Gas Works will be at the Hornby Railway Collectors Association show on Saturday the 24th September at the Preston Road Methodist Church in Yeovil ( BA21 3JR ) for other layouts and traders see here.
Work continues on The Summit with signals now moved ready and continuous test running of trains ready for Taunton in October.
The Seaton Show has come and gone and a good time was had by the chaps who attended. We had taken the HRCA (Yeovil and District) Hornby Dublo 3 rail layout with us as well as Gasworks. Fortunately we had loaded both layouts the night before as the rain came down heavily in the morning. Unloading layouts in the rain is not a pleasant experience but 6 people make it quick and easy.
The show was dominated by railway related stands, 16 in all with one stand each of boats and dolls houses. New friends were made and we can expect some visits to CS2 from them. Both Gasworks and the HD layouts worked well as did John Meakin who was demonstrating locomotive building.
The slick dismantling of both layouts at the end of the show and packing of the van saw us back at CS2 and unloaded by around 5pm. For a week or two we will have the HD layout as a visitor.
Regards
Dave
An invitation to attend the Yeovil Railway Centre exhibition with Gas Works was met with a good amount of enthusiasm by club members. Gas Works has been there, done it, and got the tee shirt many times and is always well received whereever it goes.
Of course it is now of Railway Modeller fame where it was mentioned last Christmas and filmed earlier on in 2008 for the special Railway Modeller DVD.
Well, last Friday evening came and we had a good team to help load the van, Paul R, Dave, Paul H, Olivia, Peter C and Bob A. The van was smaller than expected but that was no obstacle to the ‘team’ and when done you could not fit another box in the van. We then travelled to the Yeovil Railway Centre and set up Gas Works in the Transfer Shed. A quick test to prove we could run trains and it was home for the night.
Saturday saw another selection of members to help run the layout, Paul H, Olivia, Bob A, Bob O, Ernie, Peter C and Paul R. Olivia was tasked with handing out leaflets and was seen at one point pursing them to the canteen to make sure they had one. I don’t think anyone got away! That activity combined with Gas Work’s appeal caused several genuine enquiries about the club.
Well a last minute decision to bring a laptop and show the 10 minute DVD of the first night of the Summit film met with disaster, I picked up the DVD case not realising that I had taken the DVD out! We resorted to setting up the club web site to display and that also attracted some interest.
We all arrived at 09:30 but by 10:00 we were all in panic mode as the electrics failed for the front track and decoupler units. Investigating a plug left us with a couple of wires off so they were soldered back into place. We got the front track working but did not push our luck on the decoupler magnets.
The next club night will see the plug rewired to a better standard and some items that did not work investigated and fixed:
It is important to fix these as it looks like we may get a short notice request to attend another exhibition in November.
I was going to write about two club members Paul R and Ernie who were new to operating the Gas works layout at exhibitions and how well they both did but they were upstaged by a young girl about 10 years old who was fascinated by the layout and ended up being trained to work the coal train in and the coal train out process. She was as good as gold and just to watch her concentration and ability with this task made the whole day worth double the effort.
Well the rest, as they say, is history, the layout was packed up and taken back to the club house. There is always a special atmosphere when club members pool their help and expertises to work an exhibition. Long may it continue.
Yeovil Model Railway Group (YMRG) 