THINKING OF YOU ALWAYS MUM RIP Xx 25th FEB

Always missing you promise not a day goes by now when I don't think of you. Love you loads, you brought us into this world and then had to leave us I have some comfort that you are reunited with Dad and hope that one day soon I will be with you both again. 

Wishing you a Happy Birthday Mum. Xxx

It saddens me that I don't have many more pictures of you to enjoy, but at least I have some lovely ones from your wedding day to Dad hung on the wall at home which helps me when I am low. I know you didn't like having your photo taken anyway, much like myself, just wished I had a few more x. 

MUM AND DAD WEDDING 1961

Love you so much, always in my heart, so sad that you had to leave us so early, you would have been a great Grandma to Graham's boys and so proud of Sue now enjoying life in Australia with James and Hannah. I will be visiting the Hanworth Crematorium Rose Gardens on the weekend. Xxx

RISBOROUGH AND DISTRICT MODEL RAILWAY CLUB EXHIBITION 22nd FEBRUARY

RISEX 2020 Model Railway Exhibition
Saturday 22nd February 2020
LOCATION:
Community Centre, Wades Park,
Stratton Road, Princes Risborough,
Buckinghamshire   HP27 9AX

OPENING TIMES:  10am to 5pm
ADMISSION:    Adults £4.00      Children £2.00
The whole of the Community Centre in Princes Risborough is taken over one day in the spring each year. Allowing local modellers to display their layouts and model making. Large car park adjacent to the Community Centre. Half hourly bus service from Aylesbury or High Wycombe. Ten minute walk from Chiltern Railway station with regular trains from Birmingham, Banbury, Aylesbury or London Marylebone, 25 minutes drive from M40 Junction 6 via B4009. The Community Centre is accessible and has level wheelchair access available throughout, there is a separate disabled toilet. Also avail yourselves of the excellent refreshments which will be available including a range of homemade cakes.

Layouts Confirmed to date

Fictionville, 45mm Gauge, Exhibited by Steve Hatt, Diorama depicting somewhere in France behind the German lines around in 1943, depicting German heavy haulage, loading stage, main line and civilian sector with tram-car. This model diorama won last years 'Chairman's Cup' and with another year in the bank should be even better now by the creators own words at the 2019 exhibition "Has been 18 months in the making so far and around another year to go, I want to add the same level of detail throughout that is depicted in the garage ruin to the left end of the diorama"

7mm Scale
Edgeholme Quarry, O-16.5 Gauge, Exhibited by Abingdon & District Model Railway Club, 7mm scale narrow gauge industrial layout, it is operated by DCC control and a variety of small wagons and v-tippers are shunted by small locos, typical of an industrial environment (pic above).

4mm Scale
Garreg Wen, OO9 Gauge, Exhibited by Matthew and Helen Kean, (pictured above and left) The model is set in Snowdonia in the Victorian period (approximately 1880) and represents the modest upper terminus for passenger working of a former horse tramway, converted to steam about a decade or so previously. A quarry extension leaves the back of the station to the foot of an incline located ‘off set’, but due to the gradient and the threat of runaway slate wagons, the passenger platform is on a separate line, as also happened at Bryngwyn on the NWNGR for example.  Interesting elements in construction include the quarryman’s terrace with individually built slate rubble walls, vertical slate slab fencing typical of the Corris area, vegetation with a Noch ‘Grassmaster’, and hand built plain track ballasted above the rail base in contemporary Victorian fashion.
Minnie Bridge, OO Gauge, Exhibited by John Baggaley, Set in the late 1960s/early 1970s the layout represents a fictitious London Transport loco and minor permanent way depot in a fictitious location ‘Somewhere-in-London’.

New Walmington Pier, OO9 Gauge, [above] Exhibited by Dave Carson, Set in Edwardian times the layout depicts a fictitious small pier tramway with a carousel at the end. Working along the pier is a Southend Pier 1890 "Toastrack" car.
Roadwater, EM Gauge, Exhibited by Steve Walker, Terminus on a ‘might-have-been’ truncated GWR branch in the 1920s. I have changed history and assumed the line remained, linking to the Taunton – Minehead branch at Washford.

Trinity Dock Street Bridge

OO Gauge, Exhibited by Gavin Rose, it's a fictitious location based on Railway Street in Hull, where the road and railway crossed the channel between Humber and Railway docks in the ‘Old Town Docks’ in the city set just pre WW2 on a dank dark February in 1939.

 3.5mm Scale
Klapping, HO Gauge, Exhibited by Mike Roualle, The layout is a fictionalised setting somewhere south of Graz in Austria,  Modelled as a truncated terminus station, the line is electrified using catenary. There is in addition a diesel freight feeder line, together with a goods yard also using diesel traction. Maximising the operational interest, the whole point of building the layout was to run trains and introduce the public to Austrian Railways, so a good selection of stock can be seen, including Wiesel double-deck carriages, City Shuttle single deckers, 4020 and Siemens Desiro EMUs as well as a 5062 railcar. A steady flow of locomotive hauled freight trains make an appearance hauled by both electric and diesel locomotives and, to add even more interest, there is the occasional steam hauled special.

