This month a selection of layouts from our club house and a garden railway.

Ray Hammond’s layout Thursford (M&GN) as set up in the club room. This is a pioneering layout built to S4 rather than P4 standards – so absolutely no compromise on check rail clearance and back to back. This layout is in the capable hands (and care) of Ray’s daughter Susan.

Dick has been thinking about building a garden railway since he bought his first house in 1978. There were two aborted projects at different houses, but now he has retired, he decided to get on with building an O gauge railway. He has built a 36 ft. long shed, (insulated, heated and fully plumbed), that will house a terminus station based on Bournemouth West. From there the line runs out into the garden, around a pond and returns to the shed at a lower level where there are storage roads. The track continues out of the other end of the shed around another pond and then returns the way it came to eventually arrive back at Bournemouth West. There is a link line outside that allows for continuous running. The total length of run is around 4 scale miles. At the moment the station is just track on boards and outside is bare track on concrete block walls. He is running DC control at the moment but intends to move to DCC. Running outside commenced from the beginning of August.

Evercreech New station with buildings by Allan Downes (7mm 0 Gauge). A dedicated team is now working on cladding Pecking Mill Viaduct which will be quite a feature on the layout.

St Martin’s Wharf (7mm 0 Gauge), Donated to the club by Sheila Alderman and being readied for a return to the exhibition circuit.

A view inside our spacious clubroom, Holly Junction (4mm 00 Gauge) foreground and South Junction fiddle yard right (4mm EM Gauge).