'The Biggest in the North West ?'

Here you will find the most recent reports which have featured in the O Gauge Guild Gazette's 'Guild News' section. The reports are reproduced here in full. For space reasons, the Guild News often finds it necessary to shorten the reports that are submitted. Photographs from those reports will not be found here. Some of them may be found in the Photogallery. The reports are submitted to the Gazette about six weeks before they appear on the website, i.e. they don't appear on this website until the Gazette has been published.

Preston O Gauge Group Report Summer 2011
Our Open Day on the 25^th June attracted some sixty members and visitors who spent the day either admiring the vast array of locomotives and stock, discussing their latest projects or exchanging views on their technical abilities - many just enjoyed being in the company of like minded individuals. Similarly, a well attended July Open Day attracted visitors and stock from all over. The August Open Day was our first themed one, the theme being 4-4-0s with our aim being to set up a display of as many locos of that arrangement as possible on Grantham shed, or running on the main layout. For the first hour or so my Dukedog sat forlornly all on its own and I began to think that my brainwave wasn’t such a bright idea after all. And then they started pouring in and we were especially indebted to a group of excellent Scottish modellers who brought 4-4-0s of all shapes and sizes, especially the wonderfully named ‘Luckie Mucklebackit’ and even a beautiful North British 4-4-0 tank engine-I’m ashamed to say I didn’t know there was such a thing. I wish I could put photos of them all with this report. We hope the said gentlemen enjoyed their visit. The same is true of the gentleman who brought his exquisite SNCF 141R to play, complete with a short rake of continental wagons. Very cosmopolitan !
Work on the group’s layouts continues in a process of continuous improvement, (a girder has appeared under the large overbridge near Hawksbridge station)tortoisation of point motors and consequent reorganisation of panel switches, continues apace, and Brewery Lane has had much attention in preparation for at least one exhibition outing next year. And it was featured in an article in a recent issue of Model Rail, which brought in a query from a gentleman in Australia. No, we won’t be exhibiting there in the foreseeable future ! Beneath the DCC layout I have spotted a small canal scene, with a narrow boat in a lock.
On September 18^th the annual joint Open Day with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Society was held, our resident Horwich aficionado Peter providing a goodly percentage of the entertainment in the form of his beautiful locos and rolling stock.

The final Saturday of the quarter in question was designated as LMS 4-6-0 day, and, naturally, there were plenty on display for the packed house to admire, both on Grantham shed and in action on Hawksbridge. Probably the most unusual 4-6-0 belonged, as you might expect, to Jack-an ex Highland Railway Clan with a cab roof that, so it seemed, extended well over the tender coal space. The only bad news this quarter is that it has been necessary to raise the price of the legendary pies and other refreshments. A sign of the times !

Thanks to Norman (aka ‘Exhibition Man), I would like to give a bit more airing this quarter to our Sunday Open Days. Here, I paraphrase his words: ‘ Besides these monthly Saturday Open Days, our group also holds open days on the second Sunday of the month from November till May. The first one of the new season, in November, had a very low attendance but this is how Sunday visitors like it. The December attendance showed a considerable improvement and the January one broke all records for a Sunday Open Day attendance, the legendary pies having to be cut in two in order to feed the masses!
Sundays offer the same facilities as Saturdays with an occasional venture into Gauge One, when Graham sets up an end to end track of approximately thirty meters over the DCC layout. If you like the sound of American trains then this is for you !’

On Sunday February 13th not as many people turned up as the previous month but there was still plenty of variety of locos and stock such as that brought over by the lads from Keighley MRC. The group fully exploited the branch line, shed and the main layout. There was a large presence of Mickeys (Black Fives to you and me), and LNER A1's and A2's.Visitors came from as far afield as Burscough, Burnley, Keighley and the Wirral.’

The first Saturday Open Day of 2011 turned up no major discoveries, no Outer Mongolian 4-14-4 turned a wheel on the layout. (Sorry, Nigel.) However, to the eternal accompaniment of whistling English Electric diesels on the DCC line, no less than THREE Duchesses of Sutherland put in appearances, Derek’s being in LMS Black and the other two (one of which limped off and ended up in my workshop) were in LMS Red (or Maroon or Crimson Lake or whatever you know it as.) A further BR Red (or...............) example ran crisply round once it was discovered that the GWR Coaches it was hauling were ‘live’ to one rail (That’s Swindon for you, always different !)and a plastic-bodied Southern Utility van inserted as an electrical barrier. A regular visitor to the club refused to let his Great Central tank haul the aforementioned GWR rake. You know who you are and you will be visited by the wrath of Swindon !

