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The Newhaven & District Model Railway Club 2019 exhibition is being held at the Seaford Baptist Church Hall, Belgrave Road, Seaford, East Sussex BN25 2EE on Saturday 26th October 2018 from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. The venue is a 5 minute walk from Seaford Station turning left from the station onto the A259 towards Newhaven; it is just past the British Legion on the right hand side of the road. Brighton & Hove buses 12 and 12A stop close by.

The club has now been in existence for 60 years and after some recent turbulent times we have finally found and moved into our own clubroom in a secure location of Newhaven which has disabled access, we have also achieved charitable status, so like most clubs we have bills to pay, please support out show, in turn we support the local community.

Layouts appearing at this year’s show:-

Brankstone from Uckfield MRC, BR(S) 1950-60’s set near Bournemouth on two levels, an MPD and two converging branch lines.

Doug Dale OO Gauge LMS, this is the latest layout from Brighton MRC, 1930’s LMS - early BR(M), set on a Peak District branch line with a limestone quarry.

Eastbridge MPD OO Gauge from East Grinstead MRC, a small depot at a busy junction on the Brighton main line.

Hope Hill from Burgess Hill MRC, a 1950’s model of a branch line off the Manchester to Sheffield Trans-Pennine line used for transferring fluorspar to the Sheffield Steel Works.

Lyndale and Lynwood, two separate OO9 layouts. This shows you how to build a layout in small spaces and still retain some operational interest.

Making Tracks by Newhaven & District MRC, this is the clubs start towards a series of railway modelling courses for club members and the general public.

Portwenn from Simon King, a fictitious narrow-gauge railway halfway along the Northern shore of the Camel Estuary in Cornwall at the end of a line from Camelford; the line being built to serve quarries extracting granite and slate.

Strathmore by Toby, a DCC operated layout with a Scottish theme based around Glasgow.

Upperton N Gauge Layout from Eastbourne MRS, a fictitious location near Salisbury where through traffic from the north, east and south pass through to the west country resorts.

Ventnor & Wroxall OO Gauge, N&DMRC, a model of the end of the Isle of Wight line from Ryde, set from the 1930’s to late 40’s.

Wenvoe Quarry OO Gauge from Adrian Taylor Bognor Regis MRC, based on an actual Cemex quarry in Cardiff

Westfield from Andrew Chatfield, a BR (S+W) small country station on a single track mainline with a small loco shed.

Woody Bay Railway Station from Dave Halstead, N&DMRC, a model of the station on the Lynton and Barnstable Railway

Support also from

Double O Gauge Association

Euroscale Models

Kent Garden Railways

Models U Drive

Railroad Trading

Simply Southern

And not forgetting the Newhaven Club Stand which will be larger than normal this year with a variety of models, track, controllers and model buildings for sale.

What is going on this morning, I noticed 62005 departing from Grosmont with the 37 banking, it arrived at Goathland and then depart south with the 37 still on the back and pushing?

It was a blustery day, a bit of fine rain but it was worth it.

Is this Lewis Nodes?

And the not so good. Mind you in comparison with the USA tank and 80100 this was quite good.

There you go, shunting into platform 3.

In the context of how it was written I'm not sure what costumes had to do with it, Going back it hasn't always been in hall 5. For exhibiting the likes of the NEC, Glasgow, Ally Pally and Barrow Hill (Deltic Shed) must be the easier to set-up, but offloading onto a wagon and being shunted to your location is interesting, a pity that there were no photos of the move.

Oh those exhibitors today have got it easy, drive into hall 4 at the NEC and offload, set-up and then go and park, you had better explain how SS got set-up at Didcot, I seem to remember help breaking it down onto a GW crocodile, how did it get to your van?

But I also find the 'medium sized main line terminus' layout entertaining to watch at shows, and would put Borchester Market in that bracket (not a small branch line terminus), and I would imagine they must also be more interesting for the operators to work.

