●The 2024 AGM is announced for 11th September from 2000 - 2200. All members are urged to attend.
● Quarry Halt is now being 'serviced' ready for Amersham Heritage Day on 8th September. And parts of its electrics are being updated, see more detail here.
● Our twice weekly sessions are back at the Club room. The latest sessions are listed here.
● 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.
Quarry Halt our 4mm exhibition layout is due to be shown at Amersham Heritage Day on the 8th of September. We will be in St Mary's Church from about 1pm (after morning service). If the interest is anything like the last time we attended we will have people viewing three deep for most of the afternoon!
The platform starter signal suffered damage at the Bracknell show and needed the main arm replaced. So MikeB built a whole new signal with improvements on the original Ratio kit model; finer details, improved ladder, metal arms and lighting in the lamps with miniature LEDs. We have also moved to servo control of the signal which means they now bounce! The arms are set manually but cleared by a sensor as trains pass the signal, a real help during busy exhibiting.
The advanced starter into the fiddle yard area has also been motorised as the manual operation was always very stiff.
The replacement platform starter signal prompted discussion about all the signalling on the layout and because of this we will be adding three additional signals to the approach side of the platform area. This means we will have to move on from the 'bicycle spoke' form of operation to reduce the burden on the operators. So a CBUS* system has been installed that will enable us to automate to a certain extent the control of the signals; for example the returning to danger after a train has passed and some route control.
We hope to have all of this working by the time of the Chesham Model Railway Club's 50th anniversary Exhibition on March 2nd 2025.
*CBUS is a layout control system using a shared bus design that saves on multi way cables and has a certain amount of computing logic available. It is not related to, or interworkable with DCC. It is promoted and supported by MERG.
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.