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Newhaven club having now been in smaller premises now for a few months, it's interesting to take a step back and realise that the club apart from a place to do some modelling in a space greater than you might have at home, or to just come and play trains, is also a social amenity. In the previous premises we were able to provide wheelchair even scooter access, unfortunately we can no longer offer that facility, we've lost one member because of this and had to decline a new member because we cannot offer access. We've also now got an ex member rejoin the club, he is suffer from Alzheimer’s and as club Secretary it puts your brain cells in a different place trying to find out how you deal with this. It must be working because he is more than pleased with coming down every week and we're starting to help him re-build his American HO layout. It's a bit of an education really, I can see that having this type of illness is not funny, but on the hand we must be doing something right because he is certainly enjoying himself and probably different company to talk to. Borchester, as mentioned earlier we do have plans to keep restoring the layout and improve reliability but must admit that it is a bit worrying what we are going to do if the situation does not improve in our area, our current lease is for 18 months, if we lose this we may have to downsize even further, who knows.

Everyone can have an opinion,but the point made was that in having a go at the Bluebell you are having a go at the volunteers,without the volunteers you do not have a railway, Who owns the 09 shunter down at SP? Answer - volunteers, so its your personal view about anti-diesel sentiments. A resident green JA or 33 could be interesting, but I can't see what the noverty is when both 33's and 73's can still be seen on the mainline. I've still to see 33029 or D6547, but last time I saw Slim Jim 33207 it sounded really good for a 50+ year old diesel loco, somebody must have spent a fair bit of time looking after and maintaining that.

Why do you keep on with this constant having a go at the Bluebell because you think that it doesn't want Diesels, there are others like me who have a broad approach which is not just steam and are fed up with it, you have a go at any preserved railway and your having a go at the volunteers and that is not on. You have to realise that a lot of the older volunteers have been there a long time, some for over 50 years, things can't change overnight, the railway has enough on it's plate with the existing ongoing projects stretching resources and finances. My comment about the B12 was a tribute to the team on the North Norfolk Railway who keep this loco in ticket and keep it restored and running because it is one of a kind, does inside cylinder 4-6-0 mean anything because I can't think of another ex BR one working in the UK, it was good to see it down South, it's 88 years old, it's a lovely looking engine, was well turned out and sounded on song. The 8F for the same reasons, not as old but this was an ex Barry scrapyard loco and if you do not appreciate this then I give up. There was a resident 33 at HK when and after the EG extension was being done, did you ever look at it up close, it wasn't that good, rust etc, the engine was missing and the exhaust at times looked like a steam loco. The point is that the Bluebell has been offered Diesels before, including a Thumper, but they needed restoration, so with all that is going on with limited space as well, how does that add up. If you look back in this thread you'll see photos I took of the Deltics at the Bluebell, a terrific weekend, I'd look forward to say a Warship/Western/Hymek weekend. Anyhow, for those from the South who don't know what an 8F from outside our area is and never run on the line as far as I know, here is a couple more photos.

I don't think that there was a trend that "footfall" was decreasing before they reached EG, I read in Bluebell News a while ago that after the initial surge coming through EG that numbers would settle down but like all preserved railways you have got to have something to make the trip worthwhile apart from just the steam rail journey. Went today and was impressed by both the 8F and B12, together with the Bluebells Std5, Q, S15 and the H doing station duty at SP. I thought £3.15 for a bacon butty and a cup of tea on the 9:10 SP departure was good value and it tasted like bacon as well. Got off at Kingscote to see the Q start running the freight south, not sure what it was but the first open wagon in the train did not have a floor? Visited the carriage works at HK for a guided tour, they had 3 post 1948 Bullied coaches running in the service train and they are well on with re-restoring a Southern Bullied composite in the works, it's no wonder they rot, the coach is now 69 years old and were only design for about 20, a sheet metal floor with metal brackets to take the side wooden frame. There was also a wooden Lego kit in there that in reality is the early stages of Pullman brake No.54's restoration to a first brake diner with wheelchair access. It's amazing to see the woodwork and how these things were made including earlier mods. Also wet out the side door for a view of the new carriage storage shed, work going on with drainage here before ground membrane is put down and they start to lay track, but there is lots of other track work to keep the guys busy with at the moment. Mention was made earlier of the Atlantic project and specifically it's building, when it is finished why don't they help out some of the other Bluebell loco groups and provide clean and covered accommodation for say the class P 27 and especially the group doing the Std class 2 conversion. I can remember a while ago that its wheels were sitting alongside the chassis but straight on the ash around the area, it must be a joke at times working on the chassis. If not these then if they are looking for something old, why not the railways own 1877 Manning Wardle Sharpthorn, in looking around the goods yard at Kingscote I came across what looked like it's cab front and roof in a wagon, I didn't see the loco but assumed that it was behind the coaches on pltfm 1 at HK somewhere. North London Tank?

