Meeting Reports 2009

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Meeting Report Jan 11th 2009

Postby grovenor-2685 » Sat May 30, 2009 10:30 pm

The Original and Best and Still Hard At It

Sunday 11th January saw another of the regular monthly meeting for the Crewe Area Group. This month it was my turn to act as host so most of the Crewe area crew turned up as for a pleasant afternoon chin-wag over tea/coffee and chocy biscuits, ably purveyed by my lovely wife. As a previous Blog gave an excellent back view of the group I felt it appropriate that on this occasion you should get the benefit of a front view.
group photo.jpg

Talking of lovely, the days main entertainment was provided by Don Rowland's explanation of the production of his model of the Forth Hotel which is pictured here. It seems he has been doing a bit of sub contracting for the East of Scotland 4mm Group's Burntisland layout. This building stood on the quay at Burntisland, having been the Manse before the railway arrived (or at least the middle bit was), then a railway hotel before the fourth bridge and finally railway offices. In expanding their layout it seems Burntisland will be quite a bit larger than its original 18.83 challenge incarnation because this build has a significant footprint in its own right. Quite what a member of the Knutsford East team is doing producing a model for them north of the border is a question that is perhaps best left un-answered, just remember you saw it here first guys. Don enlivened our afternoon with tails of exactly how be built this excellent model with no more than a ground plan, a few ceiling heights and a few photos.
forth hotel.jpg

We also welcomed a new group member, Adrian Prescott. Actualy he has attend some of our meeting before but on this occasion he chose to commit himself by paying his sub. He also brought along a model of an LB&SCR loco in an entertaining mud coloured livery.
adrians loco.jpg

Regional prejudices aside, it looks a very nice job. It is pictured her with another new CLC coach from Dick Petter. Here in lies a tale. The three CLC coaches which run on Knutsford that I produced, like this one, from Bill Bedford kits, made up six inches over width. This one has been corrected, leading to suggestions that I might like to saw my three in half longways. Hum, well see.

My thanks to John Sherratt for the photos.
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Metting report 26 March 2009

Postby grovenor-2685 » Sat May 30, 2009 10:42 pm

Thursday,
Layout Visit for Crewe Area Group

The 8th of March saw the members of the Crewe Area group assembling for our monthly meeting in the very appropriate surroundings surrounding member Dick Petter's magnificent layout. Dick has a most enviable layout room in the properly converted loft of his house giving "all the comforts of home" standards of accommodation in which to enjoy his hobby. The layout takes up a good proportion of the space, so the meeting was conducted in the areas which remain. No lounging in arm chairs on this occasion. Joining us for the day was editor John who had taken time off from his Snoozitorial duties to pay us a visit.

Those who've met the group layout, Knutsford East, at exhibitions may remember that it represents the junction of a proposed but never built branch from the LNWR Crewe to Manchester line to the Cheshire Lines Chester to Manchester line at Knutsford. Dick's home layout represents the other end of this branch where it leaves the main line at Chelford. The plan was that once the P4 Challenge was over and that flush of exhibition invites has died down, Knutsford will takes its place in Dick's loft attached to Chelford. Knowing Dick I'm sure there is a way of doing this but I can't say it particularly obvious how it would all fit in!

Chelford is already well developed but, I'm sure Dick would say, as yet incomplete. Progress has been rather stalled by the need to get Knutsford up to standard and keep it that way. Now that we appear to have a year off from the exhibition circuit, it seem that there are some new green shoots of development in the form of the production of a very workman like set of signals. There is also much evidence of a heroic LMS stock building program. The layout features a two track main line oval which allowed us to circulate a number of visiting loco's and other items of stock for their owners edification and delight.

Chelford is built into its room and is not intended to be displayed anywhere but at home, so the attached photos may be the only way you are likely to get a look at this very attractive layout. That is unless you decide that you are actually resident within striking distance of Crewe and you wish to join the group! Photos by John Sherratt as normal.

