snitchthebudgie

January 1954 issue, I think, from a helpful website of UK stamps. Of course, it could have been posted later....

After lockdown, it will be difficult for some of our members to physically get within 1 metre of each other.....

Yes, this looks pretty clear - we'll probably get no better. It will be worth checking again on Monday for the details, but I think it's at least half, if not full steam, ahead.

Exactly. For the many and wonderful people around who follow the guidelines and rules, there will always be a proportion who couldn't care less.

I think we need a careful read of the conditions, fully out on Monday. It may be, according to a friend, that organised covid-safe meetings will be OK. It's casual social get togethers that are the main target. (No MRC raves?)

I sympathise! We had just planned our first ESNG meeting later this month in deepest Redhill. Now back to the drawing board - or at least Zoom.

I use Wordpress and have been quite happy with it. My blog is at esngblog.com, and I have just rewritten the club website on esngclub.com. The free wordpress account will give you several years free blogging. Now I have filled up the graphics allowance, and pay £3 a month for a larger volume and a few more benefits.

Come to Redhill, where we now have platform '0'. At least it is on the 'up' side!

Unfortunately, most venues already need 'long and thin' - or short and thin - layouts to use the available space. Unless you are somewhere like the NEC with one big space, the rooms available don't have the space for very wide aisles - at least at every exhibition venue that I've organised.

So did I! I have a daughter resident in Berlin, and have been an annual visitor to Stuttgart for the N-Club International meet in November. So I enjoyed seeing a couple of favourite places that I probably won't get to this year. Some interesting history, and some good trains thrown in for good measure.

I guess the point is that going to shop AND exhibition doubles - or at least increases - the risk. Some risk in life is always there, but we can try to limit it.

N Gauge SouthEast - 2021 I'm sorry to have to announce that we have decided to abandon the 2021 NGSE show, originally planned for April 2021. This is a long way ahead, and it was not a happy decision, but it actually turned out to be quite an easy one to make. Our new venue of Reigate College were still unsure whether they could host us in April 2021. They will not be renting the college out this autumn, as it will be forming its own 'bubble'. It is possible that this will extend into 2021. They were also planning building works next spring. And of course we have no idea what Covid will be doing by then. The last couple of weeks seems to indicate that 'normal by Christmas' is a little optimistic. It still seems unlikely that all of the UK will have received a vaccination by April, and from the discussions on various forums including this one, running a show with distancing, masks and the like will be difficult - and of course expensive. It is also debatable whether enough people will turn up to break even. Finally, having cancelled this years’ show at very short notice, I, for one, couldn’t face the possibility of having to do it again next April. So, we look to 2022 – Reigate College have been very helpful and they said they hope to see us then! What we will do next year is to hold one or two open days / mini-exhibitions at our usual meeting place in Redhill. Perhaps one in May, a little later than normal, and one in October. We hope that these will work as a day to play trains, and a social opportunity for ESNG members and local enthusiasts. These will be easy to set up - we hope to send out a few invites to exhibit - and cancel if things get bad again.

Model railway exhibitions will never be the same again! Covid has nothing on this....

Usual caveats make it difficult and expensive? Will it all just be too much hassle for us volunteer exhibition managers? The guidance makes clear that the following measures should be considered to allow for safe resumption of business events and conferences: Attendees will need to pre-book and pre-register to attend events
 Contactless registration systems will be introduced at venues to reduce waiting times and limit contact between organisers and guests A digital first approach will be adopted to eliminate the need for physical badges and lanyards
 Paper handouts and gifts will no longer be offered Entrance to event or conference spaces will be staggered to reduce queuing and overall capacity will be limited to ensure social distancing can be maintained Events will be planned around one way systems for visitors
 Spaces between exhibition booths will be increased and aisles widened to achieve social distancing requirements All venues will also have enhanced cleaning procedures, with hand washing and sanitising facilities at frequent intervals


Borjormi, Georgia in 2000. This is Stalin's personal station close to some beautiful forested and ski-ing areas. The multiple unit is about to leave for Tbilisi. There is an interchange with a metre gauge overhead electric line - unfortunately I was working and couldn't get any pictures of the stock there.

Off topic, really, but here's the confirmation.... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53195980

Perhaps the positive thing from the previous comments is the diversity of approaches to our hobby. We all do it differently, and that can only be a good thing!

I've done more modelling in the past three months than the past five years! And I'm an exhibition manager, who has valued this thread, red herrings and all, to get a feel of what people think - in all their extremes.

For railway modellers, the symptom of loss of taste shows itself as a sudden urge to model Kazakhstan Railways in Gauge 3 - or perhaps even the GWR. (Hat, coat, rapid exit stage left and right.)

Thank you, Marc, for your open and honest post. Surely, this is just irresponsible? I assume the delay in cancellation is to try and limit liability for cancellation, or just to hope that the government will say COVID has gone away and it's all right to have an exhibition. We have just dropped to COVID-3 alert level, I see, but that still means there is a pandemic about, and some measures are needed. Doesn't such prevarication just push the risk of loss onto the traders, and the risk to life and limb on to the exhibitors? Whatever the months ahead bring, and we hope that will include an effective treatment and perhaps a vaccine, it is prudent just to write 2020 off, as most people have, and regroup for 2021?

And remember context - statue thrown into harbour = nasty mob. Chests of tea thrown into harbour = brave freedom fighters. All depends who you support at the time.

Dangerous to get involved in this one, but here goes..... I think the Mayor of Bristol got it exactly right. It shouldn't have been pulled down - but it should have been moved years ago. He'd have it placed in a museum - remembering the past but not celebrating it. Don't forget that most Confederate statues were put up relatively recently to reinforce Jim Crow laws and segregation. Good riddance to them!

In fairness, Magnet very kindly refunded premiums for cancelled shows (at least earlier in the year.) But we can't guarantee that this will continue.

So that was you I saw on the news, sardined on the beach at Southend?

Perhaps we could cut out the trains and just have a Zoom exhibition?