Felixstowe Area “N” Gauge Group
MARCH 2023 NEWSLETTER


NEWS FROM MEMBERS
Kevin – The Open Day 18th March
Hi all, another Open Day, the first of the year, is upon us.
We have a good line-up:
Dave is bringing 3 layouts - his current build, plus Great Street, and the small one he built for his grandson, hopefully being run by the grandson. Good to see youth in the hobby.
Chris and I are bringing our new layout, out for the first time, it’s still an on-going build and sorry its ‘foreign muck’ as it’s an era 1 German.
Another Chris is bringing his on-going build, which will be nice to see.
Another Chris is bringing his diorama.
Lastly the modules, with Trevor’s Army Depot being on show, and our new-ish 3 piece fiddle yard, which is finally sorted.
There will be a second-hand table, so if you have anything you want to sell, bring it along with a price you want for it.
We will have teas making for members, but if anyone would like to volunteer of making drinks for the public, please let me know.
Hope to see you all there on the day.

John - Warley Nov. 23. I've had no response so far from members regarding help at this year’s Warley exhibition. Although November is a long way off, the organisers need information regarding hotel accommodation etc. by mid-March so I have very little time to finalise the details.
If you are interested in coming along, all expenses paid, please let me know as soon as possible.
Thanks in anticipation.

Chris - The Felixstowe N gauge group, March open day is almost upon us, and I'm delighted to be attending with my tiny layout that the B1 and wagon photos were taken on.
I also hope to have another operating project with me, but that's not very advanced at the moment, so I'm not going to give details on that just yet, in case it doesn't progress far enough to be shown.
I don't have one of the smart, blue sweatshirts of the club, but will be proudly wearing my M&GN sweatshirt - please do come and say hello, and feel free to comment, criticise, give praise or point anything that is just clearly wrong!


LAYOUT PROGRESS by Mike
Well, the rebuild of Wookery (now called New Wookery) has begun in earnest! The first fiddle yard has been completely re-laid, and I managed to fit in eight lanes plus some short DMU sidings, so I will be able to load up a phenomenal quantity of trains. I think that the navvies that built it must have been drunk, as some lines are a bit wiggly, but I blame it on using secondhand track. I’ve straightened some out a bit since I took this picture. I’ve made a start on the rewiring – I started with red wire on the inside rail, black on the outside. By the time I got to the other end I realised that there was now red on the outside, so most of it had to be redone



COLLIERY LAYOUT NON PROGRESS by Chris
Unfortunately, It's been a busy month at the day job here, and I've just not had the chance to get anything done on the layout, but after this weekend (one of the only two weekends I have to 'work' in the year), I'll be back on this again.


NEW BOOK by Chris
I can't take the credit for buying this book, it was purchased by my now living in Spain friend, Graham - he buys lots of goodies and has them sent to my address then he collects them all up in a truck when he comes over here.
Well, ok, not a truck, but my wife seems to think that he buys enough to fill a truck!
It's actually quite handy, as when the postie arrives with more goodies, she's never sure if they are for Graham or for me...



Anyway, I've gone off course here a little, back to the book in hand - An Historical Survey of GREAT WESTERN ENGINE SHEDS 1947 arrived here the other day due to Graham having GWR leanings, and I've got to say what a cracking book.
Published in 1972 and sold originally for £3.50, this book of 284 black and white pages shows many sheds around the Great Western region.
It has photos of each shed and a track plan too, along with opening and closing dates, and other information.
The photos are fascinating, so many details of all areas - coaling watering, ash pits etc, it's been my lunchtime reading for a few weeks and I was sorry when I got to the end!


NEW TOYS This is where we picture a selection of member's new models. This month there are a lot!


Grafar Class 37 - BR 37669 WCRC Maroon (new)


Grafar Class 66 - BR 66522 Freightliner Shanks (second hand from a display shelf)


Dapol Class 66 - BR 66623 Bardon Aggregates (as new)


Dapol Class 66 - BR 66705 Golden Jubilee (second hand)


Gaugemaster collection Class 66 - BR 66773 Pride of GB Railfreight (second hand)


Hobbytrain - SBB diesel G 2000BB (rare to get a diesel in swiss)


Revolution trains – EWS HOA hoppers x6


Grafar – EWS HEA hoppers x20


Arnold - DR large Ballast hoppers x8


Fleischmann - SBB Cargo wagons x6


Fleischmann - SBB Cargo flatbeds + containers x8


NEW TOYS (2)
I’ve been spending money like it’s going out of fashion this month! The result is a large array of modern image stock. I’m aiming to model, very loosely, anything that ran in Western Region in the last thirty years or so. I started by stripping everything off the badly made old board from Wookery, and bought a starter outside loop of Kato Unitrack. It really is lovely stuff! There was more in the pack than I could actually fit on a 4’6” board. This meant that I could finally run in the beautiful Hitachi class 800 that I bought two years ago but had nothing to run it on…


This has actually taken over first place as my most favourite train, demoting the Midland Pullman to second place – it is superb.


