Cranwell Express has finally hit the road. Our club layout, Cranwell Express, has only been seen in public twice so far since the build project launched.It first appeared at our October 2023 inaugural show and was at that stage 4 white primered baseboards, some photos from the interwebs, and a draft track plan. That set […]
With the impending Stamford show date closing rapidly, the pace quickened somewhat on the Cranwell layout during April. In keeping with the clocks going forward to British Summer Time colour began to appear on the layout.. Spring is sprung, The grass is ris, I wonder where the buildings is? That appaling ode to model making […]
On behalf of the Chairman and committee, we thank all of you who have chosen to renew your membership for the year ahead. And it’s due to be a good year with our Cranwell layout now ready for it’s first exhibition outside of the NG34 domain – it will be at the Market Deeping MRC […]
Please be aware that the Membership renewals period for 2026 opens on 1st April and runs until 30th April. You’ve enjoyed playing trains. You’ve had many a fresh brew lovingly prepared by Jim and a bit of cake generously offered up by Richard. On the downside you’ve had to endure Barry’s ‘sense’ of humour for […]
The Cranwell Express layout has been progressing over the winter months. The track work is now fully laid and wired. It has dual analog control inputs allowing us to run passenger trains on one line and goods traffic on the other for added operational and viewing interest. This has been achieved with a considerable amount […]
I never thought I’d join a model railway club. A friend belongs to the N-Gauge Society and although I loved going to exhibitions with him over 19 years (TINGS is an annual pilgrimage) I never felt like taking part in regular meets. Too shy, too anxious, too self-intimidated to stand up amongst my peers – […]
It’s now time to start thinking about the control system behind Rhad Valley, and despite the unexpected cost of the frog juicer, I wanted to get back on track with this and keep things low cost. With this in mind I decided on DCC-Ex because it’s good (I’ve used it before) and it’s b****y cheap! […]
I noticed when I was poking around the layout with the multimeter that the frogs and switchrails weren’t carrying any power. This is usually fixed simply by cleaning the track, mainly between the rails and the switchrails, but for whatever reason I couldn’t get it clean enough to be reliable. I don’t know how old […]
In the last post, we finished off by wiring up a bus wire for all of the common terminals of the solenoid point motors to connect to, and this is where we pick it up. The layout currently has old fashioned solenoid point motors – think classic Gaugemaster PM10’s and then think older! These motors […]
Ordinarily, converting a DC layout to a DCC layout is a fairly straightforward task when going from simple loops; you would unplug the DC controller, plug in the DCC controller and away you go. This one however, got me stumped… I came into the hobby when DCC was already around – my only experience of […]