Thamesiders MRG
Thamesiders Physical Meet – Saturday, 25 March 2023
Thamesiders' Physical MeetsSorry to report there isn’t much pictures this time around; I utilised this session to mainly check a new camera I’d recently acquired and some new rolling stock, with the hopes of at least one of those being properly utilised for the open house. With the former, I forgot to bring a charger, so the camera was a dud (hopefully next meet). However, the rolling stock inauguration was a mix of successes and (temporary) failures, but more on that in a moment…
We had the usual attendees, and the HO was set up straight away for running, with the N taking some time out for some essential maintenance. We also noted that Paul P had successfully replaced a switch on the Patrick module, requiring only some last minute surgery to isolate the stock rails from the point blades before we were ready to go.
As the trains set off, I utilised a bit of time to set up the usual livestream station, this time near the Dan modules, with intentions to have two cameras to switch between, one of which a cheaper generic brand video camera I had recently acquired mainly for the purposes of livestreaming. It had worked ok at the Epsom Freemo meet a few weeks before as a normal video camera, but since I forgot to bring a usb plug for the camera’s power adapter, I had to relegate it in favour of a webcam overlooking Peach Meadows. Once the stream was live, I again posted it to YouTube and the NMRA Interchange, but didn’t make much effort to advertise it due to the lesser quality compared to the previous successful test.
The session on the HO was mainly dominated by steam this time around, with some returning stars as well as a few new ones I do not recall seeing before, but apologies for not identifying some of them properly; standard quality videos tend not to yield much in terms of road markings.
One such entrant in the steam roster was my freshly converted GS-4 with a Soundtraxx Tsunami 2 decoder. It performed ok, however the wiring I installed between the locomotive and the tender caused some derailments, and there was a difference in height against her passenger cars, causing some disconnections here and there.
Overall however I was pleased how the locomotive performed on straight sections, as well as how well she upgraded considering she was an early Bachmann Spectrum. Getting her into DCC Sound has given me confidence to choose some of my older than me Athearn Blue Box candidates next.
With the issues I faced with the GS-4, I took her off the rails and moved on to my hopeful standard ATSF Chief consist/s; they’ve always been a great go to for me as I start to properly research the consists. This month I aimed to have either the Texas Chief or the San Francisco Chief, specifically those which paraded around with the big dome lounges, one of which I had recently acquired and was eager to test. I also encouraged my REA obsession by adding in some express cars; a trio of reefers and a flat car carrying some REA branded containers (as stand ins for the more accurate Santa Fe flat cars and mail containers).
The big dome performed flawlessly. One of the express reefers and one of the coaches however, did not. I believe it was due to trucks being too tightly screwed to the frames, but there was also a loose joint at Clark Junction. I didn’t get the chance to test the full consist again, but the “fast mail” and just the standard passenger which I ran separately both seemed to fare better in the afternoon, where I decided to stop the stream.
One highlight came up during the running of the express / passenger consist… One of the REA containers escaped the flat car into the scrap yard at Peach Meadows. I recall mentioning it to dad / Dennis, where I got this meet’s catchphrase; “Talk about mail order service right to your door!” Note the container-sized gap on the flat car in the picture below…
After the mail order drop, I secured the containers to the flat car with some black tac…
No further unexpected deliveries took place.
Following behind the ATSF Chief consist was another highlight of the meet for me; Michael T’s auto parts move with a little Plymouth locomotive. It was just fun to see this little move in between the massive lash ups everyone was running.
It was also excellent to see four separate groups of visitors, one of which may present a new member and the other a birthday party.
Well that about sums it up for this meet… Wait… Am I missing something?
The quiz night!
Myself, David A and Paul H (who usually attends the St Osyth quiz nights anyway) stayed on for our quiz night, with many thanks again to Paul H for arranging and setting up for us. I unfortunately wasn’t 100% sure if it was ok to take pictures let alone share them on here so I refrained, however out of a usual 30 we had 23 tables of teams in attendance, which looked full to both myself and David, however according to the regulars, it was slightly quieter.
