Did the Classical poet Virgil know of the trials and tribulations of railway modelling when he composed the poem Georgics and wrote the following passage?

Sed fugit interea, fugit irreparabile tempus, singula dum capti circumvectamur amore

Which translates to...

But meanwhile it flees: time flees irretrievably, while we wander around, prisoners of our love of detail

Which can loosely be translated into layman's terms as, whilst you fiddle around with the little details you suddenly realise that time has run away with you. Well it seems very much to be a case of tempus fugit since the last blog entry...

Our annual visit to the Midhurst show took place on 5th January this time. This change of date was due to the old Grange Centre being closed in February, with its next door replacement due to open later in the month. Being so early in the year, the variety of layouts and available traders was not as good as previous years, and sadly it had a much lower attendance than normal. We had two layouts due, along with a modelling table, but unfortunately Warehouse District could not attend, so the club flag was flown by Matt and his Wipers, Fish-Hook and Menin Railway.

Fredrichstrasse has seen some progress since the last report. Much of the basic formwork around the trackbed has been completed, and the basis of the two bridges have been put in.

There are some discussions about the tram lines, especially where they cross the river. I quite like the idea of interlacing the tracks over the bridge having seen this method on the metre gauge system in Helsinki the other week.

Yamanouchi Oshika had a short stay of execution following us obtaining more storage space. Sadly, since the appetite from exhibition managers for a 16' Japanese layout has been lukewarm to say the least (I wonder how much interest it would have generated had it been UK outline?), and despite lots of positive comments when it does appear at shows, we have finally decided to withdraw the layout from its final show; which is Rotorail in Fareham on 26th April.

It is available for sale, so if anyone is interested, please drop me a PM.

Finally, we are arrange for an extra club open day to celebrate the club's 50th anniversary. It will be at St Peter's Hall in Petersfield on Sunday 1st June. more details anon...