted for the separate Super Cap consists, starting with the Super Chief. Within this consist was a newly-detailed dining car, complimenting the pleasure dome. I started properly operating just after lunch, and pulled out my phone to record some videos. I managed to remember to do a quick consist walk through, and then several passing shots; overall I was very pleased with the set of clips I captured and will be sharing on the YouTube channel later…
Which leads me to my favourite moment from this meet; as I was too busy recording the Super Chief passing over the bridges, I failed to spot the train crossing the APT junction straight into Laxton. It was only when I stopped recording and checked the position when I realised the mistake. However, what followed was a fun little turn around session which was recorded across multiple angles, giving more footage to the future video mentioned above.
Albeit having to man handle the items which needed to be turned around, the Super Chief was able to be turned around at Laxton roughly ok. It was a tight squeeze to say the least. The train then returned to the staging yard via the scenic main and Clark Junction.
Next was the Hi-Level El Cap, and unfortunately by that point my powered F3B had given up and stopped responding – relegated. There were also a couple of hiccups in terms of derailments and coupler disconnects, especially at Peach Meadows. I think the coupler disconnects was down to a sagging coupler on the F3A which I will hopefully take care of in time of October’s meet (September will be a busy month). The frustration with the disconnects caused to me to erroneously blame the unpowered F3B, and subsequently snap off the glued on coupler box (I promise I would have used screws, and will).
So with just one single power unit I trundled on. In spite of the difficulties felt at the common pain points for dropping couplers or tightly locked trucks, I did manage to score a decent clip of the train coming around the bend at the APT junction. Unfortunately however there were plenty of issues on the unedited footage; however for this one I did have the foresight to push the consist backward at every correction to hopefully allow for some editing magic later. Stay tuned folks…
After the above shot we started packing up. I believe we started at around 15:05, and finished nearly on the minute at 17:00. A quieter, more settled day overall I feel, with obviously less operations time. Next month I believe there is scope to run a comparative check of all the staging boards; we have a lot of issues with rail alignment so it would be good to see which ones are at the correct height so we can make the proper fix without jeopardising the “Free” in FreeMo.
For me, I would have just returned from Amsterdam so if I am able to make it, I’ll probably only bring a small amount of trains (mostly freight). This should help me quickening the prep during the days before heading out to Amsterdam so I don’t have to do it the Friday before the meet.
Thanks again for stopping by – happy modelling.
– Neal K
Santa Fe all the way
Thamesiders MRG 