Monthly Club News
December 2012:
We started the month finishing the
legs for our new Smallwood layout so it is now standing
on its own legs. Much work is being done on the scenery
for our Oakenshaw layout with a concentration of
activity around the two corner boards.
November 2012:
We had a successful day exhibiting
Buckshee at the Burton Model Railway Exhibition on 4th
November. We have now completed all four of the
baseboards for Smallwood. The track work is progressing
for the Smallwood layout with all of the points having been scratch built and a
start has been made on the plain track. So that we are
ready to lay the track shortly the baseboards have been
given a coat of dark grey paint as a base colour and
much of the cork underlay has been cut ready to be stuck
to the baseboards. A start has been made on the legs to
support the layout. We ended the month with the Warley
National Model Railway Exhibition at the NEC where we
had the usual club display stand.
October 2012:
We started October by the virtual
competition of the third of four baseboards for our new
modern image layout called Smallwood. We had a successful day exhibiting
Buckshee at the Didcot Model Railway Exhibition on 20th
October. Work is continuing on the buildings for
Oakenshaw with many now having additional weathering
added to them following the competition of the
weathering of the largest structure the viaduct over the
town
September 2012:
We have spent much of this month
preparing for the Club exhibition. Work continues on our
Oakenshaw layout and we have now made 2 out of the 4
baseboards for our other new layout currently
provisionally know as Smallwood. The Club staged its 45th
Anniversary Model Railway Exhibition over the weekend of
the 15th & 16th September. Despite the many external
economic pressures many people are facing the exhibition
actually had a very small increase in overall attendance
when compared with the 2011 event.
August 2012:
We have spent much of the early part
of this month preparing our Arrowmouth layout for the
Club exhibition in September. As well as the usual
cleaning and repairing any damage we have now fully
weathered all of the track which has improved the
appearance considerably. Work continues on Oakenshaw and
we have now started drawing out the track plan to scale on the
baseboard tops of our next layout to be called Smallwood an end to end layout
based in the 1970's. This 4mm scale layout will feature
scratch built track. To allow the baseboards for
Smallwood to be assembled we have built a jig to ensure
we get them square.
July 2012:
The Club website is 13 years old this
month.
On Sunday 1st July 2012 a group of Club members had a
great day out on the Shakespeare Express from Birmingham
Snow Hill to Stratford upon Avon. As it was the first
weekend for the Summer Sunday operation of this service
and because the Olympic Torch Relay was in Stratford
that day former LMS 4-6-2 6201 Princess Elizabeth was
used in place of the normal Great Western Hall or Castle
class locomotive. We had an enjoyable weekend at the
Chasewater Railway over the 7th and 8th July and over
the weekend of the 21st and 22nd July at the
Kidderminster Railway Museum exhibiting
our Buckshee layout.
June 2012:
Friday 1st June 2012 marks the 45th
Anniversary to the day when the Redditch Model Railway
Club was formed at the White Hart Public House in
Headless Cross in Redditch. Club nights have once
concentrated on the continued construction of our
Oakenshaw layout.
The Club's Annual General Meeting on
Tuesday 12th June once again provided few surprises and
the Committee where re-elected without change for a
further twelve months.
May 2012:
Like all recent months much of the work
on club nights concentrates on the construction of our
new Oakenshaw layout. The big progress on Oakenshaw is
that the viaduct is complete apart from painting and the
adding of a couple of down pipes. We however going to have to start
on a refresh of Arrowmouth ready for our September Model
Railway Exhibition - It has got to look it's best to
celebrate 20 years on the exhibition circuit.
April 2012:
We start the month with much ongoing
work on our new Oakenshaw layout which has included a
very significant progress on the construction of the
largest structure on the layout the large viaduct that
takes the railway over part of the town. The structure
is now largely covered in the plastikard to represent
the stone construction. There is still much to do on it
as there is stone detailing to add plus the small job of
painting and weathering it. On the subject of weathering
we have been experimenting with the stone colour and we
now believe we have got it right on a number of the
smaller station buildings. These will be used as colour
references so we can get the rest of the building the
right colour. The numbers of buildings for Oakenshaw
layout yet to be started is now in single figures.
March 2012:
Work is continuing on Oakenshaw. On
Friday 9th March an eight page article in the April 2012
edition of Hornby Railways Magazine was published. Work
has continued on our Oakenshaw layout
February 2012:
We started February by taking Dagnell
End to the Stafford show over the weekend of the 4th and
5th February. Unfortunately it snowed during Saturday
and this provided for an interesting weekend though on
the downside it did not help with encouraging people to
visit the show. Mike Wild the editor of Hornby Magazine
visited the Club on Thursday 16th February to photograph
our Buckshee layout for a forthcoming feature in Hornby
Magazine. However the photo shoot was cut short because
of a problem with the camera. He return to finish taking
the pictures on Tuesday 21st February. The pictures
together with the article on Buckshee will be in the
April 2012 edition of Hornby Magazine
January 2012:
2012 marks a special year for Redditch
Model Railway Club as it is our 45th Anniversary and the
20th anniversary of the first time our Arrowmouth layout
was exhibited. We intend to celebrate both milestones at
our September Redditch Model Railway Exhibition. Work is
continuing on our Oakenshaw layout which has included a
start on the construction of the largest structure on
the layout the large viaduct that takes the railway over
part of the town. As part of this work we have also
finalized the position of a number building that
surround the viaduct. In preparation for the Stafford
show we have
been finishing the installation of the lighting of the
underground station and a number of buildings on our
Dagnell End layout