As one of the recent Borchester team I can answer this. Everything on BM was there for a reason, it wasn't until we reproduced one of Frank Dyers timetables and worked to it that I really appreciated what it was all about. It was so methodical that it changed the perception of how you operate a layout from turn the controller and away you go to being signalman first, bell code exchange with either fiddleyard, set the points, set the signals, set the electrics and away you go. Because you were running in a numbered sequence aside from operator error you wouldn't clash with one of the other operators, indeed you could see 3 locos moving at the same time just with DC. We used a mix of modified RTR and kit built stock, although it was a terminus, aside from the locals most were through trains running through from the ECML to the Sheffield direction, it was marvelous operating some of these PDK or DJH Thompson pacifics, to be on the layout they had to be reliable and operate smoothly and they were, they only had to pull 6 coaches at the most, but this was the split consist coming from Grantham so explains the story, You'd then find that 4 coaches would go forward in the Sheffield direction and the other 2 would be shunted into the carriage siding. Later when the train returned the 2 carriages would be shunted out of the carriage siding by the departure loco and backed onto and coupled up to the 4 already in the platform and away you go. It explains why BM didn't have to be a large town because of the function it fulfilled. Interesting to operate, too right, we had a perfect excuse to shunt stock around, how often do you see that. We mainly used an 08 as the station shunter, it should have been a Drewry 04 but we could not rely on the model(s) we had to be reliable, you slowly pull the stock out of the station up to the shunting limit and then reverse them into another platform across all that arrival/departure pointwork, smoothly, without derailment etc. It could be hard work thought, just the concentration. I'm sure that certain people such as Lord Bytham would come up deliberately for a chat just to knock you off your thoughts. I was operating the GN fiddleyard one time and got into a conversation, a train was about to depart and the senses returned, the wrong train had been set-up?

A couple of times I was lucky enough to be a guest operator of Stoke, once was at Didcot, not sure of the other exhibition but I got into trouble because I slowed a train down for a chat with the signalman, the main reason was that somebody wanted to photograph the model, but hey ho, a bit of a devil really because I did it again about 10 minutes later. You buy the likes of BRM over the years and see the loco articles and there it is in front of you on the end of your controller, it gives a different perspective, aside from the appearance of the locos they do what it said in the article, certainly showed me what my B'mann A1 could be doing but nowhere near as good as a DJH A1. Also helped out with Biggleswade at Sunderland, the latter had its board problems but would be my preference over SS and just over BM in fact. Like Little Bytham, a lovely bit of station modelling.

Down to earth with a bit of a bump today.....................  At least with regard to my speed of building.

 

Nu-Cast V2 05.jpg

 

This is representative of nearly ten hours of work on this old Nu-Cast V2. Granted, by employing a Comet chassis, a fair bit of time was spent on modifications to both, but the fit of the white metal parts was nowhere near as good as the SEF A3 I built last week. 

 

 Nu-Cast V2 06.jpg

 

The spare set of 24mm Markits drivers I had were all insulated, so I've made this one electrically-dead. The motor is a refurbished Portescap - smooth enough, but what a whine! A DJH/Mashima substitute beckons before much more is done.

 

The original white metal lump for a chassis is alongside. 

Tony,

I'm halfway through resurrecting a 1980's Nu-Cast V2, it was originally EM (18.0mm) was later converted to OO and is now going to be EM (18.2mm) but with a Branchlines chassis, have you experience of making this chassis? Also, how does the Nu-Cast model stand-up to present day standards, firebox? It originally had the whitemetal chassis, Romford gear and worm with a D13, it would pull anything you could put behind it. Not sure about using the original whitemetal tender yet, I might be enthusiastic but £50 for a PDK brass tender is not for me, so I might use a B.mann tender with some mods. Aside from the preserved 60800 I can't remember seeing any in service, but a huge fan. Always got to have a good excuse to travel to exhibitions, it was Bournemouth West at P'boro recently, Grantham is down at Stevenage on Saturday week, so will be there and hopefully you will be showing the V2, I won't argue about fixed chassis v flexi chassis for this, a bit of fixed wobble will be good enough for this beast.

