Felixstowe Area “N” Gauge Group
DECEMBER 2019 NEWSLETTER


MEMBER'S ROUNDUP

Trevor - Exhibition 2020 – Breaking news
As many of you know we have been unable to secure the Methodist church for future exhibitions as they no longer hire out the main part of the church on Saturdays.
We have been investigating a number of other venues. We have now booked the Trade and Labour club in Walton for Saturday 13th June.
They have a large room ~13x17m, which gives us a very similar floor space to the total available at the Methodist church.
We need to discuss further with them regarding how we handle catering for exhibitors / visitors.
There are plenty of tables / chairs available and there is a car park with ~60 spaces and buses pass by.
The hire cost is lower than other venues looked at (including what we have paid the church in the past) so financially low risk.
The shape of the room is also more flexible in terms of floor planning for the exhibits.

Peter - As you may know, I set up the Felixstowe Area N Gauge Group Facebook page a while ago.
It now has 274 page "likes" and is regularly viewed by a lot of interested people.
Perhaps if you have not yet had a look give it a go and post something about your layout or other news.


ARMY PROJECT: by Trevor

As most of you know, I have built and been displaying a pair of modules featuring an army stores depot.
Whilst this is based in late 50’s / early 60’s (mainly due to style of buildings and locos) I do run rolling stock from the WWII period along with a number of vehicles from that period.

At shows I get a steady stream of questions about the various models, so thought I would write an article about the sources etc., plus what this might lead onto.

Regarding rolling stock I started off with some LMS / WD bogie flats that were produced in WWI for the transportation of tanks.
These were initially available in train sets produced by Farish (4F + 3x flats + tank loads). They were a bargain price of <£90 and I managed snapped up a couple of sets.
The locos were given BR 50’s marking, but the flats left with their WD livery.

The n gauge society produces a couple of kits for WWII war department wagons. The Warwell, which were built to carry tanks and warflat to carry smaller vehicles like armoured cars.
However, these were out of stock but I was fortunate to obtain some unmade kits second hand from Ray. The kits have subsequently become available again and I purchased some more at the AGM this year.

Both kits are very simple to construct and use one piece moulded bogies which you simply drop the wheels sets into for a free running set.
Depending on the curves on your layout some mods might be needed to increase bogie swing and you need to ensure clearance between the wheels and bottom of the wagon.
The couplings are a NEM pocket type and a little fiddley to put together, and more rigid that the Peco pocket type.
This and the lack of weight in the model means they are prone to derailment, so you really need to either add weight to the wagons (not much space underneath) or run with loads of sufficient weight.

I also have some other wagons from society kits including Lowmac and well bogies that can also be used with army vehicles etc.

The other thing I needed to kick the project off was the availability of suitable vehicles. Initially Oxford Diecast came to the rescue when they started to release a series of British WWII vehicles.
These have been expanding and now include; AEC Matador, CMP truck, Bedford MWD, Austin Tilley, Daimler Dingo and Churchill tank.
I also repainted some 50’s lorries and Oxford now make Green Goddesses.
I started looking around to see what else might be available from other sources and found there are models available in 1:144 scale, which although slightly larger are close enough.
Revell produce a kit of American WWII vehicles which include a Sherman (what Warwells were built to carry) M8 armoured car and 6 wheel truck; these are simple kits that make up into nice models and cheap at around £1.50 per vehicle.
There are some resin cast models available and I’ve just bought a couple of US army staff cars.



Revell US army trucks.
Right hand model is the standard kit (with added driver).
Centre has been converted to a water tanker and left hand to a recovery / wrecker version (found a picture online).



Society Warwell with Revell Sherman tank. Needs some decals and straps to tie the load.



Society Warflat with Oxford Austin Tilley and Revell M8 armoured car.



Society Lowmac with Oxford Bedford MWD.



Farish WWI WD flats with Bedford MWD.

So what next?
The Revell US vehicles originate from a kit for a US medium sized landing craft.
Revell also make a couple of WWII navy vessels (Corvette & Destroyer) and you can find some small landing craft kits, all in the same scale.
I’m therefore looking at modelling a small fishing harbour which is being used for preparations for the D-Day landings.
A section of quayside with a slipway to load landing craft, plus a couple of sidings for trains to drop off vehicles / supplies.
For loco power an 8F or the WD 2-8-0 would be suitable. It could be built as a diorama or have a simple fiddle yard added.
I’ve already bought the Revell landing craft kit and the Corvette (plus a detailing kit). Both are significant builds, so I’ve also bought and just built a small landing craft kit as a starter.



Trumpeter LCM kit (to be painted / finished) with typical Sherman load.

As to time scales to complete, I’ve no set plan. I currently have a list of ‘n’ things to build including; corner board to insert into current modules, modern image module pair with a container terminal / working crane.
I’m also currently building a new fiddle yard for an O gauge layout belonging to IRMA. However a bit of plastic kit building indoors on a cold evening is very satisfying.


CLUB MODULES UPDATE by Chris

As some of you know Kevin and Chris are building another module for our club’s modular system, but this time it’s a new corner, which has an elevated upper line.
The idea for this is so that we can have longer runs on our shuttled or manual powered top line at shows.
Trevor provided a basic baseboard that he had, and Kevin and Chris set about designing and adapting it to include an elevated top line.



Once that was done, work began on the theme of the module and they settled on a Cornish styled small village along the side on a mainline cutting.



Mike has kindly provided and built the Scalescenes model houses, finishing them in a white Cornish render.
The rear of the corner is intended to disappear off into a wooded vanishing point, blending the model trees into the painted backdrop trees




SHOW REPORT by Chris
Photos by Chris and Mike – we have a photofest this month!

A few of us travelled up to the Peterborough for ‘The National Festival of Railway Modelling’ at the start of this month, this is one of the larger shows in the country and well worth the trip.
Among the thirty-four layouts on display were six N gauge as shown below. Of these the ones that stood out for me were Burnham On Sea (a lovely LMS coastal terminus), Nine Mills (a long well modelled early BR layout) and Yorkshire Pennines (a pretty and packed layout that is fully computer controlled).


BLUEBELL CUTTING






BURNHAM ON SEA












CHRILVINTON ROAD






MACKENZIEVILLE YARD & GLENDALE JUNCTION





NINE MILLS










YORKSHIRE PENNINES