Hi all,

Fun packed weekend this weekend, despite inclement weather, the GL5 AGM was held at brent house in cambridgeshire, Echills Wood railway held their Standard Gauge gala, which i wandered along to, and today has been busy.

Right, deep in darkest cambridgeshire lies the Brent House Railway, a 5 inch gauge railway, double track mainline with branchline, 3 yards and a 50 lever signal box!

The Yard throat and station approach with the smaller yard cabin

The main Motive power depot, after the BBQ, when most of the locos had been put away

The station platform roads

The upper junction, where the line down to brundall gardens branches off both the up and down lines

The view the other way down the slope, into the station, from the junction. I didnt get any shots of elsewhere really, i'm sorry to say

Its owned by one of the co creators of GL5, which started with a 3 hour conversation about 30 years ago! Hes also the man taking pride of place in his 'signalbox' in the post on Gilling!

Anyway, this weekend was the Annual General Meeting of the GL5, so its always a good excuse to have a bit of a rally! We turned up at about 12, to find a very quiet track. A locomtive shortage because of a poor forecast, meant we only had 8 engines or so, and could have done with a few more. However this provided to keep up my end of an offer i made to the owner, Brent.

At the mainline rally, brent commented that he had been stuck in the signal box all day because as always noone else could run it (it takes a great amount of skill and patience to do a mainline rally manually!) And then went on to muter that it would be the same at his tracks rally for the AGM, so in my infinite sensibility i volunteered to learn his Box!

All 50 levers, block instrument (A real set i beleive) and deciphering and learning which signals are where, and then remembering signalling procedure!

A 2F dock tank trundels past with a pick up freight from Tidsbury yard

The other end of the station, with the wagon storage bunker on the right

They're not as finaescale as the gilling ones but they make for a good sight behind an engine, along with the maunsell coaches and suburban set there.

Familiar to you all i hope, our engine on a freight.

A pair of wagons i have been wanting to see for a while, double bolsters, one of only 4 sets including mine, i beleive in GL5. Good chat with the owner about how he made those!

Again, no 18 Michael faraday runs past on a freight, video below.

Finally for brents rally, the T1 descends the grade with a freight.

So after, the running, the meeting was held, and we all slowly began packing away, we had only taken engine and driving truck, so not a big job fo us. I of course (typically for the hard part!) ended up as the signal man for the frantic activity of signalling all trains in to put stock away! A tricky job with trains of wagons and engines going to and fro. Anyway, our chairman manned the BBQ and the general chater on railway matters commenced!

As if one day of railways wasnt enough, My grandfather invited me over to Echills wood railway with him for their 7 1/4 standard gauge weekend. Its not my usual fair, but hey run reasonable trains of wagons and rolling stock, and it was near so what the heck! Having friend sin the right places, and we also met up with Dinmore Manor (On here, not the loco!). I must say there were some very nice locos there. I only managed a few shots, but i'll put up part 2 with some more froma friend.

A workstained 4F in the steaming bays

A very nice Dean goods, wouldnt make a bad model in 5!

My Grandfathers T1. A beast of an engine, was hardly worked that day with 10 coal wagons!

A workstained Q1 which seemed to spend most of its time in the yard that i saw it!

Right, thanks for looking, hope you enjoy, feel free to comment and I'll put part 2 up tomorrow, more pics, work on the trailer and finally some work on the pannier tank!

Cheers all

Mark