To East Grinstead with
Hopwood's first real outing. One day into the weekend and a few notable things: The layout behaved itself with two invites in fairly quick order - I still have issues with the blue for some reason. Apparently the numbers for Saturday were the same as last year which suggests that most people were being sensible, taking basic hygiene precautions and carrying on as normal which, considering the average age of the room, was encouraging. The random question of the day was the Heljan railbus. I've often drooled over these and as the layout was up, I asked to try-before-buy on two occasions from two different sellers; one s/h, one brand new. The s/h one was rejected as it ran fine one way and had an alarming deep clunk going the other which suggested a gearing issue. The second, and brand new one, rather worryingly did exactly the same straight from the box. This suggests a major design/quality problem and led me to this:
https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/98492-wm-railbus-problems/
It seems that it's not just the steamers that Heljan suffer with. Try before you buy would appear to be the watchword.
Set up next to us was Luc's new O gauge, also on its debut. Probably the best item there and looked familiar in that aside from being 50% longer, is the same
Gammon End type plan that is planned for the next project. If I could do this I'd be very happy.
It was a good exhibition, but a bit quiet on Sunday afternoon. I guess the dreaded virus kept a lot of people away, which is a pity, they missed a treat. There was even some Brunel broad gauge there, and friendly exhibitors who really engaged. Had a good chat with the operator of Charlton set on the withered arm, Southern encroachment into the GWR West (good for them!) and reminisced about buying a week's rover ticket and riding behind filthy West Country light pacifics et al in summer 1965.
ReplyDeleteI did consider coming to East Grinstead but the siren call of Narrow Gauge North was too tempting to resist, especially as it would have taken me nearly as long to get to EGR as it did Leeds.
ReplyDeleteYour observation on the running qualities (!) of the Heljan railbus make me pleased that I managed to get a Dapol kit and all the motorising and interior bits for a reasonable price, although I have got a green 26 and 05 sitting in their boxes somewhere...will I ever get around to gauge converting them? No idea!
Simon