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COPYRIGHT: PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH BEFORE CONTINUING!

All photos in this Blogspot and those accessed in Google Images via the links in each report are my Copyright and may be saved for personal use only. They may not be republished elsewhere without the written permission of the Copyright holder.

Hello and welcome to my twice reinstated and updated photo reports of visits to narrow gauge model railway layouts and events! Following the sudden and untimely cessation of Fotopic in March 2011 and with it the loss of my photo galleries, I started this blog in order to try to keep my "Roving Reports" available to those who enjoy viewing them. I have linked this blogsite to the old galleries which I originally rebuilt and posted in albums in Picasaweb. Once all the old reports had been rebuilt, I have continued to add completely new ones to cover my visits to events from April 2011 onwards.

In August 2016 Google blocked access to Picasaweb in order to force everyone to use their "much better" Google Images, so I had to do the whole exercise again. Thanks! .

Meanwhile......Because of the way this Blogspot works, the most recent postings appear first and the oldest ones last. Each report contains a link to the Google photo album plus captions for that report. The link will take you to the front page of the Google Album for this report. Left click on the first photo and it will open into a manually operated slideshow. A panel should open alongside the image on the right showing the number of the photo and the caption text. If it does not appear, click on the small white disk top right of the photo panel and it will open. Move forward or backwards by clicking the right or left arrows on your keyboard. When you have finished viewing, click the back arrow showing top left of the photo panel and this will take you back to the album opening page.

Close it in the normal way by clicking on the "X" top right or click the return arrow top left of the Windows screen to return to the blog, depending on which browser you use. Once back in the blog, any report can be accessed sequentially from the blog by scrolling downwards and if required, click on the "older posts" link at the bottom of the list, or simply go to the Blog Archive on the right of the window and select any report by simply clicking on the title.

Saturday 30 July 2016

15 May 2016, Beds & Bucks NG Modellers Members Open Day, Barton Le Clay

Doesn’t time fly! It seems like only last week that I attended the first Beds & Bucks Group members day, a very small event compared to what it has now grown to and already I find myself reporting the 11th of these annual Sunday junkets in a splendid large village hall just a few miles to the north of Luton! Once again, Mark and Terri Howe laid on a feast of trains (Mark’s dept) and refreshments (Terri’s dept) which was attended by around 200+ NG modelling enthusiasts who came from all points of the compass around the country to take part in or simply to enjoy. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this event is way up amongst the very best one day events of the type and really should be in everyone’s diary as a “priority, not to be missed” if it is at all possible and practicable to get there



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Wednesday 13 July 2016

09 April 2016, Narrow Gauge South, Sparsholt College, Winchester

PART 1: “The best NG show I’ve been to” – not my words but something I read on one of the internet forums and a very worthy compliment indeed to Tim Couling, exhibition manager/organiser for this 13th biennial NGS at Sparsholt College near Winchester, Alan Rolfe, retiring exhibition manager who worked tirelessly in support and all the members of the Wessex NG Modellers who played a part in laying on another fantastic selection of all that is best in NG modelling for a “grand day out” amongst like minded friends and visitors. Those who like to keep count would have spotted no less than 29 narrow gauge layouts amongst the 51 stands present, which included most of the specialist traders for this end of the hobby and a number of societies, including full participation from both the 009 Society and the 7mm NG Association publicity and sales operations. Oh yes, there was the 009 Society AGM as well!



PART 2: Still only around half way through our tour of the diverse selection of entertaining layouts that Exhibition Manager Tim Couling had invited from near and far and, just as I reported for the 2014 event, what with an hour and a half being taken out of the day for the 009 Society AGM, along with many others who attended, I found it quite a challenge to get round everything allowing sufficient time to enjoy all that I saw and indeed, include a photo record of everything. I did very nearly miss a couple of layouts but, I am as confident as I can be that I did at least get a glimpse, even if only literally a couple of photos in some cases, of every layout that attended. Please don’t send hatemail if you discover that I didn’t, as I can’t turn the clock back and do it all again!



I hope you have enjoyed this extended album where I have tried to provide something of the flavour of this large biennial narrow gauge model show. My next report will be from the annual Beds & Bucks Narrow Gauge Modellers Group open day at Barton Le Clay on 15 May 2016.