The grand opening of a Danish Gauge 1 track.

[grumpfuttock]

Well, it was a beautiful day for the opening of the Danish Gauge 1 track at the Hotel Krogen in Aalborg, although the wind got a bit frisky at times, blowing rolling stock off of tables occasionally, luckily not too much damage was done. Aksel the owner hammered the last nail in the track, and one of their Gauge1 loco's a JNR Mogul broke the red ribbon placed across the track. Aksel held an opening speech, filmed by the local TV crew, and then champagne was handed around. It was a great pleasure to meet the Gauge 1 guys from England, and Bram Hengeveld from Exclusive Models in Holland.

There were many spectators in attendance plus the the loco drivers. Apart from the hosts, Aksel and his son David, there were six Gauge 1 drivers from England, 1 from Holland and 1 from Denmark and six 1:19 / G Scale drivers from Denmark, including yours truly. In all there were approximately 20 locomotives participating. One of them was the prototype Britannia loco from The Gauge 1 Model Railway Company which Trevor Taylor brought along, and is soon expected to go into production. Other loco's were GWR "City of Hereford", Flying Scotsman, two BR class 4 MT (one of them electric), a BR diesel shunter, a German 4-6-4, Aksels JNR Mogul, a loco that I missed seeing , 2 Accucraft Superiors, 1 Regner Zillertal loco, a Roundhouse Argyll, a Roundhouse special based on "Billy", a Cheddar Hercules and an Accucraft Lyn, and probably a couple more that I have forgotten ! One of them being Barry Applegates loco Oops !

I set my Dynamometer wagon to suit Gauge 1 and the total track length for 1 lap was 7.54 scale kilometres !

Here are a few pics.

A small selection of the participating loco's plus Roger Vincent and Trevor Taylor. From left to right... Bram's 4-6-4, Roger Davids "City Of Hereford, Peter Spoeror's live steam 4MT (I think), "Brtiannia", on the track behind....Roger Vincent's "Flying Scotsman", and Peter Spoeror's electric class 4MT.


Trevor Taylors "Britannia" pulling well.


Roger David's "City Of Hereford", build from a Barratt kit. My favourite ! Well I am a GWR fan


Mogens Hejlesen's Regner Zillertal loco.


From Left to right... Peter Spoeror, Barry Applegate, Trevor Harley, Trevor Taylor, Bram Hengeveld, Roger Vincent and Roger David.

[mhlr]

fantastic, looks great fun to run on a line that size, especially mainline stuff!

[LMS-Jools]

Lovely Jubbly,

That Brittania looks superb.

[SLRmidge]

Looks like you all had a great time

[laalratty]

great stuff, nice mix of engines

[ptlrcecil]

Some nice stuff there. reminds me of FR thunderbolts's

[SillyBilly]

Awsome photos.

[grumpfuttock]

To give an idea of the length of the track, if you look at the last picture (group photo) and at the track on the right edge of the picture, then move upwards across the lawn you will come to a brown hedge in the background,at the bottom of the hedge one can just make out the raised track, that is about the halfway mark for the outward journey ! The track continues on around to the front garden where the track is formed as a return loop.

I tried to take photos from the front garden to the back garden, to give an idea of the size of the layout but it was a waste of time as the railway didn't really show up in the distance, also there were people milling about all over the place. This was also a problem with videoing it Not only that, but despite having a tripod for the video camera, I had a really hard time following loco's along the track, so after a short while I just gave up !

Flying Scotsman (with Danish flag) & Britannia doubleheading.

[ACLR]

great pics