Welcome to the Noggies


Greetings once again and to follow on from the last article, my guess that after inspecting the potential new premises, we'd decide it wasn't suitable was correct. However, what I hadn't foreseen (just when I'd typed up the club's members newsletter with the news that the former shop premises wasn't large enough and that with the council about to advertise for a new caretaker, it would be a good while before we'd have the chance to get back to the Kingsthorpe clubhouse) was that by the following week we'd have changed club night to accommodate our move back there almost a year to the day since we'd had to vacate it after just one meeting.

By the time I'd finished printing off enough copies that item made it look as though I'd been holidaying on Mars for a month; who'd be a Secretary in this age of fast moving communications?

Now we're back and settled with a permanent HQ, attention has turned to the new club O gauge scenic layout. I could claim green credentials for the club because we've decided to include three re-worked (recycled) sections of a former layout called Stanford Vale that haven't seen the light of day for over ten years.

After much discussion amongst the Noggies we've decided to set the new layout (to be called "Kingsthorpe") as a fictional location where there is an interchange between BR/ National rail and an intermediate station on a preserved line. That gives us absolute manna to run anything and everything loco and stock-wise. It will be an end-to-end layout. We will be able to vary the period from 1960s up to today. So it would be possible to see an A4 pacific and big-four company coaches - even perhaps coaches from all the big four in one rake alongside a Virgin (or should that be CrossCountry) Voyager, or at least it would be if any of us had a Voyager set.

The front section will have the preserved railway featuring a shunting yard and goods demonstration line with the BR/ National rail section behind. As may be expected, the stored sections have suffered a bit in storage and moving and will need some attention to restore the excellent level of detail they previously enjoyed. There will also be some subtle changes to the alignment of the track in some places, to achieve the intended new look.

Another club feature will be the resumption of master-classes in nearly all the modelling disciplines. The senior members of the club will be taking turns to provide tutorials.

As well as the work on "Kingsthorpe", the test-track is benefiting from a wiring upgrade which will ensure continuity of supply - as well as being easier to fit as they will be positioned on the inside rather than underneath. The best of it is that these will be a completely new supply, with better quality wire. As it will be an additional supply it will not interfere with the movement of trains on running nights whilst work is carried out.

Reading through the last Guild News, we were delighted to see the mention for the club from Bob of the SOGGies about their trip to our exhibition last November. Bob, I'd have to agree that we couldn't ask for a better plug for less than a pint - THANKS!

On Saturday 8th March the Noggies to a man made the short trip over to the GOG Spring show at Kettering. It's lovely to have a good quality show (that we don't have to organise ourselves, but thanks to those that do!) on our doorstep. It was a very satisfying trip for all, but an expensive one for a NOGGY who shall remain nameless. Some of us have also been further afield with the March Nottingham show perhaps the biggest amongst those visited recently.

Anyone can visit our club website at www.ndmrc.org or call (01933) 413500 evenings except Wednesday which is club night meeting 7:30 to 10:30 at Kingsthorpe Community Centre, Mill Lane, Kingsthorpe, Northampton NN4 9RR.



December 30th, 2007

Greetings to one and all; at the time of composition it is 30th December, I'm therefore thinking "Happy New Year", but by the time you read this it is likely to be around 1st February, so we'll be a long way past that. I was going to start with news of our exhibition, but yesterday most of the committee met at the front of an empty former estate supermarket on the eastern side of town hoping we were about to find a new permanent home for the club. The owner duly met us at 11:00 and let us in to inspect, measure and photograph. However, it soon became apparent that the building wasn't as large as we'd hoped and I don't think will be suitable to move into. We have a committee meeting on Thursday 3rd January to make a formal decision, but I'll stick my neck out now and guess it'll be rejected.

That'd be a shame because we were told about this by Chairman Ralph on the last club night of the year and so we were all keen to see the place. Whilst there we learned that it'd been a butcher's shop before conversion to a small supermarket and that it had been empty for nine years, so we were confident of a good deal on the rent.

So assuming that we won't be pursuing the old shop, we'll have to get in touch with the borough council to see when the Kingsthorpe Community Centre will be ready for re-opening. As you may know we had one meeting there the first week in January 2007 only to be told a few days later that it wasn't fit for purpose, and that we and all the other users had to vacate until further notice. So one year on we've got our fingers crossed for a better result.

