DEPRESSING OUTLOOK FOR APRIL AND MAY AS ALL EVENTS CANCELLED

Update for the next few months, had planned to be out for open days and exhibitions which are all cancelled as expected until further notice. Gone are the Open Days for Hillingdon Railway Modellers which is a shame as Dad's models could really do with a run. Also had plans over Easter to visit the Isle of Wight including their Steam Railway at Haven Street so will have to try and rearrange that for later this year (assuming things improve a lot for everyone). 

Looking at the listings of Exhibitions and Open Days for April, May and June we already see that the vast majority of these have already been cancelled, not surprisingly, and therefore we will have a long wait before we will see a turnaround in fortunes. [Events calendar]. As well as a planned trip to the Isle of Wight was also looking forward to a trip to visit the Swanage Railway making use of the mainline rail connection via Wareham meaning I can get there using South Western Railway as I no longer drive. They have been testing this out over the past year using a refurbished heritage DMU so was hoping this service would run regularly during the spring and summer this year. Occasionally they have run direct trains into Norden or Corfe Castle but until services resume on the railway it's unclear if this will still be available.

Appears therefore that we have a lot of time on our hands at home instead, and so out come the various scales of models that I have, some inherited from my father, others I have acquired over a period of time. An opportunity to catalogue these as best I can and given I have a number of items boxed away for 'O / OO / N' this could take me a while. Hopefully can give each of the locomotives a quick test run too though no space to try out the O Gauge items at least making sure they are well packed away again will be a good way to spend Easter I guess. I do have a few out on display so will also be able to rotate these a little. Here are a couple of my favourite little O Gauge 0-4-0's that Dad made and detailed.