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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.

Thursday 16 February 2017

14 January 2017 - SWOONS Members Open Day, Ilton, Somerset

2017 got itself off to the now traditional great narrow gauge start to the year with the 11th annual South West 009 Society’s (SWOONS) members open day in the Merryfield Hall at Ilton, between Yeovil and Taunton in Somerset. Matt and Maria Cicquel as usual brought their famous pasties from their Devon Railway Centre as well as lots of other culinary goodies, and of course the 009 Society sales team took the full range of goods for the discerning early year bargain hunters. John Sutton came all the way from Redditch with his popular book stall, Steve Fulljames travelled some 150 miles from East Sussex with Narrow Planet and a new trading attender in the form of Attwood Aggregates ballast and scenic dust also attended. As always, a great day amongst like minded friends and narrow gauge enthusiasts. Huge appreciation to Geoff Bowyer and the SWOONS team for a really excellent day!





31 December 2016 - Garry’s Railcars – 2016 bonus album!

Almost everyone who is familiar with 009 will either know, or know of, Garry Whiting. One of the 15 founder members of the 009 Society in 1973, twice chairman and a very familiar face at just about every narrow gauge modelling show and regional ng modelling group members and open days throughout the country, either working with the Society sales team or manning (and often providing most of the models) a Society publicity display case. I have known Garry as a Society colleague and very good friend for some 35 years, since the early 1980’s and have always been impressed by his very extensive range of home built, detailed Windle models and more recently Japanese imports and for a very long time have been meaning to try to gather together photos I’ve taken over the past 20 years since digital cameras came into my life. I haven’t quite managed to put a set together covering everything yet, maybe one of these days, but have found an attractive and eclectic variety of railcars that have either been built by or detailed by Garry over the past 6 or 7 years which I think may be of interest to all, so as an “extra” to end one year and start the next, here are some of Garry’s railcars!






03 December 2016 - Dorset Narrow Gauge open day, Colehill, near Wimborne

This was the 5th of these super little end of year events that Brian Guilmant and members of the Wessex NG Modellers have put on, This time there was a challenge due to the hall heating breaking down a couple of days before the event, but an industrial blower heater and bacon rolls soon got the icicles off the early birds and the hall was nicely warmed up by the time the first visitors came through the door. Another splendid day with all that is best in this type of event - friendly, informal, good layouts, good refreshments and great to meet up with many people who had travelled considerable distances in some cases to join in the fun. Simon Hargraves came 130 miles from Hastings by train and suffered weekend signal delays etc etc, making for a 6 hour journey - 2 hours longer than it took him to get to Merseyside the week before! 

29 October 2016 - Expo Narrow Gauge, Swanley

Autumn is upon us, weather has turned, the clocks are going back to herald the months of dark miserable evenings, but Expong is with us to fortify ourselves with motivation and inspiration over the winter! Dark rumours of the impending demise of Expong as we know it were put to bed and the goodly number of enthusiasts from near, far and very far in some cases got down to enjoying all that was presented for their delight and delectation. The usual recipe of “hunt the layouts” amongst the trade stands in the main hall revealed some gems amongst the 15 layouts tucked away amidst 3 times that number of trade and association/society stands. Huge supplement however in the best supported Dave Brewer Challenge entries yet seen with no less than 18 “tuning fork” little layouts – one point and 3 sidings that were presented. Another great day was had by all!



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