Dear All - me and Broos had a great day out playing trains in public at Sawtry old school here in Cambridgeshire.
The weather was fine and sunny, around 25C most of the time, and in the hall we set up 15m [48.75 ft] of widely-spaced double track on some sturdy folding tables - one track for our many LGB locos with MTS, the other - analogue - for our many locos without it.
The doors opened at 11am and within ten minutes it was hell. This continued nigh-on non-stop until around 3.30 or so, by which time we were both almost dead on our feets.
And hungry.
And thirsty.
Sawtry is a large village, with a high level of RAF families living in it. With a population of around 12,000 and growing, it’s a pretty big village by any standards, and I’d venture a guess that we had prolly around 2000 visitors to the fete, maybe more.
We answered hundreds of questions, found another FIVE like-minded train enthusiasts who had not heard of our club, and had a number of invitations to go run on THEIR tracks as and when. We concentrated on telling interested folks that it was easy to get started for not a lot of money, even by today’s exalted prices, and stressed the family involvement element of the whole thing.
As we had a dedicated professional photographer in the club, we were asked not to take piccies but to leave it all to him - in any case, I didn’t have time to scratch my butt, let alone put a controller down to pick up a camera.
This was the stock list for today - apologies to those who expected to see more variety, but remember that we have to cart all our stuff around including track, and six controllers [including spares, just in case] with all their electric string -
Mine -
Accucraft K27 electric with Sierra sound and two cars - just to show off the difference between Colorado steam and
Bachmann Climax + Phoenix
Bachmann Shay + Phoenix
Aristo Dash 9 warpumkpin + QSI sound and Engineer trigger system [WOOOOOOOOOOT]
Aristo SD45 NP [Shawmut Custom Shop - beautiful job]
Aristo FA/FB Ontario Northland [John Burden custom paint - another beautiful job]
LGB SR&RL Forney + MTS - full sound
LGB White Pass Alco + MTS - full sound
LGB ‘Otto’ - nothing
and finally, my FIXED Aster/LGB Mike #73 [don’t ask how much, or mention it again, please]
Broos -
LGB Sumpter Valley mallet + MTS
LGB Mogul + MTS
LGB Blue croc + MTS
Bachmann Shay + Phoenix
Bachmann street-car + shuttle system on a bac kground track - v cute
Plus LOTS of log cars and a few other mixed consists for the other stuff.
Another great day that cost nothing but our time and energy…
tac