Author

Timothy Watson

Date

15th October 2019

Reading Time

2 minutes

Fareham exhibition had a couple of interesting firsts for CF.  We had the fastest set up ever – within three hours – because if constraints of hall access.  A major plus for the team who worked incredibly well together.  Our take down & loading was also very efficient, only being marred by a fault on the van which delayed us by about 45 minutes whilst the AA man effected a repair.

The layout settled down quite quickly with only a couple of issues surrounding two plugs that are time expired and now need replacing; however it was enough to be voted the most popular layout by the public for which we are always surprised and delighted.

We were fortunate to have Denys Brownlee’s Flying Scotsman running on the Flying Scotsman itself.  This engine is incredibly elegant and iconic for the layout.  By the kind gesture of Anthony Brownlee, Denys’ grandson, we are now custodians of this engine.  Unfortunately, Denys’ N2 failed completely at Fareham after only 30 years and countless miles of continuous running on the layout.  I was frankly surprised that it ran at our previous show considering the amount of slack in the mechanism.  I have therefore made a replacement chassis over the last week, which should be good for a few more miles.

The layout will be appearing, in part, at the Model Engineering Exhibition at Ally Pally in January and then will be set up for a couple of months prior to the London Festival of Railway Modelling on March 21st/22nd.  We are quite likely going to be attending the Market Deeping show on May 16/17th (by special arrangement between the two Clubs). Our third appearance in 2020 will be the 2mm Scale Association 60th Anniversary Show in Derby on June 12/14th.

TFW