The entire team running the show did brilliantly, with special thanks for the train-relevant round which had everyone guessing railway-related music!
Our team, the Railway Children, was joined by two other regulars to support numbers, however due to being one of the smaller teams and with two inexperienced people on board, we won the lemons for coming in last place. I also felt very disappointed in myself in the anagram round for failing to spot Fleetwood Mac. I in fact had listened to one of their songs on the way up to the hall!
Finally, one further head slapping moment was immortalised by a raffle prize; an orchid, failing earlier to answer which plant produces vanilla.
David A, our chairman, rounded off the night with an excellent thank you speech to those in attendance.
The quiz night was certainly a fun evening, worth the long day and one hour drive home in the dark for. Here’s to another next year where:
a) I will remember to bring my leaflets!
b) We will hopefully have another member or two join us
and most importantly…
c) We don’t win the lemons!
Thanks for reading and happy modelling all.
Neal K (Santa Fe all the way)
Thamesiders Physical Meet – Saturday, 25 February 2023
Thamesiders' Physical MeetsI wasn’t expecting a massive success this weekend in terms of trying out a new way to stream, but my goodness did it work well! The only troubles I had was the internet connection being choppy at the start and my second camera manning the HO timing out every 30 minutes.
The N Scalers took back their award worthy setup times leaving the HO in the dust; we were down a member for the morning so were thin on the ground. The HO was finally up and running by 11:45ish. Things got interesting after that; my first action was to setup the next generation of live streaming; an updated webcam, my DSLR, a video capture card and the streaming program Streamlabs OBS. I did have a play around on the run up, with some frustration around my desktop computer, but I was pleased to discover my laptop took both feeds well and I could setup the new stream in no time… And on the new NMRA Interchange!
Suffice to say I may never go back to just streaming directly on YouTube… As you can see in the first photo I was able to present a view from both layouts, with options to switch sizes on the fly depending on what was interesting at the time. Steamlabs also gave me the ability to create a separate window which I could share with the Interchange; we got a couple of viewers there.
Even better was the ability to create an interlude for lunch, instead of killing the stream like I was doing originally…
So to be fair, being able to do that and have a very successful (in my opinion) first live test was the highlight this time. But there are several honourable mentions…
That F7A that has been giving me trouble for months was finally resolved when I changed the address to something larger. It seems address 103 isn’t looked upon favourably by the setup, so using 1103 instead got it working. I very happily hooked it up to my (wannabe) Superchief consist, and they ran together with very few hiccups.
Second honourable mention is the Scaletrains engine that stopped working last time – I successfully fixed it, and it dominated the HO view towards the end of the stream. The picture above shows this succinctly and as seen at the start of this post, had a smaller friend when Dennis (aka dad) pulled out his own Southern Pacific engine and caboose to run on the N Scale.
And finally…
Dean and his El Capitan for reasons you can hopefully start to understand (hint; I like ATSF and passenger trains!)
Throughout the day we did have some maintenance going on; Paul P fixed a loose rail on Patrick, fixed an alignment problem in between the Clark boards, and finally he continued work on Laxton. We also saw an issue with one of the feeders on Peach meadows which Paul H quickly took care of.
One thing to note with the streaming, a bit more preparation for the YouTube profile and on the Interchange would do a lot more for engagement and reach; the YouTube version of the stream didn’t have a thumbnail nor any tags, so the engagement wasn’t as big as the previous livestream. We were pleased to see viewers either way; it goes to show even a minimal amount of engagement with the intended audience grants us some viewership.
Breaking down and packing away was the usual effort, the last people leaving the hall around 17:00. We’re closer to readiness for the Open House in June, but there is more work to be done of course.
