July Forth and Clyde Area Group

Fresh from our trip North to the Perth Model Railway show last month, the members of the Forth and Clyde Area Group convened at the Almondell Model Engineering Centre for our monthly get-together.  Some 9 members were present: a full compliment of Als, Alisdair, Alistair and Alastair, Graham, Andy, Simon, James, Martin, and for the first time in the flesh Jack.

Mearns Shed, fresh from exhibition, had thrown up some operational issues that were to be remedied.  Below we can see the Glorious Leader, wearing the Optivisor of Office, doing the ceremonial "checking the floor for the bit I dropped!"

There had been some ad-hoc repairs at the show, as at least two of the turnout blades had separated from their operating mechanisms, and Alisdair was hard at work repairing these.  There was some additional building and grounds work ongoing - the beautiful plastikard coaling stage, based on an example on the Highland Railway at Aviemore, had proved to be a little too fragile for show use, and so Alisdair, the architect and master builder of the initial, had beefed up some of the support in brass strip and solder.

Simon had brought along a recently purchased Class 27, yet to be rewheeled, and a rake of coaches that was sent running around ESME's test track.  The loco, and the rake it's pulling is prototypical for Simon's West Highland Line Extension layout, Glenfinnan.  Once it all has proper wheels, of course.

Simon was also continuing work on the Ministry of Supply tank wagons he'd brought along the previous month - these too are destined for Glenfinnan and represent the heavy fuel oil that was shipped to Mallaig for use in the fishing fleet.  Simons ex-LNER Fish vans that brought the produce from the boats back down to the Fish Markets and industry of Glasgow have previously featured in these esteemed pages.

James had arrived with a laptop and some paper he'd printed from Templot and and asked for some help in arranging his file so it printed the way he wanted.  Nigel stepped up to help, and we can see in the photograph below the pair staring intently at the track plan and using the many options Templot allows to make the subtle changes required.

Alistair had brought his supplies and was working on some remedial work on the backscene - this being taken away for further remedial work.  Alistair has also been volunteered to create a backscene for the ESME layout and was taking various measurements and sketches to prepare for this.

James was also working on the lighting - the arrangement back at Perth had involved a strip of colour lights, but the feeling was this wasn't required, so James was remedying this.

Below we see Alisdair hard at work, with Andy and James offering helpful (or indeed, "helpful") comments and advice.

Martin was continuing his experiments with PCB trackwork - this time a B7 Crossover which includes 4 25ft timbers, whether entirely prototypical or not, he had decided to compromise to help improve the strength of the build.  Starting from a templot printout, all of the sleeper strip was down and gapped by the end of the meeting, with the straight stockrails added to each side and the first common crossing ready for soldering.  He did. in true blog-author fashion, forget to photograph his own work.

Jack had brought along some of his first adventures in 2FS, as well as his laptop and DCC programming rig.  He envisages an idealised 1970s scene with DMUs taking up the main haulage duties - he had brought along a modified RTR Class 122 that had been stripped and primed, with the route indicator panel plated over with a cut to size piece of floppy disc!  Martin didn't get any photos of this because he was intent in soldering a common crossing... the Chairman has said he'll have words...

Graham had brought along 2FSed J94 he had picked up at the Association mega-meet at Derby back in May.  He was disassembling it to understand how it all went together.  Hopefully he remembered how he took it apart, and doesn't have any bits left at the end of the process.  That would be unfortunate and this author has never done anything like that before...

And here endeth our tale for another month.  The next meeting of FCAG will be Saturday 10th August.  Details of the meeting, and contact information for the Area Group are in the Association Newsletter that accompanies the magazine six times a year.  We do encourage waifs, strays and the North British Railways modeller, so don't hesitate to get in touch and/or pop by to say hello.  We are a friendly bunch - and welcome modellers of all skills and experiences.