Well OC no coming is a shame but I'll take the B12 and 8F, something different, a first for both classes on the Bluebell? Things seem to be on the up and on the move down the Bluebell, not perfect yet, but to make the most of the EG mainline connection they need some turning facilities, but before somebody jumps on that it's probably more important to spend the money on replacement track. It must be a nightmare for any preserved railway where the trackbed sits on clay, the Bluebell News has shown infrastructure reports in the past where they have made changes to the drainage and used this clever blanket under the ballast to stop the clay rising, are they doing this in the current point and track replacement work just north of Horsted. I see the preserved GWR are buying new rail for their Broadway extension from the share issue, I wonder how much it would cost the Bluebell to catch-up on their replacement rail program. I know that the C class has suffered from broken springs on more than one occasion, but Camelot might be having a bit of trouble? If anyone is going down to GOS next weekend, hopefully they might allow some access to the works, but the professional painters have paid a visit and the SECR O class is coming back together and if you stand back and look at the paintwork you've got to admire their work.

Well, I was down as SP this afternoon delivering some magazines to the std 2 tank group for resale at GOS and the B12 was being offloaded from a heavy haul trailer in the car park, later I went around the other side of the works and there was...an 8F, 48624, no sign of OC, it's a bonus if the 8F is an addition but I fear the worst, again.

Just a little bit of an update, was asked the other day where our next venture out was going to be, well we were going to take time to effect more permanent wiring repairs around the GN fyard panel but hey ho Newhaven Club is not having its lease renewed, so we are out at the end of September and Borchester Market is now stacked and stored up away from the clubroom, no chance of running it in the short term, it’s back in it’s purpose built garden shed “Borchester Towers” near Brighton and we've got to compress things somewhat to make way for storing at least another layout or two next to it. Newhaven is certain not the centre of the universe, it's a poor cousin in between the likes of Brighton and Eastbourne, land has been bought up in the area for mad schemes over time and then sold on before anything is built. An example, Parker Pens used to be down the road, it was sold to a French Company, the factory was closed, everyone was made redundant, production was moved to France, the factory site was flattened and it is still like it. Where we are the land has been sold on at least twice over the last 18 months, adjacent to Harbour station in amongst the plans is a 12 story hotel, for anyone who knows the area this is nuts, like people who moved into new dwellings on the West Quay, they will have a lovely view of the scrap yard just beyond the ferry terminal and marina station. Our old clubrooms which is next to the down Harbour platform has plans to turn it into I assume a gastro pub, best of luck with that. But we are where we are, a bit led on by the developer perhaps, he wants to be seen to be doing things for the community, really, we’ve been offered a new lease but the catch is £5K pa, they need a quick answer because somebody else is interested in taking on the lease. It begs the question, do any other clubs pay anything like this for an annual lease.

One of the class 20's failed at the diesel weekend, it was still there this week along with one of the class 73's, any idea what the plan is?

David, that's good food for thought, had gone away from thinking about the electric pencil but a rotary switch and push button sounds a good choice.

