Today at Badlesmere we focussed on Diesels and despite a few Diesel fans being absent we had a pretty good showing of them on the circuit. John D ran the D08 which he had recently acquired from Roger who being absent today with a heavy cold was thus at least present in spirit. Fred brought in his railcars; a GWR Flying Banana, a BR four wheel Railbus and a Class 121 DMU complete with “cats whiskers” surely the forerunner of “Go faster stripes”. Ross ran a little Fowler 0-4-0 and a Lima WD 0-4-0 while Steve went to the other extreme running his very large Fell Diesel Locomotive 10100 4-8-4.
We then moved on to the big and noisy stuff as Martin and Andy ran several of their DCC diesels. These included Martins Class 33 D6508 and Andy’s Class 37 6970 “Loch Awe”.
Andy ran his diesels pulling his impressive train of six Darstaedt Mk 1 coaches in Highland livery. While this was going on David Ho and Bill worked on the chassis of Bill’s GWR Pannier.
Over lunch I reminded everyone to get their booking forms for the Christmas lunch back to David Gr before 20 November. If you are reading this and haven’t yet returned your form, you are now too late.
I also asked for suggestions for next year’s programme and whether anyone had anything they would particularly like to be included. Ross asked about the possibility of having a trip out next year. Several ideas were suggested including a day out at the Spa Valley Railway.
Martin is a volunteer there and undertook to explore the options and come back to us with the details.
Ross reported that the K&ESR museum at Tenterden were hoping to display a model of a Southern Railway Class E1/R 0-6-2T but were having trouble sourcing one and asked whether anybody knew of a suitable model.
And last but not least David Ho kept us all supplied with teas and coffees until the circuit was put away and we all drifted off home. Chris