I’d like to remind everyone the Thamesiders are holding a quiz night in March after the physical meet. I’ll put up a dedicated page soon with contact details if you’d like to book a table. But before that, there is the UK annual FreeMo meet at Epsom to attend – if you’re going, see you there!
Happy railroading all!
Neal K
Thamesiders Physical Meet – Saturday, 14 January 2023
Thamesiders' Physical MeetsOur first physical meet of 2023 was, in my opinion, a well-organised one. Set out to setup quickly, the HO was up in record time thanks to another decent amount of helpers. The N Scale was not far behind and both layouts were running something by at least 11:00. With this quick win, the livestreams were able to return with some reasonable successes on the day, with an hour on the N Scale, overlooking the bridges at Taggart, and then another at Essex Ethanol on the HO Essex Belt Lines.
Our first spot on the livestream was a SF Alligator hauling a track-cleaning box car, and there was a big push to get some equipment moving in the early stages. I spotted a personal favourite from Dennis’ collection, the CB&Q E9, as well as that familiar logging order now being what I believed to be David’s two truck shay. There were some issues unfortunately, and a decision was made to move the stream over to the HO to support some much needed maintenance on the N Scale. It seems there was a short happening somewhere down the line near the reverse loop, and after the lunch break the MOW crew had both return loops down and were working on them, so hopefully they got it sorted…
In terms of the HO, I set about fixing some pulled up rail at Ethanol, Paul P & Paul H looked at replacing some of Laxton’s points, as well as fitting some end boards to the standing fans, making all of the EBL modules now arranged in pairs for easier transport and handling. This month’s stock rosters included the usual express passenger trains and coal drags, but this time around the EBL had a brief dabble into the RDC locals, bringing about one of my personal highlights of this meet.
Both myself and Michael T had brought RDC pairs to run; Michael, from memory, had a pair of Reading & Pennsylvania RDCs, with one of them being an older model manufactured in the UK (It happened!), and I bought my newly acquired Rapido ATSF RDCs. We both had them out on the road for at least a lap back to back following one of the express passengers. This event unfortunately happened off screen when the N Scale had control, so there is no footage or pictures capturing both pairs. Maybe in future…?
Taking some author privileges I’d like to take a small tangent and talk briefly about my RDCs (I’ll carry on about the meet after the next picture).
The purchase of these represent my final decision to stop investing in at least two separate eras and instead focus on a single era, including to my past self’s horror, offloading some equipment which no longer matched my chosen era. One of these “successful offloads” you’ll see later, but in line with that final decision came my first proper look into my models and their histories. To my delight I found not only Rapido’s description, but also another on the internet here:
ATSF RDC-1 DC-191
That’s it; I just wanted to share. What this means for my modelling plans is still unknown, but what I do know (a little) now brings me some satisfaction.
Back to the meet…
Another highlight for me came in the form of newly-delivered pre-order which suffered a small fall the night before the meet. Thinking nothing of this little accident, I packed my new Scaletrains Dash-9 to run on the EBL. Little did I know the engine obviously had some internal mechanism damage as the front axles were refusing to spin, forcing all of the engine’s work onto the rear axles.
Since this was on the livestream, there were many notable instances of the hand of god. Eventually I managed to get her parked at Peach Meadows station awaiting rescue. The rescuer was none other than our younger modeller’s Conrail Dash-8, passed on to him from my collection as a Christmas Present.
It was here the next highlight came, in the form of a meet between the Dash-8, and Michael T’s mallet; something I imagine never did happen and may never happen outside of possibly an excursion gone badly wrong…?
After the mallet’s train pulled out, the Dash-8 reversed back onto the main to proceed to rescue the Dash-9, and back to staging. I hope to have the Dash-9 repaired in time for the next meet, provided my lack of care hasn’t caused something too serious. There was one final highlight of the day…
Not as well researched for ATSF express consists as I am with the RDCs, I decided to bring what I believed to be a common express passenger consist of the ATSF. Whether this would be the Super Chief is up for debate, but until I can paint and light all cars (and especially a drumhead), it serves just as well as another freelanced express passenger such as the Essex Belt Limited Chief.