March 09 p1.jpg

Editor John Surveys the seen, one suspects he is considering the possibility of a future Snooze article.

March 09 p3.jpg

Chelford Station Buildings look most attractive. No sign of the cattle market though.

March 09 p2.jpg

Just a small selection from that heroic stock building program. The C13 is an interloper which has presumably come up the branch to Knutsford which runs across in font of the turn table.
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Meeting Report 19th April 2009

Postby Will L » Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:20 pm

Say Hallow to Ambergate

Our April meeting was once again at Tony Montgomery’s house. This time we met to have a play with Tony’s latest purchase. He has bought Ambergate.
April 1.jpg

Ambergate way originally built by John Webb with help from his friends in the Leamington and Warwick MRS. It had passed through another set of hands before Tony snapped it up off Ebay. For those wanting more background to the layout there are still details to be found on the Leamington and Warwick MRS website. The picture above was taken at our meeting with most, but not all, of the layout occupying most, but not all, of Tony’s living room. Denise is so understanding.

Many of you will remember Ambergate which was once a regular on the exhibition circuit. The more knowledgeable among you will now be saying, but that was EM not P4. And your would have been right a few weeks ago, but not any more. Since making the purchase Tony has been busy converting most of the visible area track work from EM to P4. Some of us did wonder how he would get on with this. As the track is soldered up on riveted ply sleeper, the plain track was never going to be to much of a problem. The question was, how would he get on with the point work!

To test it out a number of members brought along various P4 Locos and stock, all of which trundled back and forth over almost all of the track work available with little apparent difficulty. This includes the four double junctions on the 15′ x 20′ part of the layout erected. There is in fact a fifth double junction on the complete layout, but Tony was apparently disinclined to indulge in the demolition necessary to get that baseboard attached to the rest of the layout in his living room. Denise is only so understanding. In the event, in terms of track holding this was a triumph.

There are other issues however which may account for the layouts reputation for periods of inactivity while the operating crew looked puzzled. The key feature of Ambergate is that this was a triangular station, a feature fully reproduced by the model. So the layout is one giant double track reversing loop, with complications. The solution to the electrical polarity issues that arise from this track layout is remarkably cleaver, but logically opaque. We spent a happy afternoon sorting out a variety of “what happens if” scenarios when the points, electrical section and polarity controls were all operated together. We now understand exactly why previous generations of operators may have looked puzzled, but in the end we could get locos to go where we wanted and to travel in the right direction, expect for the loco which was wired up the wrong way round.
April 2.jpg

Tony has had a long term aspirations to model Buxton station. He now intends to combine this with much of Ambergate, which is prototypically logical. The whole thing is intended to occupy a palatial railway room to be built in one corner of their garden. He also plans to go DCC which may simplify the electronics a bit but will still pose some interesting electrical conundrums. We await future progress with interest.

Pictures as always by John Sherratt, the second one shows a 4F and a Class C 0-8-0 proving it all works.
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Group Meeting May 3rd 2009

Postby Will L » Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:27 pm

Return to the Central Cheshire Line

For our May meeting we made a return visit to Don Roland's railway empire. On this occasion we were taking the opportunity to play trains rather than do anything more educational or constructive. Alpraham Sidings forms a significant part of the Central Cheshire line, and MRJ reads will know the layout is set up to allow freight to be sorted in a prototypical fashion. Several of our members were busy trying out Don's elegant and sophisticated system for generating random shunting moves (looked like a lot of bits of number card in a plastic cup to me but what do I know).

may 1 v3.jpg


may2 v2.jpg



After being allowed to play happily for some time, we had a sit down to discus our rather hectic schedule of meetings for May/June (see posting else where), our exhibition invites for next year, and also the possibility of moving our meeting reports from the S4blog to S4Webforum. On this last item we seem to have got what we wanted and more!