The main transformer is very heavy, but possibly 5 or 6 years ago it was tested by an electrical engineer and was found to be within limits so was ok. But sometime in 2013 we were starting to look at the condition of one of the ex RAF point motors and decided to check on the transformer output voltage, we were reading 27-28 volts so decided to change it for this - I mentioned earlier that we were starting to talk about doing something with the GN fiddleyard control panel. As usual everything was working ok pre York and you get there, set-up and something is not quite right. Apologies about the quality of photo but this is the back of the panel, there are four original sockets here, two on the end, the black one on the back and there is a round socket which is located on the back of the panel about half way along, the 25 way and small Din sockets are temporary additions that are for the new circuit put in for the colliery bell, previously there was only one bell and that was under the BM station board so the guy operating the GN fyard could not always hear the sound. - And this is the bunch of plugs that have to fit into the back of the panel, the choc-block was for the fix we had to do on one of the wires. And that tape around the wires you are looking at is masking tape and is a solid lump, you have to use a knife to cut through it to get it off. And this is the offending plug, second row, number 2, probably broke due to fatigue, could easily be 60 years old. What you can't see is all the soldered wire joints on the back. Sometime ago we did cut back some frayed wires and re-soldered these but this is one of the main reasons why we are considering something more drastic on the panel, pulling these wires around to fit the panel is not a good idea and of course flexes the wires underneath the board. We now have a failed plug.

Well, it is still used, it's enclosed during use. This is the transformer for the turntable, again still used and enclosed during use. If you want some fun then up until just before our invite to Warley in 2013 we were using this as the main point transformer

Diesels - In the Model Railways Sept 80 article FD describes "plus one item which can be described as "off the shelf", and that is an Airfix Brush type 2 diesel, which is needed for my Cambridge trains, for by 1958 Stratford shed was almost 100 per cent diesel. The model has had its wheels regauged to OO standards, the roofs have been altered to conform to the early batch, without indicators; headcode discs have been fitted, and the whole loco repainted. I must confess to my dislike of the rubber traction tyres, which work fine when the model is new, but after ageing and a bit of normal dirt on them, slip like mad leaving a loco with very limited traction". This was the toffee-apple D5502. The BM station pilot was "based on the Drewry version of the 204hp Gardener-engined diesel-mechanical shunter. The body is from an Airfix kit, with added detail and repainted, mounted on my own hand-built chassis, complete with jackshaft and counterweights. She had to be weighted up very much to do her job, and now with a recently-fitted K's motor she will pull almost anything. Painted in the then-new dazzle paint, she looks colourful, and noting some shunters at Stratford with red-painted side-rods, I did so on this model with commendable results". This would be the Drewry 04 diesel shunter D2222. He also had an 08 shunter, "One of the standard 350hp English Electric design, the body being a moulding by Kitmaster, mounted on a hand-built chassis, and she is mostly used on short-trip workings." There was also a EE type 1 or cl20 if you prefer and a Lima met-cam DMU. Going back to the question of signal operation, here is a couple of photos of the underside of the goods yard board, the first by Chris Nevard and the second by Tony Wright.

I can't say whether Ian's loco is better than others because I haven't see others, but he does the research based on a specific timeframe, makes the models and completes them himself. Take my word for it, they are very good. Just a statistic, at York we had 26 steam locos running of which 15 were kit built, 4 were made by TonyW (our J6 and C12 are not ready yet) and the remaining 11 by Ian although he could have supplied I think up to 17 kit built locos if we needed. So we used 11 detailed or modified RTR steam locos this time and yes "the hobby has developed over the years" and we have to make a judgement on how the models are going to perform. It is not a tail chasing layout where locos are on the move all the time, there is a lot of shunting going on so slow speed performance comes into it hence why on merit we use some RTR models, we also use diesels in the good yards where we know that they are going to behave themselves, the Hornby 08 shunter at BM because it does the job perfectly, one day it will be replaced by a Drewry shunter but not just yet. You are right, we have never had it so good, but it depends on what your interest is, running trains? building models? Personally, I've already bought kits to make for a future GE/GN layout and that is where my interest is. Another question, in deliberating over what to do with the GN fyard control panel, has anyone any experience with using a diode matrix for switching up to 5 or 6 H&M point motors?