The highlight around this was in the face of some troubling derailments for the other modellers, this train ran every lap without a single issue. I believe I managed to score 5 laps in before it was time to pack up. It’s nice having at least one of my trains run very smoothly for once. We agreed to start packing at 15:00, and much to our surprise (and frustration) we were almost done by the time it was 16:00. You know what they say about it being better to be early than late…
Overall a good day I would say, and an okay start to 2023. My thoughts are with my parents and nephew on this the 16th anniversary of my sister’s passing, and my thoughts are with the group and the individual close to them whom recently was diagnosed with a serious illness.
Please keep them all in your thoughts and hearts for us. Stay safe, happy modelling and hold your loved ones close.
Neal K
DITCHLIGHT #143 – December 2022
The Ditchlight
Thamesiders Physical Meet – Saturday, 22 October 2022
Thamesiders' Physical MeetsThe first arrivals turned up at the village hall around 09:00, and the N Scale contingent was more represented this time, where the priorities were also switched in terms of essential maintenance. Some new end boards were measured and installed for the HO, allowing the yard to come together in pairs instead of stacking atop one another, reducing the risk of damage to track and easier transport to and from storage.
As noted previously, we were able to get the majority of both layouts in the storage solution so it was a case of transporting the modules from the solution to the hall. We tend to stack the legs and braces for EBL on a single trolly, and use the sack barrows and second trolly to transport the modules themselves.
The HO’s setup was complete around 11:30, with the first trains running shortly after despite the setup not being fully complete. It took a moment to catch up with proper operations, but once done it was mostly seamless.
The N Scale for this meet returned to the classic L shape setup with Taggart, and the bridge corners. EBL continued with the 7×2 setup, and with many thanks for Paul H’s efforts, we now have a control panel which supports EBL’s signals and points again.
The N Scale saw a big reefer train, an RAE express service and some interesting Santa Fe / BNSF freight services. The Essex Belt Lines, once up and operational, saw two express passenger consists, two medium freights and a Southern Pacific commuter.
As I’ve understood there were a very little issues with the N Scale, and a couple on the HO. Noteworthy of course was the dead spot on Ethanol again; it may take a proper maintenance session to get that right but larger wheel-based engines or multi-engine consists may have a better time over this area until then.
It was also noted one of the bridges is loose from its supports. This didn’t seem to affect operations but it was an item to monitor for us, especially when we are transporting the bridge modules across bumpy surfaces and slopes between the hall and storage.
We broke for lunch at around 01:30pm, making some basic plans for the NMRA Convention next month as well as potentially the next physical meet. There was also brainstorming for the Summer Open Day next year, so I will making moves on that shortly!
We started breaking down EBL at around 03:15pm, successfully finishing up just 10 minutes past 5. The N Scale was much quicker, but the gents kindly helped us with packing. Teamwork certainly makes the dream work…
My personal highlights for the day was getting to test my newly-converted GP9s, one of which worked flawlessly, and the other not so much. I also was able to try out my MTH F3B in a basic El Capitan consist (with admittedly more Express Baggage and RAE cars than passengers – Could this be prototypical? After a certain time, who knows?)
Glad to be reminded, you’ll see I was able to get some shots in of the N Scale; my usual bias for the HO is hopefully being suppressed now, especially since the layout overall is progressing so well. Admittedly, it’s hard to multitask when it comes to trains, and reaching over the scales takes effort as well as the other Thamesiders’ reminding me.
A wonderful time as always; we had one visitor and several inquisitive lookers. There was understandably less compared to last month’s because of my slip up with the parish magazine. I definitely sent it this time; it’s due out at the start of November.
Happy modelling everyone, and see you next meet!
Neal K
Thamesiders MRG 