Beds & Bucks NG Modellers Members Open Day, Barton Le Clay, 17 May 2015
Jun 5, 2015 • Public
Photo: 001 Stephen Sullivan (left) and David Gander mount guard on the display case and act as the Welcoming Party ready to greet visitors and relieve them of some cash .
Photo: 002 A view of the main hall 5 minutes before the show officially started. Exhibition Manager Mark Howe wearing the Russian flag in the foreground gives last minute battle orders to Patrick Collins and Steve Clulow .
Photo: 003 Main hall from the other end, taken half an hour later and already quite full. Are you in the photo? .
Photo: 004 The queue for sausage baps and other culinary delights started as soon as the show opened and continued to look like this all day! .
Photo: 005 The Heroines of the Day still smiling at 10.15 am and before the first of over 200 sausage baps were served. LtoR: Sue, Terri, Diane, Shelby, Michelle
Photo: 006 The “eat in” area which hardly had a free seat all day. Several familiar modelling people shown in the snap, including Keith from Australia looking directly at the camera .
Photo: 007 Focus on the Traders 1: Narrow Planet brought their hugely successful and rapidly expanding range along for the day. LtoR Proprietor Steve Fulljames, Tom Dauben, Jon Reeves .
Photo: 008 Focus on the Traders 2. Chris and Christine Ward now live in Devon, so nearly all the NG model events are an expedition away, but nevertheless they are a fixture at just about every one that I’ve managed to get to in recent years. Here they are with a glimpse of their large and very popular range of CWR 3D printed locomotive bodies .
Photo: 009 Focus on the Traders 3. The 009 Society sales area took up a whole room and was under its usual siege situation for most of the day. Once again, can you spot yourself in the photo……..Hugh, Garry, David, Bill, Julien, Brian just to name 6 identified immediately! .
Photo: 010 Britain’s Got Talent with its performing dogs and the need to have “stunt double” performing dogs has nothing on the NG modelling fraternity. 009 Society stalwart Sally Jones is being taught how to operate Ryedown Lane by her unnamed friend .
Photo: 011 Which brings us neatly onto Ryedown Lane, which Patrick Collins (in the check shirt) brought all the way up from Romsey in Hampshire. Patrick was assisted all day by Steve Clulow, in the green jumper, of the Beds & Bucks Group .
Photo: 012 Ryedown Lane has become a well known and very popular 009 layout inspired by the Colonel Stephens’ light railways and an excellent example of the “keep it simple” school of modelling. A passenger train in the charge of ex-Snailbeach Railway large Bagnall “Dennis”, about to leave Winterbourne Road in this view .
Photo: 013 The passenger set at Ryedown Lane. Both of these coaches were built by Patrick Collins from Parkside Dundas Vale of Rheidol coach and van kits, the brake compo being a clever marriage between the 4 wheel brakevan and 4/7ths of the bogie coach .
Photo: 014 0-6-0T Bagnall “Dennis” again, leaving Ryedown Lane on an up working to…….. (wherever the Wessex Light Railway joins the Southern somewhere up the line) .
Photo: 015 The afternoon goods being put together at Ryedown Lane by the Wessex Light Railway’s Paul Windle-built Sharp Stewart tram locomotive. The standard goods vehicles used on this railway are very similar to the 2ft 6in gauge ones used by the Welshpool and Llanfair some 180 miles north west of Wessex .
Photo: 016 The return goods service at Winterbourne Road on its way to Ryedown Lane with Kerr Stuart “Princess” class 0-4-2T in charge .
Photo: 017 The Ford railcar set is an epitome of the Colonel Stephens “atmosphere”. This model, built some years ago from a standard gauge 4mm scale kit by Tourgem, was original built by Arthur Budd and is now owned by Graham Lindley, both of the Wessex NG Modellers .
Photo: 018 A Kerr Stuart diesel convention took place at Ryedown Lane during the day where the Meridian model of the pioneering diesel loco (the darker grey one in the rear) built onto a Minitrix dock tank chassis, met up with the later A1 Models version which has a wider body to accommodate the Bachmann “brick” Plymouth chassis that it is designed for .
Photo: 019 Maybe an anachronism for a Colonel Stephens railway set in the 1930’s but this Narrow Planet ex-RNAD 99hp Baguley-Drewry diesel loco suits the scene very well in my opinion and brings the layout into firm credibility for a time-shift into the year 2015 in a preserved railway setting .
Photo: 020 Garreg Wen, Matthew and Helen Kean’s vintage Welsh NG “album” layout is in the process of being extended in depth to allow additional scenic features. This early gimpse provides a taste of how attractive the scene is going to be when completed .
Photo: 021 Garreg Wen is very much a family layout and here is the whole family enjoying the day – Matthew and Helen with “the boss” Lucy .
Photo: 022 Lucy Kean operating Garreg Wen (and doing it very competently as well). Photo published with parental permission .
Photo: 023 Garreg Wen features a variety of Victorian era Welsh NG stock, all of which have been very meticulously constructed, as seen by this superb Corris Railway Hughes locomotive in original condition .
Photo: 024 An early Festiniog train arrives at Garreg Wen with George England 0-4-0T+T loco "The Prince” in charge of a train of Birmingham 4 wheelers, colloquially known as bug boxes .