Monthly Club News
September 2023 :
Work has continued on the building
for our new Norgrove layout together with preparing for
our annual model railway show including pricing up items
for our club second hand stall that will be at the show.
The Club staged a successful 50th Model
Railway Exhibition over the weekend of the 16th & 17th
September 2023. We had a great weekend over the 23rd and
24th September at the Stafford show with our club
display stand. We managed to give out many leaflets for
our 2024 show to the event visitors.
August 2023: Work
during the first part of the month was centred around
preparing our Smallwood layout for exhibition. We took
Smallwood to the Loughborough Model Railway show over
the weekend of the 12th and 13th August where the layout
was well received by the visitors. We staged our
first Summer Club Party at John Tisi's house on 20th
August which was was enjoyed by around 20 members where
we treated to loads of food and the operation of various
layouts including Temple Bridge. We took the Auch Ae
layout to the Avonvale Miniature Railway open day on
27th August were it was well received by the visitors.
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July 2023: Work
continues on the building for the new Norgrove layout
and finishing off the preparations of our Dagnell End
layout for the Exeter Show at the end of the month. We
had a successful weekend exhibiting g our Dagnell End
layout at the Exeter Model Railway Show over the weekend
of the 22nd and 23rd July 2023. Following all the
improvement work we have done on the underground section
of Dagnell End it ran faultlessly all weekend with only
one minor derailment. One of the other exhibitors at the
show was John Polley the former proprietor of Metro
Models who back in 2012 re-motored the underground
trains for us and he was really impressed to see the
trains still running on Dagnell End.
June 2023: Thursday
1st June 2023 marked the 56th anniversary of the
formation of the Redditch Model Railway Club. On the
evening of Thursday 1st June 1967 a meeting was held at
the White Hart Public House in Headless Cross in
Redditch which resulted in the Redditch Model Railway
Club being formed. Work has continued on the
building for our new Norgrove layout as well as making
further improvements to our Dagnell End layout ready for its
forthcoming exhibition outings These have included
relaying some short sections of track and modifying how
the layout packs up for transportation to speed up the
process. The Club's Annual General Meeting took place
Tuesday 27th June once again provided few surprises and
the Committee where re-elected without change for a
further twelve months.
May 2023: Work has
continued on making improvements to our Dagnell End
layout ready for the forthcoming show booking. In
readiness for the event at the Severn Valley Railway we
made successful use of our new cliff railway in the club
room to get the Dagnell End baseboards from the first
floor storage room down to the ground floor.
We had a great weekend i at the Engine House at Highley
at the Severn Valley Railway exhibiting our Dagnell End
layout on the 6th and 7th May. Sadly long time supporter
and former Club Member Ken Bridger lost his battle with
cancer on Sunday 14th May when he passed away at home
aged 76. Ken was the inspiration for the construction of
our Dagnell End exhibition as he had scratch built a
number of Southern Region electric multiple units that
still form the basis of rolling stock used on this
layout
April 2023: We
have continued to make modifications to our cliff
railway to refine the operation. Work has continued on
making improvements to our Dagnell End layout. These are
currently centred around the London Underground section
of the layout where we have revamped the station area.
Again we are also continuing the construction of
buildings for our new Norgrove layout.
March 2023: Work is
continuing on the construction of our cliff railway in
the club room which ran for the first time on 7th March. Again we are also continuing the
construction of buildings for our new Norgrove layout.
We started the month by taking the Temple Bridge layout
to the Wombourne Model Railway Show on Saturday 11th
March where the layout both ran well and as usual as
well received by the visitors.
February 2023 : We
completed making the new storage boxes for the Dagnell
End underground layout boards and have also modified the
shelving the layout is stored on the club room to make
more productive use of space. We are also continuing the
construction of buildings for our new Norgrove layout.
With all of our exhibition layouts stored on the first
floor of our club rooms when not in use the issue of
having to carry the layout parts up and down the stairs
has always been occupying a number of club members to
find a solution. Work has now started
on our very own narrow gauge cliff railway to move the
layout boards up and down the stairs. Aluminum rails are being
added to the sides of the staircase and a trolley is
being made to run on these rails. This will be hauled up
and down using a hand operated winch. The gauge of our
new railway is just over 2ft 8ins.
January 2023: We
start 2023 making
improvements to Dagnell End ready for its shows later
this year. This has concentrated on the underground
section of the layout where the control box has been
rewired. Keeping with the London underground section of
Dagnell End we have been making some new much over due
storage boxes to transport these layout sections to
exhibitions. We are also continuing the construction of buildings
for our new Norgrove layout.
