In a change to the advertised programme, work continued on Lenham while Sarre was put up in place of Edington in order to enable those who had brought in BR and SR stock to run it on the smaller layout instead.
As people arrived the number of workers on the Lenham track gang quickly rose to eight of us crowded around the two boards and all desperately trying, and mostly succeeding, not to get in each other’s way. David L and Paul W concentrated on fixing rails, others threaded chairs on rails and others cut and stuck down sleepers. The sleeper pattern was dictated in the main by Templot but for points and crossovers an independence of spirit prevailed as we adopted a freestyle approach.
David Ho, Jackie, John P and others operated Sarre for lengthy periods. John P had brought in quite a bit of his post-war stock and together with other people’s the layout was extremely well populated for a Col. Stephens’ line. Locos in evidence were Ross’s Terrier, John P’s R1, Bill’s LSWR tank and John D’s foreign looking oddity. There also seemed to be a number of small shunting diesels.
In the absence of Geoff and Roger, John B as first reserve deputy Treasurer oversaw the taking of subs while David Ho kept us all supplied with teas and coffees. As we packed up at the end of the day, we left out all our electrical equipment for PAT testing. Originally scheduled for today this will now hopefully take place tomorrow morning (which turned out to be rather over-optimistic – Ed). Chris M