Photos as always by John Sherratt.
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Meeting 31st May 2009

Postby Will L » Sat Jun 13, 2009 11:21 pm

Visit to Retford

Most of us, but regretfully not me, spent a very pleasant day visiting Roy Jackson's Retford down in sunny (well it was that day) Gainsborough. Yes I know it's EM but it impressive anyway or so I'm told. Along with the Retford as the main attraction, Blakeney was also on view.

As I was off doing family things a long way away, there is little more I can say about the day but here are a few Photo's (by John Sherratt as usual) to be getting on with.

Retford 1.jpg


Retford 2.jpg


Retford 3.jpg


Retford 4.jpg


Retford 5.jpg
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Meeting 20th June 2009

Postby Will L » Mon Jun 22, 2009 8:50 pm

Crewe do Millhouses

millhouses3.jpg


Our June meeting was another layout visit. This time our host was John Brighton and the layout was Millhouses. And yes that is EM, again, this seems to be becoming a habit. Eight of our members braved a crossing of the wilds of the Pennines to get to Sheffield where John and his team (confusingly labelled Crew on their badges) made us very welcome and instructed us to play trains. Which, after a very welcome buffet lunch and suitable liquid refreshment, we did.

The layout represent Millhouses on the Sheffield to Derby main line as it was for pre Beeching British Rail Midland Region. The prototype, or what's left of it, is only an short walk away down the hill. John freely admits the layout is very much a work in progress, so while not fully developed scenically, there is a long run of 4 track main line passing through the station and its associated yards. All this served by extensive fans of point controlled storage sidings for the main line through services, and supplemented by cassette based storage for all the smaller local services which run back and forth through Millhouses.

John is a well know professional loco builder and the products of his industry are on the layout in abundance. How nice to run a model railway where the loco's start reliably and run smoothly. The real point of interest for the Crewe group, who are largely still in the DC dark ages, is that all this extensive railway is DCC controlled. I have to report that it all runs very well. Smooth and controlled scale speed running was the norm. These days it would be wrong to say that operating a large layout on DCC was a revelation, as we are all familiar with what it is supposed to do. What was clear was that on this layout at least, DCC worked as advertised. The quality of the running was excellent. Sending the lengthy mineral train round the full length of the layout, at an appropriate scale walking pace, left plenty of time to pop out for a cup of tea while you waited for the train to turn up back where it started, and you were confident that it would indeed return without any further intervention from the driver or anybody else.

Unlike our recent visit to Retford, Millhouses was definitely a hands on experience. This required you to get to grips with the button covered thing which passes for a controller. It was a bit daunting at first, but we all soon had trains running, although stopping them again sometimes proved a problem until you'd got the order of the faster and slower buttons clear in your mind!
millhouses2.jpg


Having been given a brief explanation of how it was all supposed to work, and the opportunity to get a feel for running a loco back and forth, six drivers were each given a controller, a train to run (N.B. there are only 4 running lines) and told to get on with it. There was a published timetable in which each train to be run had a path. Each train was described by a card which tells you what the service it was, which stock made it up, where it was supposed to start from, were it was goes to, and, if not immediately obvious, the rout. The cards were numbered to suggest a running order but this suggestion did not always work out in practice, just like the real thing! Rout setting in the fiddle yards and on the station yard ground frames was the drivers responsibility, but the points and signals controlled by the station box are controlled by a signalman who's word is law. After that you just dial in your loco's number and drive in accordance with the signals, where they existed and worked, or like a tram driver on line of site where they didn't.

Things went remarkably well all thing considered. Most trains ran much as intended. One service was worked by the wrong set which then need to be returned from whence it came, a move definitely not in the timetable. There was a Diesel Multiple unit which was a definite ringer as it had been programmed to respond very slowly to the controls, stopping that at the right point on the platform was tricky. The Thames Clyde Express suffered from a unexpected diversion when somebody failed to return a ground frame point to normal after use. And the pick up good, which was required to cross and recross the running lines was still only half way through its programmed movement when everything else had been and gone.

millhouses4.jpg


millhouses5.jpg


We all enjoyed ourselves immensely. Thank you John.