Now to the topic which dominated most of our time and the content of these updates - our 2007 Exhibition. As a club the committee and members were all busy right up to the day of the show. The day was cold but dry thank goodness; there's nothing worse for exhibitors and traders than unloading in the wet, so we felt we were off to a good start. Everything went smoothly in the hours before opening and then we experienced a good and steady flow of visitors through the door. Lunch and tea coffee was provided for the exhibitors which included the Radway layout by Brian Stayt from the Sheffield O Gauge Group. We thank him and Bob his helper of the day for travelling south down the M1. Also we'd like to thank Chris Thorn our area Guild representative who journeyed in the other direction to be with us and brought the Guild stand and a splendid model of a class 76 1,500v dc Manchester-Sheffield-Wath loco with him. Another first for us was a "just completed" model of a class 37 diesel loco on the Skytrex stand. This had been only a figment of the owner's imagination ten weeks beforehand and looked good and more importantly ran well. I was told they are doing both split and centre headcode versions (unlike Heljan) and will also offer an un-powered version to allow the cost-effective running of pairs on the head of coal trains. Because the Skytrex versions don't have working lights and roof-fans they are going to be cheaper than the Heljan versions when they appear.

There was "good footfall" through the venue doors all day and the Tombola proved popular as did the ride-on 5" scale ride. We carried out exit polls amongst the public and traders/exhibitors and found that everyone loved the venue and the overall ambiance of the exhibition - a definite plus as we'll be back there at the end of November again. We also managed to pull in several new members from those visiting and lots of people brought their own stock to run on the Test Track; quite a few of these were making their very first outing. When the money coming in had been counted and set against outgoings, it was found that we'd fallen short by about £85. This was a slight disappointment, but set against Treasurer Chris's three-year plan that was to lose no more than a £1,000 in the first year, break even in the second and make a grand in the third, we think w're off to a blinding start.

Our Christmas dinner took place on Tuesday 11th December when 19 of us including the WAGs went to a country pub on the Rugby Road and had a lovely meal. There were some grumbles about the service, but overall everything went well and we had a good time.

The weekend after our show six of us Noggies went along to the Reading Trade Show, where most of us bought something and the club sold a couple of items in the Bring and Buy.



Noggies, getting ready for...

Greetings to one and all. I hope O gaugers everywhere enjoyed Guildex at Telford; I know we as a group did. Eight of us travelled there, with me heading south as everyone else headed north. The reason is I was returning from a lovely week-long holiday in Wales. At the time of writing this update (late September) we are just over a week away from what will probably be our final committee meeting our biggest ever club exhibition and two months from the day itself. Several of us also have to try and find time to fit in holidays (but I'm sure we'll manage it somehow!) When I last wrote saying that we had transferred our exhibition to the much larger indoor school at the cricket club and asked for layout owners to come and display their pride and joy, we've had such a high success rate that we'll have 30 layouts, eight of which will be O gauge together with good trade and society support and cannot find room for anything else now. Treasurer Chris has worked wonders in drawing up and re-drawing the plan, but worryingly for a "numbers man," he's forgotten how many versions there has been. The important thing is that we have settled on the final version more than two months out and all feel very confident that we have an excellent balance to offer every potential visitor.

Another item of good news is that a discount is available on admission prices to the show. Anyone can benefit, you just need to visit our club website at www.ndmrc.org. Once there, click on the link for the exhibition, enter your name and address and a voucher will be sent by return of post. We'd love to see as many of you as possible. This is a critical show to the wellbeing of our group. The Northampton club has a long and proud history, we're over 50 years old and we're investing a lot into the 2007 exhibition. The club has seen some dark days in the last decade, ranging from losing our permanent home because of the discovery of Radon gas (Northamptonshire is unfortunately, one of the worst affected areas in the country for this) to unexpected and sudden deaths in the ranks. There was quite a time when the viability of the club was in the balance. However over the last few years, we have fought back having found temporary premises (twice) and by sheer hard work and dedication have grown the membership, including an encouragingly active junior section which bodes well for the coming years. One junior club member is proud to be bringing his newly built layout to the exhibition; look out for Hamtune, which is the old Roman name for Northampton.

Having mentioned the club website earlier, it is also an opportune moment to thank Michael and his son who have done the brilliant design work. It so impressed a local model shop owner (T&R Models) that he gives a 10% discount on items purchased there. The website has had a major overhaul recently, and there's still a little more to do. I hope by the time you read this that the "Noggies" section will be up and running. We should also have more photos of members with their favourite locos and items of stock. Next week we are restarting our "master-classes" which through the series will cover nearly all aspects of the hobby. We also have a new club O layout to design and build. That starts when we get back to Kingsthorpe. I hope to be able to give you a further update on that next time. At the moment, sadly, no news, is no news. By the time you read this the club will have had a day out at Didcot and Pendon, so more on that next time. Photos of that could well feature in future, as I'm sure will piccies from the November exhibition. Then there is our annual Christmas dinner event to look forward to. This year we're indebted to Tony who has his daughter working at the place we've chosen and they've given us a great deal on the meal and drink prices.

