It was Easter Sunday on Phillip Island. There were to have been nine of us, but in the end we settled for seven. David and Derek phoned through to say that they were about to do a U-turn and go home to play trains.
Those of us that had less traffic to contend with ran trains in a manner that reminded me of our dog - rushing hither and yon with great joy and no purpose. At one stage Geoff the Pres and I re-enacted the great race to the North. I had the A3 Flying Scotsman with a rake of blue Pullmans while Geoff had his Dutchess class City of Bristol with a rake of BR coaches that would pass for LMS at first glance. Geoff the Sec commandeered the 80 class with the track cleaning box car and trundled around with definite purpose. Dale explored every siding on the branch line with various British outline diesels. Jack ran his battery powered diesel on the main lines with fewer incidents than usual.
John Falls
As the afternoon rolled along Greg had set up the Raspberry Pi, and various associated boxes of electronics and helped Geoff the Sec, Dale and myself to install JMRI Engine Driver on our phones. Being Pres, Geoff the Pres had to go bigger and better, so installed it on a tablet. It is not altogether a silly option, the wider spacing makes it easier to touch the thing you want, and avoid the one next to it. Engine Driver is easy to use, and it is a joy to be able to walk around without being restricted by the length of the cord on the throttle. At this stage I still prefer the small Digitrax throttle for shunting work, (because I don't need to look at it, and don't need to walk around) but it is early days, so there is plenty of time to change my opinion.
Our thanks to Judy for the Easter Eggs at smoko, (I'll bring something next week) and thanks to Alan Droscher for the snags. The Seniors had held a successful garage sale on the Saturday, and a few snags were all that was left from the catering. He had also called by earlier with serried ranks of family in tow to show them what we get up to. (Rushing hither and yon with no purpose, in case you had forgotten).
See you next week for a spot of gardening, er, scenery work, and there are always a few more wires to connect.
Peter
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