Regards Charlie

There were two 313's in the sidings on the north side of Hitchin today, pantographs up so I assume they were in service. Whatever you think of them, back when they first appeared on the Hertford loop they were the best thing since sliced bread, not as much fun as the Brush type 2's but the Craven's were no comparison.........well that's until the autumn and the wrong type of leaves and the fun getting out of Winchmore Hill up to Grange Park. Any slipping and all cut out, I suppose that they must have found a solution, sand or did they do anything about individual motor cut-outs?

The Double O Gauge Association will also be in attendance with their stand.

Is it now "Giant" of steam? I see that the B1 has withdrawn, a no show for the second time after it's aborted trip to Ely the other year.

i saw the current owners son earlier in the year at Railex Aylesbury, he said that the layout had been set-up but I haven't heard anymore than that.

I would repeat what I said in maybe another thread on here about 16.2mm track. the late Frank Dyer of "Borchester" fame built the track for the MRC's New Annington branch in 197i to 16.2mm gauge with 1mm flangeways. Whether or not Borchester was built to 16.2 has been debated on here as well. It's nothing new. 

Borchester Market is 16.5mm, there have been posts elsewhere on RMweb about this, we checked the track with a vernier, nothing less than 16.5mm but certainly some gauge widening. Below is Frank's writing which used to be right above his workbench. Why would he have changed it anyway, he was using stock made to his working standard which came from the 1950's, could have even been some from the 1940's.

Well just seen the real class P 178 on a low-loader going home along the M23 southbound. So does anyone know if there will be access to the loco shed and works at next weekends model railway event?

The modelling weekend is coming up on the 23/24Jun. With the reconstruction work that has been going on at the north end of Sheffield Park loco shed, will the loco works and Atlantic shed etc be open to the public?

Interestingly Charlie, I'm just about to order two more kits, one for an A3 and one for an A4. The A3 will be from DJH (to become MERRY HAMPTON) and I think I've found another Pro-Scale A4 (to become GANNET). Failing the Pro-Scale A4, it'll be SE Finecast. 

So would you consider the SEF A3 too old? I'm just looking ahead to retirement in about 18 months, I've already got a DJH A3 to make, I also picked up an unmade SEF A3 for a possible 60113 conversion although it could be POW 60054, finally decided that they are going to be EM for a bit of a challenge.

So Tony, if you were to start today on building a kit for an A3 and an A4, which manufacturers would you choose irrespective of whether they are still available.

Good to here that Mo is on the mend, did you pay her back for the Mailcoach brake you bought at Stevenage? Charlie

Borchester Market.

Well we had our final (excuse the pun) board meeting last night and dissolved the Newhaven & District MRC Borchester Market Group, it is the end of an era for us but the beginning of a new chapter for the layout as it takes up residency in Lancashire, we have sold it on. If you read back in this topic when I originally went down to Caerphilly to view the layout, the shed door was opened and my eyes went straight to the BM gantry, your then try to take everything in and to be quite honest there was too much, I'm sure that the layout had the same effect on the new owner, he still looked a bit shell shocked when he left. It has been hard to put into words exactly what it has been like not owning but caring for this layout, the bonus was certainly learning from actually operating it, no playing trains here, you are a signalman first, a driver second, certainly learned a lot about sensible "old school" layout electrics. I intimated before that it was a genius who designed and built this layout and I still have not changed my mind. Hopefully the new owner will set the layout up soon, keep it set up and continuously operate it because that is what it needs, having stored it up since the York show in 2016 was not the best thing to do but we had no choice in view of our club and personal circumstances.

So to finish a few photos from yesterdays testing.

Self explanatory, scratch built by Frank Dyer, the signals are still operated by pull cords and the line indicator panels still illuminate and work.

I thought that we had better not show a photo of the Wolf of Baddenoch because somebody might say "another Wolf" so here's the Duke of Rothesay, a PDK kit made, painted and weathered by Ian Forsyth, I'd easily put this and the other A1/A2 variants up alongside more prominent modellers models and would say that overall they are even better. At the York show back in 2016 we used Ian's models of all the Thompson A1/A2 pacific variants, all kit built, all having good haulage power which we didn't need on BM, but we did need then to run well and to shunt forward and in reverse, fantastic.

