Taking advantage of the temporary lull in heat waves we assembled at Badlesmere where our focus of the day was on Private Owner Vans and Tank wagons. Once the circuit was up Paul W ran an LNER F Class with some salt wagons and Fred ran a Class 121/122 railcar. David Ho ran a train of Express Dairies and United Dairies milk tank wagons pulled at various times by his ex-SECR C Class, his BR Standard 3MT and his 4DS diesel shunter in Express Dairies blue livery.
Rob in a rehearsal for the theme of our next meeting ran a Southern Railway train with bogie hopper wagons being pulled along by his Class B4 number 88 and with a 10-ton brake van bringing up the rear. Later Bill had a train of A Cant & Sons salt wagons being pulled by his GWR pannier number 6417. Bill also ran a Class 37 Diesel that he had recently acquired but this had a mind of its own where DCC was concerned and Bill and Tim tried to work out why it wasn’t quite behaving as it should have done. Still later Graham ran an ex-LNER 0-6-0T number 68306 with an extra tender.
Over on the big table John B was building some low relief terraced housing and Geoff was showing off his rebuilt Pacific 4-6-2 “Padstow”. After the meeting Martin, via the black arts of time travel on the interweb, produced a photo of the Geoff’s Pacific at Waterloo Station.
Not being anti-social but taking advantage of the light over by the windows Paul H continued working on his GWR Riding Vans and Paul W set to work on a LSWR brake coach.
At lunch we discussed the proposed trip on 26 September to the Romney Hythe & Dymchurch Railway and Paul W is to follow up with them to get a bit more clarity of what they can do for us. Roger reported that he will be taking a sales table at Pett this year on July 12 th and Geoff and Dave B will also have a small diorama there. Roger also reported that he will be on the South Eastern & Chatham Society stand at the Chatham show on the following weekend.
As usual David Ho kept us all provided with teas and coffees until close of play when we packed everything away and headed off home. Chris