Tony, Almost but not quite, all signals, points and uncouplers are operated via these strings, the material seems to be fairly neutral and is not affected by heat or humidity. On your thread how could you just say another Duke of Rothsay, I think I am right in saying that Ian Forsyth has now kit built all the A1 and A2 variants and this one is a particularly good one. If you have any photos of the C12 or N5 running that would be good, after an initial slicky start both of them eased up and ran very well. The K2 and J6 were already well oiled and ran from straight out of the box. Must admit some embarassment at how long it is taking me to get my C12, J6 and K2 running properly, your poppy chassis rig has given me some thought on how to get the chassis reset if they need it.

Again, an appeal for any photos taken at York would be appreciated. If you don't want to post them on here then pm to newhavendmrc@gmail.com. From the early days of exhibiting BM we have always had negative views from some, it can perform faultlessly and they always will, some just can't help themselves. So thanks for the kind comments being made, your added to our Xmas card list. The shed is called Borchester Towers and while the layout was located in our clubroom I think I lost some of the roofing felt at least 3 times and it leaked through to the floor, but it's all been replaced again, this time with some of those capping tiles that you can get from Wickes, the shed front has also been replaced with new T&G, the windows are blanked off at the moment while new frames are made. The shed is insulated with polystyrene sheeting, but it does get very hot during the summer and cold during the winter but it is dry. SPADS, I know those operators at the front of the layout are terrible, must be at least 3 of them on yellow cards, I tend to stick around the back of the layout and operate the fiddleyards and of course I never make mistakes. As intimated earlier we were using some of Tony Wrights locos and as a consequence it looks like we are going to buy a SEF N5, nice model, Frank never used one to my knowledge but we can stretch reality to use one on BM, we already have a J6 and K2 being worked on so they should be out next time but as a bit of RTR feedback the Hornby J50 has really turned out to be a good buy. To finish, there are 3 of us who own BM, we've got to sit down take a step back and decide where we want to go next and how long it is going to take. To my mind if you are exhibiting a layout somebody is paying a lot of money for you to be there, so you need to put on a good show. The layout and stock need to be reliable, dealing with the latter is the easy bit, but I just think that the layout was telling us something that it doesn't like being bumped around in the back of a van for 6 hours, some of the baseboards are really heavy and flex around a bit in the back of the van.

Well we had a good weekend at the York show, left at 06:30 on the Thursday morning and had a leisurely run up via the M40/42 without any real trouble unlike the Friday when the roads were madness. Managed to get a quick visit into the NRM and I think luckily saw 60103 being shunted out by an 08 behind a Stanier brake and Duchess of Hamilton from the workshop. To quote somebody else, that's a novel way of using a Duchess as a barrier vehicle, I hadn't seen the Scotsman since its return but it looks absolutely brilliant. Before I get carried away we squeezed in a trip to Scarborough for some fish and chips down by the harbour, weather was not on our side but worth the visit. Never done a full 3 day show before and must say that it was tiring, coming home on Monday night did not help. For some photos you might want to view Tony Warmsleys site https://www.flickr.com/photos/75514026@N03/albums/72157649004452418 As usual the layout came up with a couple of weird problems but nothing that could not be solved. Having said that we are going to have to think of what we are going to do next to preserve the layout. About time we replaced the temporary BM signal box? Operating the GC fiddleyard needs improving, thinking that we need to replacing the original switch panel. Need to improve some of the uncouplers, they were made for Franks original stock only and not really for more modern day TL's. We need to look at all the wiring joints under the GN fyard, something is not quite right which leads to plugs onto the control panel, some of these are from the 1950's, we had to hot wire around one plug prior to the show because of a poor contact. As it stands we have not accepted any more exhibition invites, the Newhaven club is going to lose it's clubrooms soon due to redevelopment and we're not likely to find a large enough premises for all the layouts, so BM has returned to store in its original shed, I think that we need to carry out some TLC without having any deadlines. Finally an appeal, we had 4 of Tony Wrights locos running at York, his B12, J6, K2 and N5 plus the first outing for 60508 Duke of Rothsay, if anyone took any BM photos we would not mind seeing them if possible.

