The Swindon Railway Festival

[Bob]

14th and 15th September sees the Swindon Steam Festival at STEAM, the museum of the Great Western Railway.

Full details at www.steam-museum.org.uk/steam/swindon_railway_festival_2013.htm but amongst those present will be Aberbeeg and Tucking Mill from fellow WT'ers. Plenty more of interest too including a certain Mr Waterman with JLTRT and I'll be there doing a demo table alongside Herr Gruntfuttock with more of his 7mm pre-grouping wagons.

Box Steam Brewery in attendance too

 

[D6331]

My pal Marc will be there with his micro of Cashmores (Newport) scrapyard containing his wonderful oily puddles and some piles of scrapped steam locos to upset the kettle heads I'm going along on Sat with Big Dave to "help out" etc followed by several pints and a curry!

Maybe see some fellow Thunder fans there?!

Roger

 

[lancer1027]

And lots of them

 

[Bob]

Maybe see some fellow Thunder fans there?!

Come and say Hi....just look for the demo table with a guy who looks like Peter Griffin from "Family Guy".

 

[Bob]

I'm going along on Sat with Big Dave to "help out" etc followed by several pints and a curry!

Nice to meet you on Saturday Roger. I heard you guys had quite a night at The Glue Pot (a Swindon ale house folks).

Took me a while to find Marc's layout....the museums a bit of a maze

 

[Bob]

A few photos from a thoroughly enjoyable weekend at Swindon. I managed to do plenty of modelling and chatted to several WT'ers including Roger (D6331), Simon Thompson of Aberbeeg fame......cracking layout with subtle DCC sound and I could easily spends ages sat in front of it reliving my youth. Jerry (Queensquare) Clifford was there with the wonderful Tucking Mill (no photos this time .........always plenty of people in front watching it whenever I was passing.
Nice to meet John Shaw from York again after too many years.....a wonderful chap and great modeller. His new layout Kirkham Abbey clearly shows his artistic skills.
When I read in the pre-show publicity that the layout of St.Ives attending was to gauge 3 I thought "that's a misprint" but all forty eighty-odd feet of it was there alright! Very sad that it's owner passed away before seeing it complete though.

Most of my photos turned out rather iffy but this was the best I could get of Simon's Aberbeeg.


John Shaw's lovely Kirkham Abbey







St Ives in gauge 3





Sadly the best I managed to get of the scrapyard layout (Cashmores?).

 

[daifly]

When I read in the pre-show publicity that the layout of St.Ives attending was to gauge 3 I thought "that's a misprint" but all forty-odd feet of it was there alright!

Actually it's 84 feet long - including a 16ft-long fiddle yard! The scenic section is over a scale quarter-mile long.

Good to chat to you and Richard too.

Cheers

Dave

 

[queensquare]

We also had a cracking weekend at Swindon - including an excellent curry and a few beers on Saturday night. Afraid I didn't take any pictures (plenty of TM here http://www.westernthunder.co.uk/index.php?threads/jerrys-random-2mm-stuff.2168/page-3)
Lots of nice things to look at - Swindon always has an emphasis on the larger scales and there were some real delights. Aberbeeg and Maristow really caught my eye. Our tiny 2FS layout being adjacent to the Gauge 3 St Ives probably provided the greatest contrast!!
Looking forward to going back to do it all again next year.

Jerry

 

[SimonT]

Chaps.
glad to meet all and sundry at a show of contrasts! Cashmores is a beautifully atmospheric layout and as for Tucking Mill - Jerry get thee behind me with that temptation! The Class 22 and Teddy Bear were too much. Havebeer would be 15 ft long in 2 mill - no more 7 ton truck. I'll start immediately.

Best moment was with the old boyos from a certain valley, one of whom has done 40 years as a signal man at Aberbeeg. Peter Kibble, who built the model, showed him the fully detailed inside of the box and his reaction made the weekend magic. Fabulous.

Simon

 

[Bob]

but all forty-odd feet of it was there alright!

Red-faced department, yes that should indeed have said "eighty".....for those that missed the show my picture above only goes some of the way to emphasise the sheer enormity of the thing. In the distance is the signal box, after that comes the viaduct, the loco shed and then as Daifly points out....the 16-foot fiddle yard.
If they get around to the 11 coach through trains hauled by a brace of small prairies that will be a sight!

Good to chat to you and Richard too.

Very nice chatting to you too Dave.

 

[Bob]

Before I forget.............worst pun of the weekend goes to...........Queensquare..... for :

Kevin Robertson (of Noodle Books fame)........"People want so much detail the next book I'm working on is one on Great Western buffer stops!"

Queensquare.........."That'll be the end of the line".

 

[queensquare]

Before I forget.............worst pun of the weekend goes to...........Queensquare..... for :

Kevin Robertson (of Noodle Books fame)........"People want so much detail the next book I'm working on is one on Great Western buffer stops!"

Queensquare.........."That'll be the end of the line".

Oh I can do worse than that........

cheers Jerry