Our 75th Exhibition took place last October at the Armitage Centre, Moseley Road, Fallowfield, Manchester M14 6ZT. It was a special occasion with famous layouts, old favourites and some inspiring newcomers. Our next Exhibition will be on 6th/7th October 2012

In addition we will have display stands illustrating our members' work, three members' layouts and general information about the Society at the Northern Modelling Exhibition, 2nd-4th March at Event City, next to the Trafford Centre. We have a stand 40' by 16' which will display three of our members' layouts. The largest of these is Bob Harper's Coldrennick Road which is 21' by 12'. Notes on this layout:

Coldrennick Road is a small station on the Great Western Railway main line near Plymouth, and is the junction for the branch line to Maristow. The railway is of course imaginary, but tries to recreate a West Country scene around 1890-1900, with typical track, trains and scenery of that period. The Great Western originally used broad gauge track (7' 0.25”) on special long timber baulks instead of cross sleepers, and my railway uses this as well. Gradually, standard gauge (4' 8.5”) rails were added, and most trains became standard gauge. The broad gauge rails have been removed from Maristow, but still remain on the main line, and broad gauge trains may be seen occasionally. The broad gauge was finally abolished completely in 1892, but I am bending history a bit so as to keep broad gauge trains running alongside some standard gauge trains which didn't really appear until 10-15 years later. The layout is very simple, and is purely an excuse for showing a succession of trains against a typical background.

The track is scratch built, with superelevation on the sharper curves. The station has full signalling, with the points, signals and electrical supply interlocked so that the current to the trains is only switched on when the route is correctly set up and signalled. The superb scenery is again the work of Bob Deakin, who has made carving plaster into an art form.

The models are all to 0 Scale (1:43) and we have had much help from the Gauge 0 Guild and the Broad Gauge Society in building them. Please ask about anything that interests you, as we enjoy operating the railway and hope that you will enjoy watching it.

For those interested in the technical details, the standard gauge stock is at present built to fine scale standards, whilst the broad gauge is Scale Seven. All locos and coaches are fully sprung, with a Cleminson arrangement on the 6 wheel coaches that enables them to go round 4' 6” radius curves. Wagons are either compensated or sprung. I have standardised on Portescap RG7 motors with split axle pick up, powered by custom built controllers.
Click this link for layout photographs.

Come along, see our stand and check with our members there what we are about.

Photographs of some of the layouts at our 75th show are below, courtesy of David Moore and John Sherratt:

Blakeney	Bodmin
Clinkerford	Dewsbury Midland
Dunvant	Halifax
Heybridge	Knutsford
Leeton	Leighton Buzzard
Loch Tat	Solway Sands
Thurston

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