25 - 6 - 2017

Hi All,​

While I have your attention - next week we ​will bee home visiting at Inverloch. If you will be going, and have not already done so, please ring David to say ​​ if you will be there, alone or with partner.

If I still have your attention, a few words about access to the clubrooms. We now have a fully compliant door lock fitted to the Train Room.

As for the boots not on the ground today, Geoff the Pres and Judy sent their apologies. ​ Boots actually on the ground comprised Geoff the Sec and Rod, who have now succeeded in negotiating the crossovers at the entry to the high level station, and laid track through to the double slips and points at the other end. Dale and David continued to raid our learning curve for suitable points to allow this. I do like those large radius points, they really look the part on the main lines. Alan helped wherever he was asked to, and handed some problems on to Geoff the Sec, at least I think he did. Boots sometimes on the ground and sometimes in the air belonged to Derek and Greg as they rolled around fixing wires under the baseboards - and mutttering arcane incantations about led strip lights and suchlike. Speaking of things electrical, we ​have ​ agreed to arrange to get RCD protection for the circuit breaker box in our room, and some more overhead lighting installed.

Helen watched carefully, and brought along a sort of jam roll creation. It didn't have jam, but had other stuff and tasted yummy. She told us that she liked to experiment. So it is official - we are guinea pigs.

Station names are starting to be allocated. The lower main line station will remain as Stanley Creek. The upper main line line station will take over the name of our old high level branchline station and become simply "Sayer", without the heights. Similarly, John's Falls Junction will become "John's Falls" since it will no longer be a junction.

Sayer will include loco servicing facilities. As a follow up to last week's remarks about branchlines and turntables a number of comments came forth. My own thought was that every VR branch line had turntables, because VR had few tank engines, and used these almost exclusively for suburban traffic. Simon contributed that LNER and its predecessors in Scotland had turntables not only for the locos but also to turn carriages to even out the wear on the wheels because all the tight curves were in the same direction. And Southern Railway turned their carriages to even up the rate at which the paint faded on their predominantly east-west tracks.

Which brings me to the attached photo I took eleven years ago on one of the FNQMRC member's layouts. Ray models the Southern Railway, because he used to live in South London. His loco service depot remains the best I have ever seen in model form. Any one familiar with London will pick the outline of Battersea power station on the left of the photo. To my right as I took the photo is a miniature version of Waterloo Station. It had four dead end platform tracks. When a train arrived, the main line loco was trapped until the station pilot loco hauled the empty carriages away to their own siding for service. The main line loco could then back out and head to the area in the photo. Departures also required the use of two locos. Ray ran a lot of passenger services - both main line and suburban outside third rail EMU - because that's how it was on Southern, the only one of Britain's big four lines that made more revenue from passenger services than from freight.

We don't plan anything on quite this scale for Sayer.

See you in Inverloch next week.

Peter