1:120 Scale
Naples Street, TT Gauge, Exhibited by Rod Shaw, Naples Street (Pictured above) is a small American switching layout, with an industrial park straddling the street, this is served by a variety of freight cars moved around by two small diesel switchers. The small industrial park straddling Naples Street in the imaginary town of Sorrento, Illinois, is served by a branch of Conrail in the last quarter of the twentieth century. A mixed bag of rolling stock makes an appearance, moved around by a couple of small switchers. There is a mix of boxcars from different eras and to justify this I have imagined that short boxcars with roof walks weren’t phased out in the 1970s but lasted over a decade longer.

1:148 Scale
Airesby Colliery, N Gauge, (left) Exhibited by Stephen Beck, A modern image sound fitted layout, based on coal movements from the colliery and onwards. Recreating the atmosphere of the Aire Valley Merry-go-Round coal operations of the BR Railfreight Coal sector and early privatisation eras. It also features a functioning rapid loader to load coal trains. This has been cleverly designed to hand load the wagons via a scratch built shoot affixed behind the rapid loader.

DIDCOT RAILWAY CENTRE - DELIVERING THE GOODS WEEKEND 15-16 FEBRUARY

DIDCOT RAILWAY CENTRE

Delivering The Goods Weekend

Delivering The Goods
Sat 15th + Sun 16th Feb
 - This coming weekend should see minimum of four locomotives in action working passenger and goods trains with special demonstration freight trains and wagon movements it will recall the days when goods traffic was more important to the railways than passengers.  Come and see two steam and two diesel locomotives in action working passenger and goods trains and take unlimited rides on the Centre's two demonstration lines.

Visiting locomotive No. 31 (pictured right at Fawley Hill) was constructed in 1913 for Sir Robert McAlpine and Sons and worked at the company’s Hayes depot until the 1960s when it was to have been scrapped but was saved by the late Sir William McAlpine who bought it for the sum of £100 and it has worked on the family’s large garden railway at Fawley Hill ever since. This is believed to be the locomotive’s first working visit away from Fawley Hill and will provide a rare chance to ride in a passenger carriage behind No.31 as she spent most of her working life shunting trucks loaded with construction materials, while passengers at Fawley Hill are conveyed in an adapted goods wagon.  No.31 will be in action at Didcot on 15 and 16 February and appears courtesy of Lady McAlpine.

No. 31 will be reacquainted with the goods wagons and trucks that played an important part in her history as she propels wagons loaded with coal up the steep incline to the Centre’s coal stage – the only surviving working example of a type of building that was once commonplace at locomotive sheds. At the coal stage, the solid fuel can be transferred into tubs which then tip to fill the bunker of a locomotive waiting below. The centenarian will also be used to work demonstration goods trains on one of the Centre’s two running lines over the course of the weekend.

The second steam locomotive in action will be No. 4144 (pictured here above while visiting the Severn Valley Railway Steam Gala) a large and powerful tank engine built at the Great Western Railway's famous Swindon Locomotive Works in 1946. Locos of this type were frequently used on passenger and freight trains and No. 4144 will be working both on the Centre's main demonstration line over the weekend and will be in charge of a "mixed" train of both passenger carriages and goods wagons - these were operated either to save money or when fresh produce such as fruit or milk needed to be moved quickly to its destination.

Two diesel locomotives, D9516 (left) and 08604 will also be running during the event. D9516 dates from 1964 but saw just three years' service with British Railways before going to British Steel's ironstone quarry at Buckminster in Lincolnshire to work heavy trains loaded with iron ore. The locomotive will work demonstration goods trains and a number of passenger trains at the event, while 08604 - which recently celebrated its 60th birthday and seen below with it's "Phantom" nameplate -  will be seen shunting trucks - a common duty for this type of locomotive.

As well as the full-size trains, visitors will also be able to see a working model layout of a goods yard that featured in the grand final of Channel 5’s Great Model Railway Challenge.  The layout, “William Street Yard” was built by a group of volunteers who work at both Didcot and Fawley Hill. It represents a goods yard set between 1947 and 1954 and during those years it was a time of great change and variety with many types of locomotives and wagons sporting a variety of liveries.  Many of the vehicles in action in the busy yard are models of those in the collection at Didcot so in some cases visitors will be able to see both the model and full-size originals in action!

There's also plenty more to see and do as you explore this 21-acre living museum and unearth almost two centuries of railway history.  Stroll through the original 1932 engine shed and see magnificent preserved locomotives – you can even climb onto the footplates of some! See surviving track from Brunel’s broad gauge, discover painstakingly restored buildings, coaches and wagons and learn more about the development of railways and how they changed everyday lives. You can get hands-on in the Science of Railways carriages and the signalling centre where you can find out how trains have been controlled through the ages. Descend into a shelter built to keep Didcot’s enginemen safe in WWII and experience an air raid or immerse yourself in the varied collection of fascinating, smaller artefacts in the museum. Don't miss the opportunity to get hands-on and control trains using the 1960s technology of the Swindon Panel.  The equipment was once the heart of Swindon signalbox has been saved and restored so, guided by one of our experts, you can keep trains running safely and to time on a virtual Great Western mainline!