South Hams Area Group Report August 2018

It’s been a while since our last report from the South Hams so here is an up- date on what’s been happening here in the West. With the transfer of the test track to Wells following the demise of the West Country group at Crediton Frank Phipps has constructed three 4ft x 2ft baseboards for our use as a test track. These replace the two boards I constructed from a couple of Grainge and Hodder baseboards reported in our last update. Vic Burles has drawn up a Templot track plan and has made a start on building the trackwork. Vic has recently married the lovely Christine and we all send our congratulations to the happy couple. 

Peter Plume has been busy scratch- building a couple of LMS 0-6-0 chassis using the Ragstone inside motion components. Mike Calvert has been educating us on the history and mechanics of all things American, a fascinating insight into how they differ from British railways. Martin Welch has been busy weathering a batch of Lee Marsh 517s, the results of which can be viewed on the Lee Marsh website, what a difference his subtle work makes to a fabulous model. Tony Lee attended the recent AGM at Warley. I have started to build a couple of turnouts using the 3D printed chairs produced by Chris Brown I’ll report at a later date on how I get on with them, it’s proving to be an interesting project. Shopping lists are being drawn up for Telford and we all look forward to meeting our fellow members to catch up on all things S7, see you there. 

Malcolm Trevena