April 2022 Meeting

Marshlink Finescale Area Group (East Sussex / Kent Borders)
GregC
Posts: 13
Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2017 9:39 am

April 2022 Meeting

Postby GregC » Sat Apr 23, 2022 3:26 pm

Marshlink Area Group Meeting 21st April 2022

7 members gathered at the St Mary’s church centre in Rye for our 4th meeting of the year. David Lowe, Ian Moon and Bob Cockcroft were unable to attend and sent apologies.

James Walters brought along several items he had designed and produced on his 3D printer. These included a very nice SECR water column and a buckeye coupling which used a magnet to connect to one of a pair of coaches, making coupling up a rake very easy. Steve Carter brought in a rake of coaches fitted with Keen buckeyes for comparison.

Brian Smith then gave a very interesting talk about his researches into DCC and how it could deliver the range of functions he needed to run his proposed layout. This consists of two sections, one, a dock shunting area with working barges and a crane, operated with a conventional handheld DCC controller and the other, a multi platform station which is to be programmed to operate automatically without operator intervention. To deliver this concept Brian has settled on the Digikeijs DRS5000 multi bus command station and Itrains block control software. He has settled on Zimo and Loksound decoders. We look forward to future updates from Brian on this exciting project.
Part of the system involves coal barges entering a warehouse through semi-circular tunnel entrances. There was a good discussion and multiple suggestions as to how the jute and metal mesh coverings of the original could be replicated.

Bob Cummings then displayed two buildings, a cinema and a station which he had saved from an old layout and proposed to use on his new one. The cinema, in particular was highly detailed and incorporated lighting and a representation of the flickering from the projection box.

Ben Mason brought along his SECR RI class painted in wartime grey livery. This loco is modelled as operating on the Canterbury to Whitstable line with reduced height chimney and cab to negotiate the Tyler Hill tunnel. The loco only now needs a whistle to complete it.

Thanks as usual to Steve who provided the tea and biscuits.

Greg Coady 24/4/22

Return to “Marshlink Finescale Area Group”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: ClaudeBot and 0 guests