Croscombe meeting

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
I had a lovely day out in not-quite-sunny Hertfordshire yesterday with other S7 modellers at Richard Carr's home for a running day on Croscombe.

We'd been asked to bring something to run. I took along the RMB coach I'm building for Richard, partly to show where things had got to and partly to discuss options for fitting the roof. I tested the coach through the point work, and the MMP knuckle coupler with Kadees, with success.

Others brought along new models to show.

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Peter Mann brought along this lovely Metropolitan Railway Bo-Bo, build from one of Ken de Groom's kits, and painted by the kit designer. It would have been lovely to see a train of Dreadnoughts for it to pull around the circuit. Perhaps next time… ;)

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Meanwhile, The Inestimable Mr Beare and Son arrived with some interesting models. Peter has been working on an MMP Dogfish for a while, with several more on the shelf to be built. Also in attendance was a JLTRT Class 37, under construction but which still managed to hare round the layout making pretty much the right noises. There was quite a lot of comparing notes about problems in the bodywork build and how to overcome them.

The next visitor caused quite a lot of comment.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Australian_Railways_930_class

Not quite what you think, this model is actually to 1/43rd scale, and certainly made its presence felt as it growled around. Sadly, though the couplings did match the various articles of coaching stock around, coupling was not possible as the loco's were set lower than the UK standard. A first big train set outing of this loco owned by John Birch.

Thanks to Richard for the usual excellent hospitality. I certainly enjoyed the day.
 

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
Heather's photos are great... unfortunately nobody took any video recordings so there is no report on a late afternoon activity known as "whose engine makes the most noise?". One after another we had Richard's Class 40 (English Electric 16 cylinder diesel engine)... Peter's Class 37/4 (12 cylinder diesel with alternator)... and then Richard's Class 37/0 (12 cylinder diesel with generator). The clear winner was Richard's Class 40.

The difference between the sound characteristics of the 37/0 and 37/4 was noticeable even though the sound level was roughly similar.
 

Oz7mm

Western Thunderer
The Australian locomotive is indeed a New South Wales Railways 44 class. The model was an RTR offering commissioned by Bergs Hobbies in Sydney and is probably the only one running on S7. It has a Loksound 4XL with sounds by DCC Sound recorded from a surviving locomotive. The prototype was introduced in 1957 (to New South Wales) and some are still running.

Sunday was its first outing apart from my short test track and it ran for about 30 minutes. It was a little jerky at some speeds but a bit of tweaking by Richard Carr with his Lokprogrammer last night improved things a lot.

It couldn't match Richard's 37s for sheer volume as I can't get one of Richard's monster speakers in but the 40mm speaker from Jaycar is pretty loud.

I hope to infiltrate future Croscombe meetings with other Australian offerings (hint, hint, Colin)

John
 
Hi Heather.

Lovely photography of the track and rolling stock :) Quick question which you may not be able to answer but, would you happen to know what brand of ballast was used in the first photo? It has a nice, pleasing mix of light and darker shaded stones and the size looks just right too.

Thanks in anticipation.
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
Hi Heather.

Lovely photography of the track and rolling stock :) Quick question which you may not be able to answer but, would you happen to know what brand of ballast was used in the first photo? It has a nice, pleasing mix of light and darker shaded stones and the size looks just right too.

Thanks in anticipation.

I don't know, if I'm honest. Someone who's actually worked on the layout will be able to help, I'm sure.
 
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