The S&DRT show at Edington in early January went very well with the layout and stock behaving itself. Phil came and helped and we had a good time at the show. I’d already made the decision to commence the rebuild of the boards to improve the running across the board joints and rectify the small issues we had on the layout. The wood has now been purchased and the boards made and I’m in the process of getting the track ready. I think I have enough points to get the track done before actually dismantling the existing model so the transition from old to new should be fairly painless. One change is that I’ll have more buildings on the new layout and plan to build these using plasticard which I’ve learnt to re- appreciate helping with the Sturminster Museum Model build after not really using it since the Crawley Yard build now over 10 years ago.
Sturminster New – Build
The new model is going to be 11 feet long, one 5 foot board for the station and a 3 feet board each end, the northern end will include the operating space and the extended length will allow the run south of the station to be extended creating slightly more room for shunting and a more prototypical look to the track plan.
Sturminster on show
Some pictures from the Edington show with some of the newer- older stock on show for the first time.
Busier
Met Nigel and Phil at the Bournemouth show last weekend, Nigel’s surprise was the the East Dorset show I had penciled in with Sturminster in July was going to a WSNG modular layout so could I bring one of those. Looks like Wealden Cement gets another run out and attempt to sell it. This is great but it needs to be checked over and I have also been asked to set up Shillingstone for the Easter Fun Day at Shillingstone Station so that needs some work as well as there are issues to be fixed /changed from the show last year. All of a sudden I have 3 shows with 3 different layouts so a lot to do.
GRC Railways 