Well we are just over 10 days to go until we take the wonderful journey from the Souf coast up to York, we thought exhibiting at Warley was something but really looking forward to this one. L1, Ian was running this up and down the station approach pointwork and true to form it was derailing the 4 wheel bogie when going forward, yes forward? What it turned out to be was that he had replaced the original couplings with wire loop, going in reverse with the 4W bogie leading was not a problem but you could see that when the loco was reversed to go forward the loco would move about 2-3mm before the 4W bogie started moving meaning that when the loco turned through a point the wire loop fouled part of the loco chassis and derailed. Loop has been changed so all is good now. It's not a 5 minute job changing the loco roster on Borchester, we've ended up with 6 new locos coming in for York, but to slightly upset matters we've had to be careful with which locos we used for shunting in the station goods yard, would like to use the Gibson J11 and Bmann J39's but have had a few problems, the Hornby J50 looks at home in the yard and works well, but some of the diesels namely the Bmann cl20 and 24 have been kept in because they are just so smooth and rarely give any problems. Mad really but we'll have 37 locos in the roster, for the first time no A3's, Galtee More is being replaced by Duke of Rothsay, it should have a AWS box somewhere, but nobody seems to know where it should be. I mentioned before that the Hornby J50 is cracking little model for the money, as always you look at photos for inspiration and Ian's made a few mods and lightly weathered it. 68963 just happens to be the same number as Franks original J50.

Just going back in this thread a bit, 60508 Duke of Rothsay, where was the AWS box fitted?

Jonathan, I'll see if i can prise the L1 away from Ian and have a look. It is strange because we do not have any problems with the other L1 and the B-B's are the same. Martin, aside from BM the line-up for York looks good http://www.yorkshow.org.uk/layouts.htm , we might have a few spare seats around the back if you want to view the fiddleyard, there are photos of the single/double/3-way pointwork earlier in this topic to give you a clue of what to see. As far as I know TW will have his own table at the show.

We've just put the layout back up together in the clubroom to get it ready for York. As usual it decided to get our brains ticking over more than we would like, it does this every time as if "oh here we go again". We knew about problems with the point throw(s) around the station entrance and goods yard, we'd been having a few derailments, we made some running repairs at Wakefield but it didn't totally cure it, a few of the signal/point cords decided to get tangled up underneath the board, some niggling problem with the set position of a micro switch. We are also seeing wear between control wires and point arms, too much slack which is not helping. For the first in over 10 years since we've been looking after the layout we've finally got around to curing a problem with the release points on platforms 2 and 3, the point polarity wires here had never been replaced but you can only repair things so many times, we've managed to find a way of using micro-switches to the two release points and 3-way in this area without affecting the point movement. In the GN fiddleyard approach we had been having problems with wire polarity switching so we have put in a few more micro switches, so we decided to test it all and what do you know, two of the section would not work and we could not believe it. Out comes the tester, all ok with the points straight, all ok points on the curves, a bit of cursing going on and this is where you thank one of your club colleague who comes along and hits his head against a piece of wood that is supporting the GN control panel and puts the world to right, perhaps not his head but it now works ok, meaning that we have to investigate what was going on with the control panel in the first place. Some oxide joints in there perhaps. In its 2nd life Borchester now has its own dedicated loco. My endeavours with an EM to OO back conversion Lima/Perseverance J50 was taxing my own perverance, good chassis, gearbox seems ok but probably wrong motor selection. So what do Hornby do, produce a J50. I have a preference for using modified RTR or kit built locos but for just under £70 we had to have one. In time I’ll post a photo but Ian Forsyth who’s one of the group members has given the model a bit of a renumber - light weathering and added some subtle patches to the tank sides, but what a cracking model for the price. Depends what you want out of the hobby but using RTR models like this makes the hobby too easy, and there is me with unmade kits of a J15, D16, B12, 02/3 etc, these will get made eventually but to a slightly wider gauge than Borchester. We’re looking forward to the York Show, never exhibited a layout there before. We’ve changes coming up to the loco roster, dropping out a Hornby L1 due to continuing bogie problems, no time to really look into this because Ian is finishing off his latest PDK pacific kit which will come in. The layout is operated with a core of locos that are matched to the timetable, by that I mean that 60113 will appear on the 08:00 local arrival and then depart on the 09:00 KX. So to change things around a bit we are going to have some guest locos within the core this time and they are being provided by the Duke of Little Bytham. We had to use more diesels than we wanted at Wakefield due to a few steam locos playing up, so a few of these will be removed and incoming will be a B12/3, C12, J6, K2 and N5, we’d used the J6 and K2 before at Southwold for the non-core freight service(s) which only involves a straight GN fiddleyard via the viaduct to the Colliery movement or reverse of course, both are fitted with Portescap motors and run superbly. The B12/3 can come in and replace the class 31 on the Cambridge service, the C12 for the local 2 coach service from Grantham, we’ve used a 9F on this a couple of times, why? Because we found photos of a New England 9F on local services in the same area, the excellent Keith Pirt from memory. The N5 will be used to replace a N2 on the GC line, will look at fitting the J6 and K2 into the timetable slots that they would originally have been in when Frank was operating the layout.