We used two N2's on the layout, this is 69521 a straight Hornby model and chassis, the other was 69505, photos have appeared in an earlier posting, the intention was that one of these was always filling in for a Little Engines N1, but never managed to get this working properly for BM, 69505 started as a Hornby condensing N2, saw a photo of it in an IA Combined Volume at Grantham, so every picture tells a 1000 stories etc, removed the condensing gear, could never find the correct dome for this loco and still looking to this day, but was made with a deliberately floppy Comet chassis, a flexi chassis to some with a pivot point between the front and middle axle with beams, driven on the rear axle via a Branchlines gearbox & Mashima motor, no special tools or jigs were used in its construction, it was built as a challenge and didn't let us down, especially up and down the ramp to the Great Central fiddleyard where there was some quirky trackwork at the top and bottom of the bank. You could see some rigid wheelbase locos lift their wheels over this trackwork which affected their haulage capability, the flexi chassis models did not have this problem, all driving wheels stayed in contact with the track, so sold on this idea of chassis construction.

What is a B'mann Warship doing on BM, well it is a model that the club did not sell at our recent show and was getting a run. If you operated the GN fiddleyard normally you are sitting there in isolation, you can't see the front but you do have the timetable and it's telling you that the next operating sequence X is a 6 coach departure from BM to the GN fiddleyard hauled by 60113 Great Northern. So there is an exchange of bells with BM, you then change the relevant pointwork and accept the incoming train which operates the relevant signals and via relays locks the pointwork to avoid any conflicting movement. So it's nice when the correct loco and stock comes in. Now although I thought that it was too new I tolerated D0280 Falcon, but took exception when a 4-CEP came through, an HST, a Voyager, 158 and an EWS and DRS 66 have been known to make appearances, I'm an Eastern modeller but have always had a soft spot for Warships, just thought that I would leave some individuals who know who they are with that.

So signing off, there was 7 in the BM team, myself, Ian Forsyth and Ray Warner from Newhaven MRC, Darren Ford (ex Newhaven member now native of Yorkshire, Brian Roper (DOGA), Tony Warmsley and John Leadbetter from the York Ebor Group, a big Peter Sellers raspberry to the lot of you and thanks for your help over the years, we must have been enjoying it for so long to have all kept together. This is a bit like a resignation speech for West Ham United, no won't go there, the owners of RMweb must do it for a reason, there was some chat about writing a book, but RMweb has given us a good platform to put out some of the details about the layout to those who have been interested, so thanks go to Mr York etc. All the best to the current owner and his friends for the future, over to you. 

Don't put all your eggs and all that but I've talked to the potential buyer and he seems genuine and very enthusiastic, sounds like it will go to a good home. It's more than a bit of a wrench for us but needs must, we can concentrate on other modelling projects now. Some of those which were projected for BM such as a C12 and J6 will eventually have a bit of b to b widening carried out, but not too much, others will get moved on I expect. Ian Forsyth is already into making a new BR(NE) layout, Ray Warner is carrying on with his P4 Shrewsbury Layout and I'm into my challenge of a BR(W) EM layout, all the best laid plans and the only EM loco I have is a Peppercorn A2, surprisingly enough its 60526 Sugar Palm, somethings gone wrong with the thinking there, perhaps it visited MR Eils down at the Swindon Plant for testing at some time.

Regards

Charlie

Just a bit of an update with BM, the situation down at Newhaven for club space is not going to change anytime soon and I'm starting to make plans for a house move so the layout has to go. We thought that we had a buyer for the layout a month or so ago but he disappeared off the face of the earth without any explanation, but we have had a further enquiry which we have accepted. So we have just started to clear out Borchester Towers to make space to set the layout up for testing, hopefully it will be next weekend. Here's a quick view of it stored up at the end of the its shed.

If all goes well it will be in new hands by mid-November and off on a new venture.

