Evening People,

Well after performing a full day of electrical testing on a primary school in Hyde, I decided to make a visit to Ramsbottom Model Railway Club.  For anyone that does not known we are a local friendly model railway club based in Ramsbottom. We have currently have one full layout (Ramsbottom 1950) and another being built as we speak (Bacup Shed 1950). We meet on a Thursday evening from around 7.30-8.00pm. We are always looking for new members who have interest in model railways, real railways or even just history. We currently have 6 members with 1 ex pat currently running the Spanish branch of the club over in Spain.

Well after a hard day at work it is only right to kick the evening off with a large mug of coffee and a biscuit. This is also joined with a chippy tea from Kans Chippy in Ramsbottom, comes highly recommended.

 After this it is then time to sort out the essentials this includes the water from our friendly neighbors, a bit of heating into the building via our 2x calour gas fires, open all the taps to release any air bubbles and empty all the bin bags as its bin day tomorrow.

Here is an update from the past 2 weeks.

• Keith has now laid a course of dark grey ballast on the 4x roads that lead out of the rear of the shed. The box says dark grey but it is more like black which is good for us as the original shed would have been had waste ash and clinker used as ballast. This is done by first wetting the track, sprinkling the ballast on and finally pouring diluted pva glue over the mixture. Carefully avoiding getting it on the track rails. The shoulders of the ballast are also built up the same way. The effect does actually look very good.
• Two gas light type lights needed replacing on Bolton Road North in Stubbins opposite the Railway Hotel. These are two grain of rice bulbs that are glued down the side of the lamps with the bulbs placed inside of the shade. These are then painted to match the rest of lamp post.
• There is a small building in the Ramsbottom (Trinity) Paper Mill that has also had a blown lamp that needed replacing. This was replaced with a new grain of wheat which was glued in placed and resoldered. The building was there glued down and weighted.
• Bacup Shed has now had inserts fitted along each side of the pits. This will represent the concrete base of the shed but also give a flat surface for the shed building.

Next week it will be a year since one of our members and dear friend Roger Wilson passed away. He is still greatly missed every week when we are attending the club house. Roger was one of these members who could turn a blank scene into a real life scene with his keen eye for detail. He was also good with repairing engines and his joinery skills were second to none. R.I.P Roger from all your friends at the club.

Dan