Closing on a personal note again, I'm glad to report that nearly all of the outstanding electrical work on my garden railway has today been completed to allow trains to run. A quick running session this afternoon was cut short by rain. A 30+ year dream realised - wow! There will be some enhancements and upgrades to carry out and monitoring to do to ensure satisfactory running, but Les, Tony, Chris, David, Roger and others have given freely of their time and knowledge, so once again I would like to publicly thank all the club members who have contributed time and expertise to the project. I'm not sure whether there will be time (and weather) for a "grand openingâ" before the end of the year, but it would be nice to think it could happen. If the chance presents itself I'll go for it. If not, I know that I'll have the whole of next spring and summer to look forward to outdoor running. Everybody who has helped in the project will be invited to the opening session and open to all who are interested after that.




Noggies, say hello again.

Since the first update appeared in the Guild News, things have rather stagnated. The wait to move into our new meeting location just goes on. We had one meeting in January and haven't been back since. The council and the new builder who took over the project can't seem to agree who will fund the required improvements to the building. We have however temporarily moved back into the community centre that we vacated to go to our new home. This has at least enabled us to do some fine tuning on our large test track and the results have been encouraging. The voltage drop which had plagued most locos is a thing of the past and the few remaining uneven joints are being rectified on an on-going basis. We hope that by the time of our exhibition on Saturday 24th November it will be running very well indeed.

Thankfully, we've had more success with organising our exhibition; so much so in fact that we've had to move to a larger room, though it is still at the Northamptonshire County Cricket Club. We recently took the decision, to move to the Indoor School. This has a number of benefits. Firstly, it is a more modern building and has better facilities. The road signage will take visitors directly to the adjacent entrance and we now have much more room! So although the uptake of layouts has been good we now have the ability to show even more. If you are a Guild member, or a club with a layout that you'd like to show in a modern well equipped venue, then please do get in touch on (01933) 413500 evenings, (except Tuesday as it is club night).

At the time of writing, we are just approaching our AGM. This year the club is in a very stable financial position due to many factors including careful stewardship of the resources by Chris, our Treasurer. We are also benefiting from being left the collection of one of our founder-members who passed away suddenly last year. We've divided the collection of locos and rolling stock between a stewardship scheme, whereby members can take possession of items to use as their own though ownership will remain with the club and selling some items deemed to be surplus to requirements. These have included some gauge 1 items and some live steam locos that we don't have the facility to run or store at the club. They've brought in a healthy return. Ideally, we'd like to use the funds to fine a permanent home for the club and most of the Northampton based members keep an eye out for such an opportunity.

Closing on a personal note, I'm hoping that the outstanding electrical work that remains on to be done on my garden railway will soon be complete and we'll be able to enjoy some running days before the end of the summer. I would like to publicly thank all the club members who have contributed time and expertise to the project since last October when basic construction was completed.




Noggies say hello!

Hello to all other groups and members from the newly formed Northampton O gauge group. We are part of the Northampton and District Model Railway Club and at our last AGM a proposal to form the group was unanimously approved.

We are the largest single gauge interest in the club and as such have three loops of finescale O of the six on the club test track. The test track is a large 24' x 20' multi-sectioned affair with minimum nine foot radii to enable all locos and stock to run. It also caters for the OO gauge modeller and has one loop of G scale track which the club intend to lay an oval of N gauge line.

We've had an interesting year using four different venues. Our meeting place in the Camp Hill Community Centre was replaced with a newer version right next door last April and then at the end of the year, the club was contacted by the Borough Council because a former location we'd previously used, but had to vacate along with all other users had been rebuilt and would be ready for occupation. Were we interested in going back; we certainly were when we saw how much storage space was available. This has been a long-standing problem for the club, and I would imagine to lots of others too. We duly gave notice and moved in for the first time in early January. However, that wasn't the end of it, as the new building had many 'snags' which needed to be corrected before the Council would approve its use. Our Chairman came up with a quick fix that we could use whilst the building is put right; something for which we have no date currently, but though we cannot erect the test track, on the plus side, we are all digging out long forgotten kits and being very industrious in their construction; something we don't do as much of when the easy alternative is to watch something clattering around.

Last November, we had a very successful open day and this year it has given us the impetus to go for a full blown exhibition which will be at the Northamptonshire County Cricket Club (Wantage Road side) on Saturday November 24th. The cricket club is well signposted from all over the town and outskirts. So if you fancy a day out, why not come and visit us and see what progress has been made on the new club O gauge layout? This is a project we've had in mind for sometime now, but has had to be put on the back burner for a while because of the upheavals described earlier.

Whilst the Noggies may be in their first year, the club of which we are a part has recently celebrated 50 years young and by the time you read this we should have our own website.

Finally, I guess we ought to say thanks to the Sheffield O gauge group for the inspiration behind our nickname; thanks guys!