November 2026 Forth and Clyde Area Group meeting

Simon, Jim, James, Alisdair, Alastair, Chris, Stuart, Graham and Nigel met for our November session at ESME's Almondell premises. No prepared theme this time, just personal projects.

Angus was working on track, somewhere behind his desk fan.  True, the photographer could have moved to one side a bit in order to see what's going on, but you can't have everything. 

James was working on his test track. All very neatly put together. The recessed switch plate avoids damage during transport.

Simon was also working on track; this time the photographer did his job properly. An old-style Association kit, acquired in a bargain bundle at a Derby Expo, was being put together.

 

At the time we had counselled against his bulk purchase, querying his sanity, but there was method in his madness... some of the kits became donors of their rather nice crossing assemblies, here being built into a new formation for his Glenfinnan project.

Simon also had a rather nice pump bottle for liquid flux, which allows him to always have a small puddle of the stuff ready for brushing where required without the risk of knocking over an open jar. These pump bottles are apparently available for small money from AliExpress (a tip originally shared by James, who seems to know his way about the mysterious east). Once you see one, you have to have one.

 

Graham was working (still) on an Association kit for the Farish shunter. It now moves under its own power; no brakes or outside cranks yet. Running-in the single driven axle was the order of the day.

Chris was progressing his Nigel Hunt L&Y 2-4-2T chassis, with much filing of very small bits of etch.

Jim was working on a Cleminson chassis for a Caledonian 6-wheel van (20 built in 1906 to diagram 115) from a modified Lothian Railway Models print. The J-hangars are printed with the solebars; the springs and axleboxes however will be attached to the chassis W-irons and the idea is they will move within the J-hangars as the Cleminson does its stuff.  

It seemed to hold promise, but the pivot points for the chassis were inadvertently given the wrong spacing on the van body print, which will need to be done again. No big deal.

 Stuart was working on terraced houses for his low-relief backdrop.

 

The road on which the houses will sit is at an incline of 1 in 20 and the idea is that the low-relief terrace reduces into the hillside as it climbs.

Alastair was working on track design on his laptop. This does not make for a fascinating photo, so one has not been provided (sorry Al).

Alisdair had a couple of loco projects on the go: finescaling a Farish BR Standard Class 4 tank chassis:

and continuing work on his Highland Big Goods. The photographer messed this up too and forgot to take a shot of the loco. This is the tender drive, which as you can see has been built out of focus. Oh well.

Nigel was working on wagons from kits of various origins.

 In addition he was, as usual, generously sharing his DCC expertise.

Next month the meeting will focus on a a Show and Tell session, hopefully with some differences from today's session, otherwise the blog will be struggling to stay fresh next time! Better photographs would be a start...