That man Jack, I felt, played a bit of a damp squib by his esoteric standards, having vowed revenge on the Peruvian Fairlie he ‘only’ managed an unpainted model of Highland Railway No 1 ‘Raigmore’. To forestall enquiries he even brought along a label for it !

One of the pleasing features of the Saturday Open Days is the visits we have from parties of 7mm modellers belonging to other groups in our region, the Morecambe lads and the blokes from the West Lancs being notable amongst them. There is, of course, plenty of (friendly) local rivalry and banter, especially true with any visitors from Yorkshire who have been known to be asked to produce their passports............

The February Saturday Open Day, moved forward a week to avoid clashing with the Bolton Show, had a lower attendance, maybe because of the change of date, maybe because of renewed snowfalls in nearby areas. Motive power was very heavily biased in LMS favour, Duchesses and Princesses aplenty to be seen, the SR was non-existent, the LNER represented only by Paul’s beautiful Great Eastern liveried B12, complete with white cab roof. As usual, Peter Fitton flew the L & Y flag with his miniature masterpieces, as usual a handful of BR Standards, including no less than three Britannias, a 75000 and a 9F, showed off their utilitarian lines. GWR locos were very thin on the ground, a Hawksworth 15xx Pannier tank trundling round at a snail’s pace for a while. And, of course, the diesels whistled away on the DCC line. Two problems surfaced during the day: an intermittent dead section on the inner circuit and, at one point, half of the lights went out and the entire layout went dead. The latter was soon fixed, the former took some detective work before being traced to a fishplate that wasn’t passing the necessary juice.

A recent trend that has been noted is locos bearing female names, usually wives’, girlfriends’ or daughters’, ‘County Clare’ being a recent example. The GWR Kings lend themselves to sons’ names, hence my ‘King James II’. Any more offers ? Sisters, cousins, aunts ? I’m not sure who ‘Jasper’ is but it suits Tony’s little green 0-4-0 to a T. And as for ‘Morgan le Fay’, Dave’s King Arthur class beauty, the best explanation the owner could come up with is that the real person was, and I quote, ‘One of King Arthur’s bits-on-the-side’.........Subject closed !

The aforementioned Bolton Show saw a fair number of members at ‘work’, some taking a turn on the door, others helping out on the North West Modellers’ stand or on Norman’s demonstration stand.And all done in between spending their children’s inheritances !

Several of the group have been running new or nearly built locos on Monday nights. Steve’s Midland Railway Single is now nearly ready for its coat of paint, Tony’s 03 is well on the way, as is Roger’s Stanier 2-6-4.Ray has a recently completed Southern loco (OK, I forget the class) and Paul’s newish B12 puts in occasional appearances too, as do Tommy’s delightful scratchbuilt Pickersgill 4-4-0 in BR lined black and John’s similarly scratchbuilt Bulldog. This last mentioned was built because John, who is our club’s acknowledged chimney expert, was given a suitable chimney and had to build a loco to go under it !

The Wednesday Gang have continued to improve the electrics on the layout, especially point motors, several ‘sticky’ ones being freed up. Some new switchgear has been necessary so more route learning for some of us. Rod is always saying how simple it is...but then he is an Everton fan !

Being AWOL myself yet again, Bob Whitby once more uses his literary talents to good effect: “The March Open day started with a fine display of live steam visible from our Club room as Princess Elizabeth accelerated away from Preston after a rare non-stop run through the station. Inside, the tracks were busy with two long coal trains on the two inner loops being hauled by suitable locomotives, including a WD 2.10.0 brought by a visitor from North Wales. On the inner fast line Lord Stefan of York had assembled his fine rake of 13 Thompson coaches in BR maroon. Later, another two were added giving the smaller locomotives a real challenge. On the outer fast line there was a rake of 6 wheel milk tankers and other 6 wheel vans including two in Palethorpes livery plus the unusual Palethorpes corridor bogie van. A variety of suitable locomotives hauled this load including a Hall, Britannia, West Country and a couple of other Southern types ( not recognised by your scribe) The Club’s grey and blue Mark Ones were on the outer slow line . As always, John Delaney had his latest project on test doing running in turns – we have not yet told him of our proposed track access charges! Elsewhere, a number of smaller locos were using the branch line, including a novel model of the Webb LNWR Crewe Works double ended oil fired shunter. Not to be out done our good friend Jack had noted that the Duke of Sutherland’s private loco. Dunrobin was to be brought back to this country so in double quick time has scratch built a copy and, as always with Jack, - perfection.