The N&DMRC show will again be held this year at the Seaford Baptist Church Hall, Belgrave Road, Seaford, East Sussex BN25 2EE on Saturday 28th October 2017 from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. The venue is a 5 minute walk from Seaford Station turning left from the station onto the A259 towards Newhaven; it is just past the British Legion on the right hand side of the road. Brighton & Hove buses 12 and 12A stop close by.

A selection of the layout attending –

Swindon Vale - 7mm Narrow Gauge running as a preservation line set in Sussex and all the buildings based on West Sussex prototypes.

Holmill - 4mm 00 gauge, Imaginary Southern Region Sussex branch, DCC controlled, 1960 heritage line

Foldham - 4mm 00 gauge, Early 60's Essex/Hertfordshire branch line DCC operation.

Hurstwood - 4mm 00 gauge, small branch line, BR(W) 1950's setting

Havenstreet - N gauge, track plan based on the Isle of Wight Havenstreet but "somewhere" on the mainland.

SW99 - N gauge, South West London 1970- onwards tail chaser using mainly "off the shelf" products.

Lidihoe - 4mm Narrow Gauge, a small narrow gauge layout built to serve a small slate quarry.

As usual we will have the Club Sales Stand selling a selection of second hand models, all proceeds go to club funds as we endeavour to find a permanent club home in the area.

My last time to OOC was probably 1978 and through the fence from the canal, I thought that £20 for what was on display was fair, it was to charity after all. In advance expected to queue on entry and was not disappointed. Bit of a shame that you couldn't look around the King, Hall, Warship and Western though. Where about's was the shed that the blue pullmans used to live in?

What was the primary purpose of this building?

A slightly work warn 31438, D5557 in my day, certainly not 34G; 40B or 41A perhaps

Can't remember the last time I saw a Hymek but D7017 was nicely turned out.

No introduction needed really, but it is a lot younger than the HST's

It was nice to see Olly Cromwell

6430 was nicely turned out, somebody had been at it with the oil and paraffin rags. 

I'm more into British Railways than current GWR but was impressed by these

I didn't need to cop these on the Western because I'd seen them all before they left the West Coast, but D407 range a bell as coupled up to D404 it was the first time I'd been pulled by the class, when they accelerated the schedule up to Glasgow you could get a Euston-Glasgow day return for £5, the pair came on at Crewe and just roared away north.

If anyone took a decent photo of 1501 it would be appreciated, me, the camera, sun and black locos does not equate, mind you people walking in front of your shot does not either and there was plenty of that.

Ashford International Model Railway Excellence Centre, that's a good shout. We’ve had a couple of enquiries but nothing going forward yet. Apart from the accommodation problem, I was asked why we were selling it and not just retiring it, the main layout is now 42 years old, some bits would be 60+ years old, may seem strange but we own it but it would never be ours, it was made by someone who was far better than we could ever be, but we decided from the outset that we had to get a good team together to put the layout into good shape for exhibiting. This layout in concept and operation is far too good to be stored up out of the way or scrapped. Is it a museum piece? Could it still go out on the exhibition circuit? Could it be in somebody’s garden shed? Yes to all 3 really. Have had what-if thoughts in the past about this time, considered that if it was still in its shed when I retire and not in the clubroom then BM station could be modified to be a through station and to either go out in the garden or to loop around and connect to the back of the GN fiddleyard to make a continuous loop, it makes it easier for one man operation. But somebody or a team needs to take it on and enjoy it.

Well back to the real thing. The layout is currently stored in it's shed along with another layout from the Newhaven Club and we have a problem coming up. We cannot see any chance of our club circumstances (i.e lack of space) changing in the near future, there is also a good possibility that it will be losing its current storage site in the near future, it's already been stored up for a while but long term it is not going to do the layout any good, it really needs to be assembled and operated. So reluctantly the BM Group has decided that we need to sell the layout, it would come with everything that you would see at an exhibition with the power switched on ready to go, lights, controllers, transformers, all the paperwork that we were given by the Dyer family, including the paper and electronic timetables for running the sequence, but no stock, we never received any of the original locos etc, what we use are owned by group members. I thought that I would put it on this forum first in case of any interest, we are open to offers . Please PM if interested.

Regards

Charlie