Thamesiders

Thamesiders Physical Meet – Saturday, 26th August 2023

Thamesiders' Physical Meets
A personal favourite moment – The Super Chief waits at Laxton’s yard limit, whilst a local piloted by Paul P makes its last hop of the day. The SC shouldn’t have been there; mistakes were made.

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.

Paul E’s work in progress with a new board between his reverse loop and the pulp mill modules. Most of the work I noted was around the foam and the back scene this time around; it will be interesting to see how this one progresses.

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.

The general setup of the HO post-lunch; by this time the staging yard would normally have a much healthier compliment of trains. The affects of the late setup is clearly evident.

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.

The Super Chief coming to a stop at Laxton.

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…

The El Capitan taking the turn at AP Tower (the delta junction for staging and Laxton). Despite the issues I faced during this particular run, this was my favourite angle of all the videos I took today.

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 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

The Summer Open House – Friday, 23 and Saturday, 24 June 2023

Thamesiders' Physical Meets, Uncategorized
A capture of the vibe of the morning rush and everyone’s commitment to get trains moving.

Despite an onset of heavy congestion on the A12, we were not dissuaded from our task on Friday evening of getting everything setup and ready for the Open House. Every backscene, building and signal was placed (and sometimes repaired) carefully, and it really showed in the pictures and on the livestream.

We were hoping to get some private running in, but fixing everything up and ironing out issues took priority and by the time we were satisfied, it was 10pm. Most of the attendees would be on the day itself, and it was good to see some faces again, especially if we had only seen them online or last Christmas. We were also very happy to see a member out and around with us following the passing of his wife, and we did our best to make sure he got some well-deserved time in with the trains.

Neal / author’s “Chief” consist moving past AP Tower. Note the signal in the distance; the route to the Laxton branch.

On the big day, since we had the layouts up there was nothing else to do but get trains set up and rolling. Both layouts I believe took off at 10:00, with some potential issues on the N Scale which were mitigated in time for the main rush through the doors.

I had a few minor hiccups on the day for the livestream. My laptop (or me) had disabled the mic jack so there was a brief moment of no audio, but as soon as I found the settings, the sounds were back on. The N Scale’s mic wasn’t in until a little later; I made a bad call in believing the webcam would capture the sound. Then, at around the two hour mark, we were visited by a younger modeller, and he put his YouTube experience into the Streamlabs setup to potentially help us get more hits – We’ll see if that plays out as hoped over the coming months.

The livestream covered a slightly extended view of Taggart and the station for the N Scale, with hopes to move the camera later dashed by a dodgy USB connection I found on the Friday. For the HO, Peach Meadows was on the docket again but this time I was able to turn the camera around to face the opposite direction, but the starting line up I got I believe was a brilliant angle and made the HO look larger than it was. I will need to explore different options if I want to truly immerse the audience and show off both layouts more; possibly with WiFi or wireless options…? Watch this space!

The starting livestream view of the HO
The angle chosen for the N Scale; with hopes to diversify in future as more scenery is applied

I missed my opportunity to take shots of David’s Kootenay Lake and Dean’s On30 and T-Trak modules. I liked the look of all and did particularly enjoy how the On30 was flexible with the curves/junction orientations. It was something to consider with my own plans, especially when taking on the delta junctions’ lessons. My larger and longer term project could benefit from having a mixture of orientations instead of just one set design, and my smaller module plans could also help towards introducing some additional modules to use with the Thamesiders if we ever wanted to branch out further after giving Laxton a show.

The rota was well theorised but I did find, especially due to the early livestream issues and the need to pick up some additional hands from the nearby holiday park (aka mother), I may have missed some opportunities to go above and beyond for the group especially in the customer facing side of things. I think the main worry was ensuring catering was provided and manned, and I believe between all of us and in support of Mr & Mrs H, it was very well manned indeed. I was personally happy to run the tea/coffee job so it was done at least once.

A sense of the numbers seen during the day whilst Michael T’s triplex thunders past Essex Ethanol.

The numbers we saw through the doors I believe comfortably surpassed our reasonable expectations, hopefully bolstering donations and the sales for both the second hand and for Orwell/Coastal. Even if the public had not come, I believe the day was still worth it solely because it gave the Thamesiders a chance to properly setup the layouts to their intended specifications.

The benefits of N Scale defined by a meet between two trains on a double track mainline

Personally, I was also very pleased to have my “Chief” set running laps. It is a few cars, a drumhead and detailing short of the luxurious Super Chief, but It certainly looked the part in my eyes. I didn’t get much opportunity to properly setup any others, but knowing I managed to crack the issues with the recently detailed, populated and DCC’d pleasure dome means I can continue my plans to covert the rest.

The “Chief” streamliner set snaking through Peach Meadows, with the pleasure dome bringing shame on her shabby compatriots.

I did get the doodlebug out for a spin, but the mixed freight remained in the boxes, hopefully to see a proper run another time. In terms of getting some more action on the screen from the HO we did try to simulate passing manoeuvres, and there were hopes to spot cars at Peach Meadows but there wasn’t much drive for it, especially considering Laxton was running switching manoeuvres.

Two Portland & Western GP38-2s have the switching job at Laxton

The cake eating and running concluded at 15:00. 30 minutes ahead of our agreed time but at that point, there were no members of the public present and everyone was starting to slow down anyway. It was unfortunate however to see two members of the public arriving at 15:15, but in hindsight we barely made it to the 17:00 closing time, even with the additional hands. I personally blame the heat – by the time the day was over, my flannel was soaked.

