Roadshow Reports

Last weekend was the OO Live Steam Club summer meet up and have been tasked with writing a little report of the event.

Forgiving me for the lack of photos however it wasn’t until I found out I was to be doing a report I started taking some. If you have more or anything else, please feel free to add it in below or just message me with the images/ and I can add them in 😊.

My favourite shot of the whole weekend was the parallel running of these two mallards around Dave’s outer loops. With Nicks 2007 Prince of Wales running on the top DCC loop. It really shows what brilliant marvels these OOLS locos are. The video I think really speak for itself.

Another Nice video of OOLS around Dave's layouts.

Another great point of the weekend was a showing of Andrews B17 for the first time in front of the wider club. This was very impressive as he had built the body from a Wrenn A4 die-cast body and had cut and shut it, and then added valances to get the streamlined B17 profile.  The chassis has then been modified to get the correct wheel spacing which is a very impressive job. This had a very nice gentle run around the layout. At one point Andrew pulled the body for another so we all know to watch this space for a City of London…

With somebody’s silver link running on the other line, I quickly saw an opportunity to recreate the old famous LNER 4 streamliners poster (Please look up it up if you don’t know what i'm talking about). Apologies for forgetting who was driving the silver link, but there was a lot of them on Sunday, but I remember whoever was driving stopped it perfectly for the photo so well done. The images is formed of that silver link, Caroline P’s Mallard, Andrew J’s B17 East Anglian, and my Empire of India fresh from just being numbered. These represent the Silver Jubilee, West Riding Limited, East Anglian and Coronation.

The highlight for me was the the fact it was our very own Val Prices Birthday. Thanks to crafty Sarah and Shelley we were able to all sign her card, give her some presents, and present her with some of shelley's famous fluff, of course with a candle in.

During the weekend Andrew, Jon and Dave P had the bright idea to get a get together of the modified locos. This grew and grew until we decided to get them on a table outside in the lovely sun on Sunday. The results look amazing and really show what can be done with OOLS.

It was also a great chance for members who weren’t at Chatham or Exeter to see in person Dave P’s “half a mallard” which is the mallard he cutaway to show the workings of a 00 live steam. This took quite a bit of attention from many people. Eric was lost for words when somebody jokingly paced it on his repair bench. Please see the following post for more details of this, I highly recommend you take a look.

https://www.oolivesteam.com/forum-1/club-roadshow/cutaway-display-loco

Many people may remember seeing two Vitrains class 47 in Northern Belle colours gently going around the inner loops for most of the weekend. With my knowledge of these speed of these things I can say they did around 8 real miles over the whole weekend. Which means they have covered the whole Keighley and Worth Valley Railway. So, the conclusion me and George settled upon is that James May should have used some of these to go from Barnstable to Bideford.

A funny point of the weekend was when Dave W just asked does anybody want to run “my favourite one”, I fully understand you there Dave we all have that special one😉. When somebody said yes, Dave dashed into the house and grabbed this beautiful 4492 Dominion of New Zealand. With its silver lettering and numbering it really popped against the black and looked beautiful on the layout.

On Sunday Stephen M came with his Silver Jubilee. This is the Hornby OOLS silver link an amazing set of scratch built silver jubilee. Unfortunately, I never got an image of these, however, these were very well made with all the details highlighted brilliantly including the tailboards and side boards on the coaches. The finish looked amazing, and it was great to see this running along the layout.

Thanks once again to Dave and Shelley W, I know we all said on the day, but thank you for hosting the meet. You really pulled it off. And thanks all who come and made it a great weekend.