Amersham and Chorleywood Model Railway Society

Meetings are twice a week - See News

Amersham Heritage Day 8th September 2024

We were invited back to the Amersham Heritage Day after our successful visit two years previously. The crowds were as big as ever and at one point mid-afternoon there was a long queue just to get into the church to see us. Then quite a few discovered what a delightful Church St. Mary's is and continued looking around.
We haven't changed much on the layout for this exhibition, except for repairing the platform starter signal as the arm broke at the Bracknell exhibition last year. We took the opportunity to also make the signal remotely operational with servos and we added lighting too with tiny LEDS inside the lamps. The advanced starter at the entrance to the traverser area was also motorised. But this being primarily an audience of members of the public all they wanted to see were trains running, not lots of shunting!

So we will be reviewing our running schedule in light of this.

We are a small group who meet in our own club room in Chorleywood and always welcome new members. Most of our members model UK railways from various parts of the country.

We are always looking to recruit new members, so if you live in Amersham, Little Chalfont, Chorleywood or areas nearby and want to get involved with model railways, contact us by email - aandcmrs@gmail.com and come along to a running session.

The club has layouts in gauges "O", "OO" and "OO9". The test track has "OO", "EM", "3mmFS", N/009 and "HOm".

The '0' gauge layout has been undergoing some relaying and rewiring. Scenic work still remains to be completed, but the trackwork is ready for running as required.

The '00' gauge layout has also been undergoing major works, particularly to the station area. All the trackwork is now laid and is ballasted. There remains plenty to do still, especially on the scenic side!

There is a second 'OO' layout primarily designed for exhibiting, Quarry Halt. It has had several successful outings, the most recent as noted above, at Bracknell Railway Society's October 2023 exhibition. More pictures here.

John brought the 009 layout out of storage and it has been run successfully for sessions in the club hut.

Some members have a layout at home, and our chairman has a magnificent "OO" layout in the garden.

Most of us buy ready-to-run models and enhance them to varying degrees, others prefer to build from kits. The ready availability of R-T-R in 4mm and 7mm means most of us use them at running sessions. We have a stock of 'O' gauge kits purchased some years ago and members are gradually working their way through the boxes.

If you are already a railway modeller, want to pick it up again or are just starting out, then come along and see what we do. Contact us using our email address: aandcmrs@gmail.com

● Our twice weekly sessions are back at the Club room. The latest sessions are listed here. We will go to single weekly sessions from January 2025 till the Spring to save on heating.

● Peter has built a large 'tent' around Quarry Halt so we can continue to work on it without having to heat the whole club room.

● Quarry Halt was at Amersham Heritage Day in St. Mary's Church and once again we were surrounded by crowds. Pictures here.

● Work has finished inside the club hut. There had been some cracking to one of the vertical support beams on the rear wall. This required additional support to this beam holding up the roof.

A recent running session had a Class 52 approaching the bridge over the canal on the '00' layout