In closing, there is a couple of things to consider and work at least for me. Over the next few meets we can look at what else can be done or what we could do better, but I believe we achieved what we set out to do with the Open House, but whether that would that mean we can start considering something bigger is too soon to tell. Give us time to relax, and catch up.

I hope you all have a great summer.

– Neal K

Thamesiders Physical Meet – Saturday, 27 May 2023

Thamesiders' Physical Meets
Dennis’ CNW opening the N Scale portion of the stream with some track cleaning

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!

Neal’s (author’s) Super Chief consist being pulled by a ABB lash up of F units.

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.

Author’s pleasure dome. It was a troublemaker this session so needs some more attention before it gets anywhere close to the open day.

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.

A CNW heavyweight consist pausing at the station on the N Scale while a more modern coal drag passes by.

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.

Paul H’s most welcomed contribution and personally one of the highlights from today.

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.

Mike A’s contribution pulling past Peach Meadows

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)!

David’s Canadian Pacific hopper train, complete with a cameo of the man himself detecting the audience a few moments before this was taken!

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.

Author’s F Units pulling the mixed freight as Michael T surveys the operation. Prior to this, the train nearly had a run in with Mike’s as both were too long for the sidings, and he very kindly backed up his train and let mine pass. I’ll try to return the favour next time…

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

Paul E’s coal drag on point with a BN Executive locomotive on the N scale.
ATSF Doodlebug from the author; a possible competitor to the RDCs. Note the pleasure dome relegated to the siding at Peach Meadows.

Thamesiders Physical Meet – Saturday, 22 April 2023

Thamesiders' Physical Meets
The livestream setup for this meet. This will likely be the setup for the open house.

This physical meet saw numbers a little thinner on the ground; long drives and the Americana weekend took at least two of our newer regulars. But all was not lost; both the N and HO had just enough bodies to get setup and running by 12:00 at the latest, with time for maintenance and getting the Laxton modules up for the first time since their arrival.

The Laxton modules up and (mostly) running.

The N Scalers elected to have the live stream running, because the HO was mainly focused on the introduction of Laxton with some solid work from Paul P, Paul H and Tom F altering the stand in corner board to fit within the setup, and then fixing the wiring so the power and control busses route through correctly.

This was the first physical meet with the Thamesiders where I didn’t run any of my trains. This would normally have been a weird thing for me, but surprisingly with only a month or so to go, I had a couple of things to focus on and worry about let alone playing trains. This includes making sure the livestream ran on the Thamesiders’ YouTube channel properly.

Paul P’s shark nose units hauling a passenger express past the point future Laxton-bound trains will need to take to get there.

My highlight for this meet was being able to setup all the electronics with only two wiring issues. It’s a positive outlook on supporting Paul H and the group in future and hopefully some more smooth setups to come. Watching one of Tom F’s coal drags move off from the staging yard after you have successfully setup the track power is a nice little feeling.

If anyone visited me and dad/Dennis’ livestream from the Royston & District MRC Exhibition, you’ll remember there was no audio except for on the interchange via dad’s phone. That has since changed now, and part of the main test was to get my new little handy microphones to work. In the picture for post you’ll see the little black tribble-like creature on the cable coming from the (not so 4K) camera. This is the microphone with a little windbreak. Watch this space (or a latter post) to see the virdict.

A view from the N Scale. I highly approved of this. Once you go all the way, there’s no getting away!

We got some good little shots from the livestream of the N Scale, but unfortunately there was some issues around the reversing loop and the control bus which needed the expertise of Paul H to help Dean, David and Paul E to try and isolate and figure out. David’s Arduino-driven reversing loop may see some reprogramming after some sound advice!

Due to the reduced numbers we all started packing up at 15:00 and were all clear by the usual time of 17:00. I’ve been meaning to suggest another double day at some point to the group… But the Open Day I recon will stave off that craving for now.

Happy modelling everyone!

Neal K

Dean’s extra long Amtrak service; she featured on the livestream predominantly and triggered some of the later issues with the reserving loop.

Thamesiders Physical Meet – Saturday, 25 February 2023

Thamesiders' Physical Meets
Dennis’ (large, bottom view) and Neals’ (small, upper left view) multi-scaled versions of the Southern Pacific making moves on the stream

I 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!

Tom F’s unit train – I lovingly called this the “Fast Mail”… Before I saw the reefers.

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…

My ad-hoc interlude message on the stream

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…

My very early Amtrak Superchief

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.

My Scaletrains engine we saw fail last time was now performing beautifully for the camera, seen here at Peach Meadows

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 running his El Capitan consist across the N Scale’s bridge

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

David’s Santa Fe U23 pulling a unit train across the bridge

Thamesiders Essex Belt Lines attending Bishop’s Stortford Model Railway Exhibition on 17th August 2019

Exhibiting

The Thamesiders Essex Belt Lines HO layout will be attending the Bishop’s Stortford Railway Society Exhibition on 17th August 2019.

The HO modular layout will feature the modules for Peveral, OH and Peach Meadows, amongst others – more detail about the modules can be found by following the links below.

Peveral, OH

Peach Meadows

We will be running a range of prototypical trains representing the USA transition period between steam and diesel operation.

The exhibition is being held at Birchwood High School Sports Hall, Parsonage Lane, Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire CM23 5BD on Saturday 17th August 2019 between 10.30am – 4.30pm.

For more details about the full exhibition follow this link: Bishop’s Stortford Model Railway Exhibition