Graham Farish class 66 Bill Bolsover. Unusual in that it was the only Freightliner to be in blue livery. It was originally in Bardon Aggregates livery, but when they lost the traffic they simply took the Bardon name off and gave it a new logo, without a respray. It was eventually resprayed into the God-awful orange livery, which I don’t think I will be buying any of….


Graham Farish Freightliner Class 70. A real bargain off eBay – until it arrived and was stone dead! After some renegotiation with the seller, getting it for peanuts, I got Chris to take a look at it, and he very quickly found the problem – previous owner had taken the wheel bogies off, and when they replaced them the bent the power pickups. An easy fix, and now a lovely loco.


Graham Farish Freightliner class 90 electric.

Graham Farish Freightliner class 57/0 (weathered)

A lovely pair of Graham Farish class 150/1 DMU’s in First Great Western livery

A Gaugemaster (Dapol) class 153 DMU in GWR livery

Dapol boxed set of EWS class 66 and 6 megafret wagons with Russell containers.
Bought as secondhand from Rails of Sheffield, but was in fact brand new as the links for the ecofrets were still in their sealed bag.

What else have a I bought? Well, a whole load of rolling stock, too much to picture I think - a load of intermodal wagons with container loads, some spinewagons, 63’ wagons with containers, MJA wagons (one of which also needed Chris’s tender touch) and whole load of HIA Freightliner hoppers, some white, some green. One wagon that is worth a pic though….


A Revolution Trains PFA Tiphook with GPS bogies, a real snip from eBay.
No idea when it dates from, but I assume they are still in use….

As you can see, I have fallen in lover with modern image, after fighting the urge to buy some for a long while. The sheer amount of different confusing stock running put me off for a long while. By modelling a wide dateline I’m hoping I can head off the rivet counters saying, “Those wouldn’t have run together”.
And finally, screeching in just in time to make the newsletter….


Five different Mk3 coaches in GWR green. Gaugemaster are bringing out a pack with two driving units and two coaches, due in September but probably next year the way these things go! GWR mk3’s are very hard to find these days, so I thought I’d grab them while the opportunity was there. They weren’t cheap, but I figure the price will go through the roof when the GM pack comes out! To get the five I need, all in one hit from one seller, was too good to miss…..


NEW TOYS (3)
I've had a couple of 'scoops' this month in the new toy department, both courtesy of eBay.


The first was 5 Peco 'Charringtons' wagons, which I wasn't really looking for, but I am a sucker for a nice Private Owner wagon - or rake...


The second was again something I wasn't scouting round for, but caught my eye - an almost new, weathered, Farish B1.
I already have some of these and they are lovely locos, so I thought another would be useful, stuck my highest bid in at £50 including postage, and what a surprise, won it!
It runs like a dream and as the listing said, as good as new!


NEW TOYS (4)
I thought I might reveal my efforts in the retail therapy branch of railway modelling this month, to balance out the more eye watering accounts here and to inform you about a shop which you may well have not visited yet. John Dutfield LLP is a small shop near Chelmsford city centre, just next to HM Prison. It is not straightforward to access as it is in a residential area with speed bumps, but Google will locate it OK - watch the one-way system though. There is car parking space, though not many, but adequate. The shop seems to concentrate on Hornby but it really is a bit of an Aladdin's Cave I found. If in doubt Ken, who runs it, will show you where it all is, but it is very much a case of some here, some there and so on. He had in stock Peco track, controllers, lineside kits and rolling stock. Farish and Dapol engines, coaches and wagons; Modelscene, Scalescene and Ratio accessories and buildings. There were other suppliers of O gauge, Scalextrix and Airfix.


I was very happy with my little haul which is all destined for the module I am building. I was then made more happy by the apparent random discounting Ken made as he cashed up, finishing with a final "you did say NGS Society member - that'll be another 10% off." I recognise this is not your local model shop but it is as good as it gets for me in Colchester, and may be helpful if you are in the neighbourhood.