The Club builds and operates layouts in a variety of scales.
Minories November 2017
We’ve had a busy few weeks, leading up to two exhibitions over consecutive weekends in November- Tolworth then Wakefield. It would be fair to say we weren’t quite ready for Tolworth Showtrain – so apologies to the Hampton Court MRS and those who came on the Saturday morning. However with perseverance we fixed the key …read more.
Nov 25, 2017July 2017 running nights for Empire Mills
June’s been a quiet month for Empire Mills, although like the proverbial duck the legs are paddling away under the surface. We’re running on two consecutive Thursdays — 6 July and 13 July — and last night we did a little work towards ensuring that stock prefers to run through a couple of the turnouts …read more.
Jun 30, 2017Empire Mills May 2017 update
We had a great weekend at Quainton Road, so thanks to everyone who paid us a visit. It was really fun to take part in a railway event that wasn’t simply a model railway show, and great to get out into the countryside for a change so we can remember what it looks like when …read more.
May 16, 2017New control panel for Empire Mills, and two chances to see us
Here’s a preview of the new control panel. Wiring work to support this is now in hand with the two main boards done and the two subsidiary modules depicting the clay dries on course. Come and see us this weekend at the MRC open day — we are hoping to have the basics completed! We …read more.
Apr 4, 2017Empire Mills March 2017 update
Although Ally Pally preparations are at the front of everyone’s minds at the moment, we’ve started in earnest on wiring work. We might make a tweak or two to the sections and uncouplers as we go, but the real object is to ensure everything is documented and cabling is standardised so that if and when …read more.
Mar 20, 2017
Empire Mills – Feb 17
We’ve had a couple of good operating evenings at Keen House already this year, and the picture above shows my Class 08 on shunting duty this week. Members will have read in our last Bulletin that Empire Mills has new trackwork and a colourful new turntable fiddleyard. Over the next month or two we will be …read more.
Feb 4, 2017
Sticking point
There are six points on Minories, all operated with Tortoise slow action point motors with Exactoscale baseplates transferring the movement of the motor through a tie-bar under the baseboard to wires soldered to the underside of the switch rails. There are stretcher bars between the switch rails, and although these do provide some mechanical joints between the two switch …read more.
Nov 7, 2016
Converting Heljan Class 23 to EM
The Heljan Class 23 is one of the simpler conversions to EM gauge. I don’t think there are any revolutionary ideas here, but hope this may be of use to anyone else contemplating the conversion or looking for an easy one to start with. The model as supplied picks up electricity from the …read more.
Sep 24, 2016
Empire Mills Summer 2016
As we indicated in May, we have an exhibition in Peterborough in October, and so the summer has been focussed on getting ready for that. As we started to fiix some problems with the track with (including some damaged track ends at board joints, the fiddle yard and some unevenness in the track itself) we …read more.
Aug 28, 2016
Empire Mills gets a turntable
Following our last blog in May, we have unpacked the layout from its hibernation and a group of members gathered to go through the list of stuff that we thought needed doing. Now as we know, there is no ‘right way’ to build a model railway. There are certainly some wrong ways but most of us have a …read more.
Jun 26, 2016
May 2016 Update
It’s all been a bit quiet since the layout visited Portsmouth last Autumn. As is the nature of Club layouts, unfortunately some of the key team behind the layout have had to step back from the project for a while, and as the layout had been up and being worked on for most of 2015, we …read more.
May 6, 2016
Minories at 60th Anniversary Exhibition in Romford
We were delighted to be invited back to the Ilford and West Essex Model Railway Club’s exhibition “West Essex Modelrail” on 23/4 April, their 60th annual show. It took place at the St Edward’s School in Romford, We were in a small pocket of EM layouts, opposite Mike Bell’s “Prospect Wharf …read more.
Apr 23, 2016