Our theme at Badlesmere today was on anything not Southern related and after setting up the circuit a whole host of locos appeared.
David Gr made up for missing out on our diesel day the previous meeting and ran his Class 21 Diesel hauling his ex LNER coaches. Fred ran a BR Riddles 2MT 2-6-2T pulling an LMS Inspection Saloon and Dave B first ran a Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0 S4 and later an LMS 0-6-0T No.7536. John D ran an14xx pulling two scratch built coaches and John B ran the 0-6-0 Diesel that he is in the process of upgrading.
Then Rob and Roger having taken the theme of the day to heart ran some very non Southern related stock. Firstly Rob ran a Minneapolis & St Louis Diesel and train and then Roger ran his CP Rail EMD SD40-2 Diesel (apparently this has the same innards as the Class 66 we see over here but with a much bigger body) with a long train of Freight Cars as they say in the US of A. American locos and stock seems so much bigger than ours and if we have much more of this we will need a bigger circuit to accommodate them.
Meanwhile on the big table the usual modelling and chatting activities went on with Paul working on the approach to his GWR coaling stage, Roger adding detail to his line side building, John D testing resistance soldering equipment, Martin painting sleepers and David Gr fettling his LSWR Gate Stock coach kit.
David L, Barry K, Bill and Tim did further work on Queen Charlotte Dock getting it ready for the Maidstone show at the end of the year and also getting it DC ready for club use at Badlesmere.
Over lunch David Gr confirmed the final numbers for our Christmas lunch and later went over to the Red Lion with the menu requests. There is a £10 per head deposit for this meal which the club has paid and which needs to be paid back to the club by members at the next meeting.
Fred informed us that he has a number of copies of his book on Folkestone Fossils which he will bring in and if members would like copies they can make a donation to club funds for them. Roger has been asked to help dispose of the railway modelling effects of a deceased modeller in Gravesend. Roger has three large boxes of kits and bits to sort through and will let us know if there is anything there that is of interest to members. Roger also reported on a forthcoming event to be held at Ashford library commemorating the town’s railway heritage.
I asked again for suggestions for next year’s programme. A workshop on air brushing and a running session with Sentinels were two of the suggestions alongside the other ideas previously put forward. If anybody has anything else, they would like to see or do then just let know David Gr or Chris know.
As always David Ho kept us all supplied with teas and coffees until we called it a day and packed everything away and headed off home. Chris
