2009 Monthly Club News

December 2009: Club nights are currently far less hectic though we are preparing Dagnell End for the visit of Mike Wild from Hornby Magazine for a photo shoot. This photo shoot happened on Friday 11th December with a view to the layout being featured in the April 2010 edition of Hornby Railways magazine. At our quarterly members meeting the decision was taken to create a new exhibition layout out of parts of the current Gorcott layout.

November 2009: Meeting four nights a week plus many Sundays for most of November paid off meaning we presented a far more complete Dagnell End for the layout debut at the Warley NEC show. When we arrived on the Friday afternoon to set up we didn't know if the underground would work or even whether we could run trains round the main layout. Fortunately everything worked and we had trains running on both parts of the layout all weekend. The layout was very well received and judging from the number of enquires from exhibition managers the layout will be travelling to many shows up and down the country over the next few years.

October 2009: Work continues on Dagnell End. Following a temporary expansion in space we have the layout is now set up complete with the fiddle yard so we have been able to get down to testing the operation of the layout. Normally, to make best us of our Club room space we don't have the fiddle yard attached to the layout. We took Arrowmouth to the Holmfirth Model Railway Exhibition over the weekend of the 24th & 25th October and the layout was once again voted best in show by the visitors.

September 2009: We started the month off by exhibiting our Buckshee layout at the Peopleton Autumn Show at the Village Hall in Peopleton, Worcestershire. Whilst the show was not a model railway exhibition the layout was very well received by the visitors  The Club staged another successful Birmingham Model Railway Exhibition. The attendance held up despite some of the best summer weather that weekend.

August 2009: Work is continuing on Dagnell End with over 70% of the track now ballasted and much of the remaining scenery is now complete 

July 2009: The Club started the month by fully testing our Dagnell End layout. We have now proved trains will operate all the way round the layout in DCC mode - just need to get the points working. This Club website is now ten years old.

June 2009: The Club's Annual General Meeting on Tuesday 2nd June once again provided few surprises and the Committee where re-elected without change for a further twelve months. The Club has been in it's new Club Room for three years. Work is progressing well our new Dagnell End layout. The Underground trains have been slightly modified to make them operate far more reliably. Testing has continued of the DCC wiring on Dagnell End. A select number of members witnessed shunting on the layout using sound chip fitted BR blue Class 37 - not very appropriate for the layout but sounded good!

May 2009: The club members have continued to work on our Dagnell End layout. Attention has turned to completing the underground section of the layout. The club had a successful weekend on the 17th & 18th May exhibiting our Chilcompton layout at the 29th Derby Model Railway Exhibition.

April 2009: The club had a successful Easter weekend exhibiting our Gorcott layout at the 47th York Model Railway Exhibition. The club ended the month by exhibiting Arrowmouth at the Sutton Coldfield exhibition where the layout was voted the best in show by the visitors. We have further tested our Dagnell End layout with trains moving over the whole of the scenic part of the layout. 

March 2009: Trains have again moved on Dagnell End including a Class 47 with a sound chip. All of the wiring for the track is complete together with virtually all of the point motor wiring to DCC accessory modules. On the buildings front for the layout all now exist with work now centered on finishing them. This month has also seen the launch of this revised web site.

February 2009: We started February with our annual Redditch Model Railway Show over the weekend of the 31st January and 1st February. Despite the economic downturn attendance was similar to 2008. However there was a marked drop in families visiting the show but this was made up by more Senior Citizens. The threatened snow did not arrive until late on Sunday night making the some of journeys home for our exhibitors more difficult than would have been expected. On Dagnell End all track is now laid and over half the point motors are installed. Much of the wiring is now in with the connections to the buzz bars for DCC operation left to do. The major news for this month is that trains have moved on a short section of Dagnell End powered in DCC.

January 2009: We have started 2009 by completing all of the modifications required to the supporting legs to allow our interchangeable fiddle yard to be used on our Gorcott, Chilcompton and Dagnell End layouts. Like many months recently all our effort is being put into completing our Dagnell End layout ready for it's debut this autumn. This month we have proved the whole layout fits onto the fiddle yard and have started to wire the layout for DCC operation.