NORTHERN ASSOCIATION RALLY 19-20th September 2009 at LEICESTER.

 The last time the Northern Association came to Leicester was in 2005 when a very wet and windy spell of weather rather took the edge off the proceedings, as our pictures for that year show.  This year the event was combined with the host club’s centenary celebrations and all the stops were pulled out to make sure the event went off with a bang.  The weather was excellent the whole weekend; Jennifer, Lady Gretton, Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire (and of the Stapleford Miniature Railway) formally opened the proceedings on the Saturday morning, and the ladies of the club kept copious supplies of tea and coffee flowing the whole time, and an excellent buffet at lunchtime on both days.   Both days were well supported by visitors from far and wide with and without locomotives. 

The track site is located in the south end of Abbey Park alongside the river Soar and just to the north of the city centre in attractive woodland, home to 660 feet of elevated track with 2½", 3½” and 5” gauge rails surrounded by a ground level track recently extended to 2600ft  and equipped for 5” and 7¼ “ gauge.  Take the tracks away and you could be forgiven for assuming that the site was the home of the Leicester Horticultural Society, such is the abundance of flowers and shrubs all over the site, and especially in the station area with its beautifully stocked raised planters dividing the platforms, and the nicely landscaped area of the ground level track extension..

Lady Gretton cuts the ribbon to start the proceedings.

Peter Skinner prepares his unrebuilt Royal Scott 'SansPareil', This model lived at the railway museum at Betwys-Coed for ten years or more but could not cope with tight bends on the track so was kept on display in the museum till sold to the person from whom Peter bought it 3 years ago.

Frank Leonardi, Nottingham SME, takes his wife for a spin behind the 3" Burrell.

Colin Caillin's 3½" 8F pushing his dead Fairburn tank engine to Martin Evan's Jubilee design to run it in!  
Will that really reduce his carbon footprint?  We think not! 

Plenty of activity in the station!

Ian Cromack studies Alan Bibby's 3½" gauge Charles on the steaming bay.  Ian left his own 7¼" gauge Charles at home, unfortunately, couldn't get it in the boot of the car as well as the dog!

Richard Durrant and son John recently finished this rather nice Sweet Willam variant named 'Meeyes-Mile as an anagram of Johns two daughters (don't bother, you'll never get it!). 

LNER V1 Enterprise built by Andrew Auger .

The website team:  webmaster Paul Masters takes web content editor Alan Bibby's 3½" gauge Charles for a spin.

This very nice model of Rocket was built from an OS kit by Ray Wallis, Hon President of LSME. All the metal parts were machined, but Ray still had to do the woodwork, painting and assembly . A very attractive model. The OS kits are very well made and good value, but why do they have to use a massive model style safety valve, instead of suitably adapting the prototypical valve?

Young driver of the day was little Lucas, seen here taking control of grandad Ian's LNER Y6 tram engine,
 converted to battery electric with a Sinclair C5 motor. 

Visit Leicester Society of Model Engineer's website at: www.lsme.org.uk
and
 the Friends of Stapleford Miniature Railway at: www.fsmr.org.uk

'Promoting the King of Hobbies'

This page last updated December 2009 by Webmaster