John Sherratt being absent, for once the photos are mine.
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Metting 12th July 2009

Postby Will L » Fri Jul 24, 2009 10:29 pm

This is Crewe or P4 in the sunshine


Our July meeting was held at Tony's house and was actually an excuse for us all to turn up and admire his newly finished extension. We all felt the newly revised kitchen/dining area presented real possibilities if we need somewhere else to put up Knustford East.

After that all eleven attendees retired to the garden and enjoyed a good chin wag in the garden in the sunshine.

july 1.jpg


We did conduct some business and the program for the next six months was sorted out. Just as soon as Group Coordinator David publishes the newsletter and reminds me what we all decided, I'll produce publish details here to.

If you inspect the bottom right hand corner of the photo above you will see evidence that real modelling has been occurring and was discussed and admired.

july 2.jpg
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Re: October 2nd/3rd 2009 Manchester Show

Postby Will L » Mon Oct 26, 2009 9:45 pm

The return of Knutsford East


Not really a proper meeting, but still worth a report.

As a result of the illness of the owner of one of the booked layouts, and at not much more than a months notice, Knutsford East got a surprise invite for a second year to Manchester. No we weren't in the guide, particularly if you let the paper erratum insert drop out unnoticed. There were a number of people who stood in font of the layout looking puzzled and leafing back and forth through the guide!

Things had changed a little bit from last year. Dick had rustled up a new lighting rig which was a big visual improvement on the rather haphazard looking arrangement that preceded it. The light levels were better too. We were going to have a layout meeting in mid November to try out this new addition, and also check that everything was still working to order as it was about a year since the last outing. As it turned out, with the exception of one set of point blades and one coach bogey, everything was working well. The slightly sticky point plates just needed careful watching. The coach bogey made itself known in a distressingly public place centre stage. As a well known and previously good performer, it was forgiven the first time and deleted on the third. Presumably we won't need that layout meeting then.

Apart from that, and a couple of loco's that started to get grubby and a bit hesitant, it all ran well all week end. Another change was the introduction of a third main line coach rake which, given no commensurate increase in the number of fiddle yard cassettes, gave the fiddle yard operators a few new challenges. The icing on the cake being that one rake is one car longer than all the other trains. This requires a specially lengthened cassette, one of which is provided at each end. Making sure the long cassette was available when the long train arrived just made the problems more interesting. This may account for why it is not unknown to see trains standing at Knutsford waiting for a signal to clear. It's not just us showing off the working signals!

Because of the short notice, Don's Loco's weren't available for use. This meant the motor train, which runs up the LMS branch, was without its normal push pull fitted coal tank. So the substituting 2P and 3F just had to run round the coach on arrival. Yet more complications for the fiddle yard operator and I don't suppose many people noticed the trouble we were going to!

The other notable event was the first appearance of John Sherratt's Pom Pom which has subsequently stared in MRJ 194. I am happy to report that, on its first time out, this loco ran reliably and well all weekend. Proving it worked as well as it looked. Pictorial evidence follows, just for once this is my picture not one of John's.

So now it's back to that CLC full third coach and C12 promised for the "next exhibition" which I fondly imagined at the time was going to be in Stafford next February.

pom pom .jpg
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Meeting 11th October

Postby Will L » Fri Nov 13, 2009 4:57 pm

Ambergate Revisited

The objective of our October meeting was to help Tony S who, you will remember, has purchased the Ex Em gauge epic layout Ambergate, and is in the process of converting it to P4. See the meeting report for April. I was so unfortunate as to be unable to attend but I have finally managed to pull all the threads together for a meeting report.

Best to let Tony himself explain the backgound.

"Whitebridge Estate, lent me an industrial unit of about 5000 sq ft, free of charge, Tony W, David and I moved all the boards in and started assembly on Friday evening, we spent about five hours on it and had the triangle assembled.

