Page 8 - March April 1999

UNCOUPLED
to attend Ulverston for a one- day meet. So Ulverston will remain two-day or not at all! The first Sunday at Ulverston was poorly attended but has now built up to acceptable. Re: attendance, the real test of
success of the meet is not until second time around. If a repeat of a meet draws as good, or better, attendance, the meets are successes.
Layouts: the number on show can only be the number of layout owners prepared to support your meet, and the expenses the organisers can afford.
I disagree with the editorial comment that an element of “top that” has crept in. The standard of layouts, and the expectations of visitors, have risen so much that the concept of one HO layout and an attendance of 50 or so (such as the London winter meets held by the Capitals lads, which I remember and used to enjoy!) have long gone. Long may our meets prosper, bringing members closer together and making new friends.”
(Eds. Note: My point about “top that” is precisely what Derek is saying in his last but one comment. I also remember with fondness my first experience of meets in the 70’s when Region membership was about 180 or so: one or two layouts plus a little ‘bring & buy’. Then one group had the temerity to stage a London meet with no layouts, just chit-chat and a little trading. The visitors’ discontent was almost tangible in the atmosphere!
We have, at present, a limited choice of “types” of meet activity - layouts in the popular scales, trade/bring & buy, video/film, clinics. There are only so many different combinations you can produce, though of course each item can lend itself to new variations; different layouts, new clinics, and so on. But every meet is liable to leave itself open to comments such as, “We’ve had HO modular layouts at the last six meets!”, as though there were, or ought to be, endless other possible offerings, and willing slaves to present them!
A final thought - for now: we are a model railroad association, not a model railroad exhibition company. If you go down to your local clubroom once a week, you expect to see and do much the same thing - week in, week out. If we manage to attend all five of the major Region annual events, should we actually expect a whole new gamut of exhibits every time? If so, why should it be somebody else’s responsibility (but not our own) to produce the goods for us? Perhaps this is my convoluted way of saying, “If you can do better, put on your overalls and get going - the World’s your Heisler!”
John Shrimpton...
...comments on the lightweight portable layout discussion. Due to passing years and some medical infirmities, John used, on his 7’ x 2’ Z
scale layout, 2” thick polyfoam for the trackbed, topped with 1/16” thick ply where the track runs “to give the pins something to grip.” The main construction is a 6mm ply frame with a few cross members of 1” x 1/2” timber, and is very rigid. “25lbs. of Z weighs the same as 25lbs. of HO !”
To move John’s non-portable layout “would need a fork lift truck, which would be difficult to get into the loft!”....(?)... Quite!
On behalf of the
Southwesterners...
Martyn Moss says, “Wasn’t it great to be
part of something as good as the
Bournemouth 1998 convention. We add
our thanks to those already expressed a
while ago, for an excellent event. Thanks
also for the words of encouragement in
the Roundhouse review of the exhibits.
Spurred on by this we are moving
forward with “Somewhere America”. Here is an update.
Firstly it is no longer called this - if we had remembered, we’d have brought the signs to Bournemouth, which proclaim we are modelling “Rock Springs”. In reality it is a bridge route between the SP’s 1870’s Sunset Route and the ATSF Seligman Sub., built some 10 years later, running through the arid hill country of Arizona.
As winter closed in, the joys of modelling Arizona in a tin roofed garage with condensation dripping onto our heads, lost some of its appeal. One of our group had managed to fill a large railway room with about 650m of track on at least 5 levels, creating Denver Union Station complete with Utah Junction, Glenwood Springs and Grand Junction. There were so many layers that it could easily have been called Denver Onion Station! Sorry Bob (Phelps), but it was always going to be like watching the New York subway. Anyway it provided us with a great supply of trackwork, and the Rock Springs modules now have a warm dry home.
Track laying is now complete in the storage yard - 14 tracks for freight, passenger and through routes, plus loco release tracks to the steam and diesel facilities at opposite ends of the yard. The 36 turnouts need to be motorised, and there are 4 cab control panels to equip with rotary switch selection. A tank farm is rising alongside the grain silos at Rock Springs and by the time of its first booked outing, to Exeter MRE in June, this entire front board will be scenicked and have its full complement of buildings.
By the time you read this, Mel Rogers and Vick Perks will have been to Rock Springs, and Yvonne and Pat permitting
Paul Doggett...
...in his Member Aid Officer guise, asks all members submitting queries to please remember to included a SSAE. Quite a few have not, and Paul is getting in the mood to bin any more that turn up like that!
In his non-member aid officer guise, Paul suggests “Liquid Lead” as a good way of weighting models. This is very fine lead shot, from about .25mm dia. to .5mm dia. which can be poured into any appropriate cavity (in the model, that is) and secured with droplets of dilute white glue. Allow 24 hrs. to set. This can produce very heavy models without the problems associated with even the low-melting-temperature alloys like Woods Metal, and it is cheaper (just) at £6.99 incl. p&p for a half kilo.
Available from ACME Models, PO box 69, Hampton, Middx. TW12 3NA, who also do NWSL Choppers and other useful bits.
Regular Meets
A further reply to the arrangement of our regular meets came from Derek Milby. “I tend to agree with Geoff Meek that justified criticism shouldn’t be discouraged - I know it hurts at first but hopefully makes for a better outcome next time around.
Being an organiser of 2-day meets I’d like to make the following points:
My idea arose from members’ letters
saying they couldn’t attend conventions, due to cost. They wanted the convention altered to more like the two-day meet format. Being of the opinion that the convention is the highlight of the NMRA year and therefore sacrosanct, I put in a bid, in 1995, for an Ulverston meet along the lines suggested by the letters. This took place in 1996 and I was amazed at the distances travelled by members and the layout bringers. A memory that will last me a long time is of two members who did the return trip from Horsham in a single day.
When I started these meets, I didn’t think that more than one 2-day meet a year would be supportable by the Region, and I think that maybe the BOD should consider restricting to this.
I don’t think I could get layouts and exhibitors of the standard I would want
8 ROUNDHOUSE