16mm NGM East of Scotland Group

[Chris Cairns]

Although there are overlaps with the West of Scotland Group's calendar I've managed to join the East of Scotland Group for a couple of shows & open days so far this year.

Their display season started off by attending the Steam Weekend at the Dundee Museum of Transport. A new venue for me so I attended on the Saturday.



This venue is currently temporarily located in industrial units, with the long term plan being to locate into the former Maryfield Tram Depot. Some of the exhibits had been removed from one of the units so the Group was allocated space along 2 walls for their modular layout (just seen either side behind the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang replica above).



This space gave the Group two problems. Firstly they did not have a curved board for the modular layout, so one was manufactured just in time for this show, and the track was actually hand laid on the day just before the opening time. The other problem being the layout would have to be operated from the public side so care had to be taken lighting up locos, and being careful with 40/27 MHz transmitter long aerials.



A good variety of locomotives were run on the layout throughout the day.





Outside a miniature railway was running on portable track and there were several miniature steam powered vehicles as well.



Chris Cairns

[Chris Cairns]

The Group runs the 32mm (16mm scale) outdoor Garden Railway at the Scottish Model Engineering Trust's site at Wester Pickston. There are 4 public running days per year.



I decided to forego a running day with the West of Scotland Group to attend the SMET open day in June. This was fortuitous as I ended up as 1 of only 2 operators running that day so my Ragleth got several runs.



The line is adjacent to the path leading to the station for the extensive ground level 5"/7 & 1/4" railway so we got a lot of attention from the families queuing up for the train rides.



Although it was a sunny day there was a fair breeze so we both ran out of gas & steam 'in section' on this out & back line.



Fortunately my fellow operator had brought his Mark II Baguley which as well as rescuing trains 'failed in section' was used to run demonstration trains to keep our impatient visitors happy whilst we waited for our 'kettles' (locomotives) to raise steam again.







A very enjoyable day out, and I'm hoping to attend the last public open day in September.

Chris Cairns