Wednesday, March 18, 2015

First-time Freemo fun!

As I mentioned in my last post, I drove over to Armitage to join up with the newly formed Midlands Freemo group for our first 'meet'

(Armitage Village Hall is also the home of TVNAM, a cracking little show which focusses on North American rail modelling)

Considering this was the first go at this, the weekend went very well - it was a two day affair, although I could only make the Saturday. Most of the morning was taken up with physically erecting and connecting the modules. Colin stepped up to sorting out the electrical and control stuff. We used NCE, although there were Digitrax and Lenz panels in use and some small issues around compatibility to get around.

We hadn't got any formal 'ops' planned, so the afternoon was spent pretty much making it up and playing with trains. I spent much of the time working Nick's Foxley yard with my new Baldwin switcher, although I did make a point of taking a train out once at least, to get the experience of moving around the modules.

Not knowing what to expect, I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It was interesting to me to see how this compared to wargaming, where there is inherently quite a degree of interaction with your fellow hobbyist. It probably helped that this particular group turned out to be a decent bunch of blokes and very easy to get on with!

Anyway, the bug has bit (!) and I've been cracking on with my two modules. I shall post something on that some time soon.

For now, a selection of photos from the day, and a video on youtube..

















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