Yes terrible this HO track and toy train pointwork. Absolutely positive that Templot has been nowhere near this

Any ideas of what might be on the Diesel menu next year? Got to be something different, hydraulics sounds a good idea. They produced two good large events this year with the Diesel weekend and Giants of Steam, I was looking forward to seeing Britannia but seeing Bittern down the Bluebell was quite an event, perhaps 4472, 102, 502 or 60103 or whatver re-incarnation it arrives as would be a good. Whatever, where would you see something like this, I've been behind a tender, bunker or smokebox door on many occasions but behind the nose of a Deltic, absolutely magic?

Look back at post 139 in this topic.

The Frank Dyer track standard, no reason not to suggest the same one used for Borchester Market since a lot of the original stock would still be running on it. So 16.5mm gauge.

I mentioned Harvey's in Lewis, it should of course have been Lewes of course, but it's still not my favourite tipple. My wife is still telling me that "The only way is Essex" is a very good program, but having seen a recent payment made to Specsavers I can understand. Off to Southwold we flew along the M23/M25 up to the tunnel, couple of minutes delay while they moved a tanker over to the nearside and then didn't spend much time in Essex but got caught out just north of Ipswich on the A12 by cattle being in the road, so after an enforced Police diversion and a trip through the rural countryside arrived at Carlton Coalville just before 11:00. This is where the East Anglian transport museum is and because a friend volunteers there we managed to get a look around, it is normally closed on Friday. I don't specifically have a deep interest in trams or trolley buses but I helped move London trolley 260 from Edmonton to CC back in the early 80's, we used a Scammell Highwayman for the tow, for those interested it used to be a Cory tanker and then a wrecker, it was dressed up as Showmans tractor last time I saw it. Back from Southwold, very good exhibition, didn't try the Broadside but the Adnams Southwold was not bad with the Saturday night BBQ. The replacement pointwork in the fiddleyard worked ok, we had a slight problem with the two main stations being aligned properly and had a few derailments but in the end this mainly came down to wagon tension lock couplings being in a dropped position so that the bottom of the coupling hit the point rails and caused the derailment, not very good for virtually new models. The only downside was on the Sunday when it got very hot, the top vents in the hall were not working to open, it caused a problem with the release point from platform 2 and what is point 49 which is the main arrival point for going straight to the Colliery line and into the loco yard, eventually this turned out not to be the point but some connection behind the main control panel. We also had a few problems in the GN fyard with broken omega loops that are used to switch the points, the ex RAF solenoids that are used take no prisoners. The conclusion is that using nickel silver wire leads to fatigue and failure, also we need to consider resoldering old soldered joints to pre-empt future problems. Mind you, we haven't had this problem before when using our own locos. I'm not suggesting that it is a co-incidence or that it was very hot, but a certain gent from somewhere next to the East Coast main north of Pboro but south of Grantham turned up with a few locos, of particular interest was a J6 and K2 of which similar Nu-cast models are currently in our workshop, but I wonder if models should have a RA value, I can't mention that they looked very nice models or that they ran very well because I would probably get into a solid v flexi chassis debate, but his J6 does have a portescap which seemed to be the idea motor/gearbox combination for this model. Here is a couple of photos taken in the GN fyard, ok the K2 is about to derail itself. I'll post a couple of photos later.