●Our twice weekly sessions are back at the Club room. The sessions are listed here.
● Quarry Halt went successfully to the Bracknell Railway Society's exhibition at the end of October, where it worked happily all day!
● 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.
● The AGM of the 13th September 2023 made the following decisions:
4. Discussion was held on the fate of the five layouts in the club room. It was agreed a review will take place.
On the '0' gauge layout (Dewhurst) work has resumed on replacing the backscene between the running lines and the storage yard along the whole length of the layout. New backboards have been constructed by PeterM and JohnB. They incorporate a roadway directly in front of the backscene and this allows one of the storage lines to run through under it. Following the track being relaid behind the new backboards, some electrical 'oddities' have been resolved and running should start soon!
On the '00' gauge layout we have had a lot of problems with the heights varying between the 'new' station baseboards. They seem to have shrunk vertically by over 2mm. It is probably due to the heat of summer but it has concerned Geoff who made them with Malcolm a few years ago. Interestingly during the lockdowns they didn't move much.
We could also be victims of our desire to lift the boards easily for maintenance (they are hinged along their long side). This means we cannot use dowels to lock boards together horizontally where they join; so they are free to expand and contract vertically. The unexpected result is this misalignment of the tracks across the join, despite being firmly soldered to PCB strips - in a lot of cases just one rail has become out of line, very puzzling.
More scenery has been completed with static grass fibres applied around the station platforms, the area to the right of the station and up behind the West Yard, where Geoff installed the coal staithes.
The branch line is now energised. It has also been tested and proved OK to be driven by DCC. There is a Gaugemaster Prodigy handset that plugs into the normal controller socket, so DCC is a bit crude at the moment! A simple remote control operates the points in the branch side of the station and provides on/off switches for the sections.
The development of the electronics for the layout stopped for a while because of the uncertainty of the club's future. However if it becomes more secure MikeB intends to provide two control panels, one for the goods yard together with the inside main line; and the other for the Branch and outer mainline. The stumbling blocks to finishing the control system stem from the requirement to be able to cross from mainlines to either the yard or the branch without having to change controller. It is this complexity of providing different controller supplies to each of the many sections in the two areas that is delaying the installation. However MikeB is hoping MERG's CBUS system will come to the rescue, partly by reducing the number of control wires to each baseboard and by providing some simple automation to the switching between controllers. In addition this CBUS system will provide point position indication on each control panel, and enough connections to have plenty of track sensors and uncouplers.
In the meantime MikeB has put together temporary control panels without any automation for the goods yard and the branch.