On Saturday we finished the assembly and David and Tony started trying to work out the controls, while I started de-bugging any track and wiring faults. John Sherratt turned up and started on the photographs, Phil Ryder came and helped out.

On Sunday we were getting close to running trains all over the system, but anomalies still cropped up, Don and Bill arrived followed by John Brighton and a couple of friends, John made the following video

We had a few wagons that were not behaving which sort of spoils the video for me. Phil Ryder turned up again and his 9F was briefly tried, I was not aware of its performance. Dick arrived with his 2-6-4t and a passenger train, its road holding was much better, but did show up one or to tight spots, which still need to be resolved. At 4pm on Sunday we started to take down, thanks to Tony, David, Bill and Dick for their help.

Great fun if tiring I look forward to the Landlord giving us another chance."


The Video has already been posted here viewtopic.php?f=23&t=603 and gave rise to the thread on over thickness wheel centres which were implicated in the running problems encountered.

I'm sure we enjoyed the video when it was first posted, in particularly the section devoted to David Enjoying his lunch!

I also have the following written report about the weekend from Tony W which I have inter spaced with photos by John Sherratt.

"The Ambergate Challenge

Fri 09/10/09 19.00

The yellow of the sodium lamps reflected in the puddles as the rain streamed from the sky. A large van backed up to the door of a industrial unit somewhere in Staffordshire, a blaze of light as three shadowy figures slipped inside then the light extinguished as the door was quickly closed.

Well that’s as far as my attempt at a literary career goes, stick to the day job, I think. Friday night was a bit like that though as Tony M, David B and I commenced the challenge of erecting Ambergate in its entirety, in its new P4 guise and getting a train to run on every piece of railway for the first time. We had had a go at it in Tony’s living room a few months previously but then we didn’t have a complete layout.

So Friday nights challenge was to remove 14 – 15 large boxes (I never did count them fully but there is quite a lot) from Tony’s workshop into an unused unit that Tony had secured for the weekend. The next challenge was to understand, following the instructions that came with the layout, how the baseboards went together and how the trestle legs fitted underneath. The impression I had of it was that it is a very well thought out piece of woodworking everything dovetails together perfectly. Needless to say there was quite a lot of crawling about underneath always hoping of course that nothing untoward happened and you ended up sandwiched between layout and a very hard concrete floor.

After five hours of hefting chunks of layout we had managed to get about one third to half of the layout up. We felt then that we were on a bit of a roll as we hadn’t expected to get that far. But as it was by now midnight we called it a day ready to reconvene the following morning.

Saturday 10/10/09 10.00

Saturday morning dawned bright and fine after the previous nights rain. The three of us arrived at the unit joined by another member of our group Phil Ryder. With there now being four bodies the rest of the layout was assembled within two hours and then more crawling about underneath to get all the plug couplers in their respective sockets. Here, I will have to say that it is a testament to Tony’s hard work that we had a loco moving within a few minutes of applying electricity. But then we had to start fault finding and checking alignments that Tony couldn’t check etc until the layout was erected fully. We spent the rest of the day on this activity and believe me some of the faults were very difficult to find including one memorable one where two pins had pushed back into the body of a coupler and weren’t making contact (good hour that one). While all this activity was going on, David B was busily trying to work out how the panel operated, what the LED indications were for and how the fiddle yard controllers interacted with the main panel. It was due to David,s tenacity in this respect that we were able on the Sunday to have a reasonable running session. Of course Murphys law states that you will always find the instructions on how to run the layout a few days following the session!

resized_IMG_8199.jpg


Saturday at five o clock we decided we had done enough for the day so retired to our homes dusty (from rolling around on a concrete floor) but very pleased with our efforts.


