To begin a long overdue update I can only start with a summary of the lost 18 months, in fact far from been lost they have been relatively fruitful.
Line No 4 sat forlorn and still unpacked from its excursion to Oxford when a request for help from the Colonel Stephens Society with regard to the East Kent Railways centennial weekend in August, led to a hasty dust of and reassembly of the layout.
Although it was only required to be a static display the rogue point and offending track where replaced and hastily (spot my mistake) blended in. It was rather surreal to set up the layout in a baggage van as I wonder just how many 2mm wagons have been on rails of the lines they represent. It was a most pleasant weekend although I ended up answering more questions about the Kent Coal field than Colonel Stephens although they did recruit a new member.
More importantly for my modelling was the forming of a local area group, which meets once a month for a couple of hours. So far I have found this invaluable in educating me in techniques and ideas as well as motivation. I feel sure if I had been a member of such a group Line No4 would have been far more successful.
The fate of Line No4 after its excursion to the EKR hung in doubt after some discussion its initial future was settled by my better half who said don’t do anything other than store it in the loft. One of the main reasons for this was a failure to secure reliable traction given if you’re not sure that the locos good how do you know the tracks bad. My efforts at building a reliable chassis where going no where so time for a rethink. Obvious choice after a few false dawns was using the drop in wheel sets and “modern” traction. I spent my teens travelling on Southern EMU’s/DMU’s and have fond memories of Hastings Diesels. The real clincher was the announcement of a 4 CEP a unit I travelled in often. Domestic authorities granted planning consent for a new line and that was that although I have been seduced by a Grafar 108 which has been converted with drop in wheels and runs happily and slowly around my test Kato oval, a CEP is on order………
Don’t worry it’s not too modern it will be Green
Apologies for the rambling over long post thanks to my wonderful better half and all fellow modellers who have helped and assisted me
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