Just to complete the picture of a very busy day at Preston with over 40 visitors, a Class 40 diesel whistled its way up and down the DCC track whilst Bob’s newly chipped model of 10000 was left in a siding with the engine running for most of the afternoon– the driver obviously oblivious of the fact that diesel is costing almost £7 a gallon”.

Yet another excellent quarter for the POGGIES...

Preston 0 Gauge Group Report Autumn 2010

As is often the case, I have open this report by correcting a mistake........in my last report I got our Chairman and Secretary mixed up, fortunately, they’re both still speaking to me. And, a further correction from the last report, Roger has pointed out that his ‘newly painted green ‘Princess Margaret Rose’ should have had the adjective ‘shiny’ inserted in the appropriate place. This quarter began with a near-record attendance at the October Open Day. Duchesses abounded along with two long rakes of Private Owner coal wagons. Well, we couldn’t resist the temptation to combine them into a 79 wagon coal train could we ? So we didn’t ! However, even though there were two Beyer Garratts in attendance we couldn’t persuade their owner to try either of them on the gargantuan train that took up just about half of the layout, so an NCB Hunslet and ‘Emmanuel Clegg’ the NCB 0-8-0 pulled and banked the heavy load.

Regular visitors will have noted that not only has the club provided a shelf for the devotees of ‘Spotters’ Corner’ to rest their mugs of tea on, but has furnished the shelf with Ian Allan ABCs and an ‘Observers’ Book of Locomotives’ to identify such rare visitors as LNER T1 4-8-0 tanks. Just another example of the lengths we go to at Preston to make our guests welcome....

As Xmas approached, 32 club members and guests attended the annual Xmas Dinner-afterwards, my significant other half remarked ‘What a nice group of blokes’...

The November Saturday Open Day, which came after American Day, saw a slow start but then a flood of visitors at about 1.30. Some of our regulars from the White Rose county failed to appear, being snowbound in their native land. Star of the show, undoubtedly, was a Peruvian Avonside-built Fairlie, its tanks topped with stacks of timber. And, just to add a further Latin American feel, it was hauling a simply stunning rake of wooden Mexican coaches (should we call them ‘cars?) running on American style bogies-a là GWR- which had real working springs. Jack has vowed to top that in the New Year but won’t be drawn further. Watch this space. Other notables included a brace of Princesses, one maroon and one shiny green, and an LMS ex-Furness Railway Baltic tank. Not to mention sundry LMS Patriots, Black Fives, Ivatt Mogul (big one) and 8Fs, an LNER A3, V2 and a Director, a GWR County, a Hall and a Saint, and a Southern G6 tank that was chased round the inner goods loop by a Jinty. BR designs were represented by 82003 and there was a Class 37. For some unknown reason there was much hilarity behind the counter of the cafē, come on chaps, playing trains is serious stuff you know.

Several of the members wore their club sweatshirts at the Wigan Exhibition behind a stand labelled ‘North West O Gauge Modellers’- a very enjoyable talking shop ! (In business it’s called ‘networking’).

I was all ready for the final Open Day of 2010 with a witty line about folk flocking to see the arrival of my new King....then it snowed the night before and I, and many others, were unable to make it. On texting apologies for absence to the Club Secretary I received an answer that read, “Three idiots clearing the car park. Awaiting the rush of more idiots.” Bob continues, “Our Chairman (David) myself (Secretary) and Norman (Exhibition man) spent the first hour clearing a path through the car park to the door then went inside to play trains and drink coffee planning to go home at 11am. But then the visitors arrived from Morecambe, Burnley, Blackpool and one from Derbyshire so we were in business. The pies were eaten, or at least some of them, and a good time was had by all. It just goes to show that not only are we all slightly mad because we like playing with trains we are all totally crackers for venturing out in such appalling weather.”

Sums it up really, come and visit the idiots of Preston as soon as you can. You won’t regret it !