Sunday 11/10/09 10.00

The big day, where the group convened to attempt the running of trains on Ambergate for the first time in quite a few years, I think and certainly the first time in its P4 guise. We had quite good turn out for the meeting with during the day about 10 members turning up (it was an open, drop in session come when you want for as long as you want but bring your own lunch) plus we were honoured by the presence of John Brighton and two of his friends as guests. I mention John because he has taken the cracking little video, with music posted above.

We did spend quite a bit of time again in the morning aligning and fault finding this can be seen in the video. But I have to say we did manage to get a train round most of the layout and a locomotive round all of it. I think we could have done with having it set up for a further week to iron out remaining bugs and we all could have done with investigating the cause of some of the derailments which were nothing to do with Tony’s track alignments invariably.

resized_IMG_8348.jpg


So did we complete the challenge I would say a resounding yes. A most enjoyable weekend, a very big thank you to Tony for organising it and to all those of our group who were able to attend thanks to you also, I think on the Sunday we must have had enough locos and rolling stock to have done an exhibition! Mind you there were quite a few livery variations so maybe a bit more thought about that.

resized_IMG_8353.jpg


Finally if you skipped John’s video please give it a go as unfortunately one thing we have realised is that Ambergate will not have any more public airings as its next destination is to be set up in Tony’s purpose built accommodation. Unless we can persuade him to have another weekend that is…………………"
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Meeting 1st November

Postby Will L » Fri Nov 13, 2009 7:18 pm

The Crewe Area Annual Lunch

This is our now traditional pre Christmas event. The venue was, as usual, the Crewe Arms which is cheek by jowl with the station. In fact if you stand on the north end of platform 5 you can see in the window of our dinning room! Though most enthusiasts usually prefer the south end of platform 6 as the view (of trains) is better.

We had a very good turn out, there is not much business to report but I do have a few photo's. As always at this event we had the company of our ladies. My apologies to those members who attended but have somehow escaped being recorded here. Those with a talent for faces might wish to spot the S4 luminaries and assorted editors included here.

resized_meal 3 TT&P.jpg


resized_meal2 D.jpg


resized_Meal1 J&D.jpg


resized_meal 4 JJB&T.jpg


resized_Meal 5 M&R.jpg
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Meeting Report 06 Decmeber 2009

Postby Will L » Mon Dec 07, 2009 12:23 am

The Mince Pie Meeting

As traditionally dictates, our December meeting is held at Tony W's, mostly because excellent seasonal goodies (see blow) replace the otherwise ubiquitous chocolate biscuits that come with the copious tea and coffee expected at Crewe Area Group meetings.

Apart from eating mince pies the December meeting is also about holding an AGM. A very good turn out of 12 members (out of 14 currently) chatted on for some time about modelling and railway topics various, wondered at the efficiency of people able to produce Christmas Cards this early in December, or generally drank hot stuff and ate mince pies until David finally managed to call us to order.

Our AGM's are not hugely formal, only David had an agenda, which makes sense as he does chair the meetings, and some of us may not have remembered that an AGM was to take place. But it mattered little and sooner or later we finally got down to addressing the serious business of the day. From this we gathered that even after continued expenditure on Knutsford East, we still had enough money, and that as a result the yearly subs (currently £5) were still adequate for the task. There followed a delay while assorted people produced £5 and handed it over. We also leaned that we have three exhibitions to attend with Knutsford next year starting with Stafford in Febuary 6th/7th.

At some point there was a second round of Tea/Coffee and mince pies.

Once the reporting was over, we had the onerous task of deciding what to do next year. Adrian got us off the immediately apparent hook by volunteering his home for the January meeting. Then we had various suggestions for visits out, The Foxfield Railway and Pendon were among the venues that came up, and various other people then volunteer to host a meeting. With January sorted David now has plenty of time to produce his formal newsletter which will definitively describe what was decided and which I will then paraphrase and publish not far from here in case anybody else out there would like to come and join us. You know you'd be welcome.

All that then remained was to wish each other what I wish you know, a very Happy Christmas

CAG Dec AGM.jpg
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