News

A New Winter Gauge O Guild Southern Show on 10th December 2022

As has been reported by Jackie Kneeshaw of GOG, this show has now been cancelled because of clashes with other shows near this date.  They are asking for members feedback in planning the show in 2023.

 Reminder:

Our Annual Modelling Competition takes place on 22nd October this year, sooner than in previous years.

There are four categories:

Locos, Passenger stock (including NPCS), Goods stock and Scenic items. Time to prepare something for entry!

Now for something different!
An Austerity tank preparing to haul nothing less than a Pullman train! 

Ross submitted this view of the Wealden Pullman on the K&ESR

Saturday 23 July 2022 – Open Day

Barry K, Bill, Chris M, Dave B, David G, David Ho, Doug, Fred, Geoff, John B, John D.
John P, Paul H, Paul W, Roger, Ross, Steve, Stuart and Tim. and at least 34 visitors.

Well that all went off pretty well then!
Arriving from 9.30am onwards we added stock to the layouts and display stands that had been set up the day before.

The sales stand was populated with so many varied and interesting bargains that together with a huge number of books and magazines they overflowed on to the floor.

David Ho set up the car parking signs outside while I put our A frame at the end of the road to show people where we were.

 
By 11.00am the kettle was on and we were ready to open the doors to the public.

Slowly but surely people started to drift in and soon there was quite a buzz with both layouts performing well, our new demonstration table attracting a lot of interest and the Sales team doing a steady trade.

There were visitors from the Faversham, Ashford and Canterbury clubs and amongst other things we talked about greater communication between our clubs and future shows.

One of our visitors was David Lowe who is a former EKOGG member but left when he moved away. David is to re-join us and we look forward to seeing him at our meetings.

On a sad note, we learnt that former train driver and EKOGG member Colin Smith whom we have not seen since before the pandemic now has vascular dementia so we are unlikely to see him again.
After a lunch time lull, the buzz continued well into the afternoon with a second wave of visitors arriving.

At one point we had a young lad, Oscar, showing John B and John P how to operate Sarre and actually he was rather good at it.

Soon after 3.30pm however things slackened off and people started to slowly put things away before really getting down to it at 4.00pm.

Of course, there is always one as they say and at five minutes past four another visitor turned up and asked if we were still open.
So, all in all a very successful and enjoyable Open Day due to the hard work of all who took part for which many thanks to you all. Chris M

Wednesday 20 July 2022

Today’s challenge was dealing with the heat in our tin shed at Badlesmere.

Fortunately, the near 40C heat of the last two days had abated but by the end of the session it was still pretty uncomfortable.
Upon arrival we set up the circuit for today’s focus on brake vans and discovered that in prototypical style some of the rails on the outer circuit had buckled in the heat wave.

Paul W set about quickly resolving this issue while running commenced on the inner circuit.
Many and various brake vans were on show with Geoff having brought in some Great Western vans and an interesting looking Irish example.

Fred and Roger also brought in some of their brake and parcel vans with Fred running his behind his recently acquired and weathered Black 5.

Not to be outdone Roger had his Class 33 diesel resplendent in Network South East livery hauling some Rail Express Systems parcel vans in red and grey livery.

Then from an earlier era Ross had his Terrier pulling some Rother Valley Railway stock.

Paul W and I got out a section of Lenham and while he and David G amid much deliberation made a start on the pointwork I glued down some sleepers and later helped Ross, Bill and John P in fitting those pesky plastic chairs on to some rail for gluing to the
sleepers later on.
During lunch I ran through the upcoming meetings and discussed the arrangements for our Open Day on Saturday.

Hopefully everything is now in place for this our showpiece event and we will all have a good time and entertain our guests.
After lunch we carried on running the circuit and working on Lenham until people started drifting away as our tin shed continued to warm up, whereupon we put everything away and made our way home. Chris M

Wednesday 6 July 2022

Today was all about preparing Edington for our Open Day and getting operators to refresh their memories or learn for the first time how the layout’s controls work.
After Paul W and Barry K had set up the layout up David G populated it with his S&DJR stock and running commenced.

After a while the session was hijacked by people running diesels, including John D’s Day-Glo green monster.

After it was discovered that the interlopers tended to derail across the point work normal service resumed with proper blue engines hauling the passenger stock and black engines the goods stock.

In addition to this some very interesting four- and six-wheel coaches appeared including some that Dave B had made.

While this was going on various people amused themselves by removing tiny bits of polystyrene, spider’s webs and small dead insects from the layout.
David G and I looked at some material for the Open Day display on Lenham which we will install on the two display panels kindly donated to the club by Fred.

Roger set up a sales table in a partially successful attempt to minimise the amount of stuff he will be taking to
our sales stand at Pett next Sunday.

Over lunch, Tim (in his absence) and John P were thanked for their very interesting talk on modelling buildings on 25th June, and I ran through the programme for July and August.
The Faversham club in response to our circulating details of our Open Day have told us that their show will be held over the 10th and 11th of September.

We discussed whether to re-arrange our meeting on Saturday 26 November as this will clash with the Reading (now Guildford) show and it was decided to defer a decision on this until nearer the time.

Geoff has arranged Public Liability Insurance for the club as we are not covered by the hall’s insurance and is also arranging for our electrical equipment to be PAT tested shortly.
After lunch running recommenced on Edington until it was time to pack up whereupon we put everything away and wended our way home. Chris M

Saturday 25 June 2022

John kicked off today’s Skills session by talking about the different materials and tools he had employed in constructing model buildings over the years. Card, plasticard, balsa wood and plywood in different thicknesses had all been used at various times. In the case of card John had often laminated different sheets (at right angles to each other to avoid warping) for added strength.