The Club builds and operates layouts in a variety of scales.
Minories in Brighton
The final outing for us in 2019 was to the Brighton Model Railway exhibition in November. It’s an invite from our member Nestor that we’ve had to put off due to previous clashes with Tolworth and Wakefield, but it’s a reasonably quick drive down the A23 for a set up on the Saturday morning as …read more.
Nov 28, 2019
Minories at the Great Electric Train Show 2019
Minories made the trip to Milton Keynes in October for the Great Electric Train Show. It was a late evening set up on the Friday, and we only just squeezed between the layouts either side that were already up when we got there. A fault in the wiring on a board (that had worked fine …read more.
Oct 18, 2019
Minories in Hornby Magazine
Minories is in the latest edition of Hornby Magazine, which appeared in my local WH Smiths today. Although planned for some time, the photo shoot only took place in May with editor Mark Wild coming down to Keen House for the shoot. You can see the layout in person at the Great Electric Train show …read more.
Oct 5, 2019
Minories goes to Derby Roundhouse
On the 12th and 13th May, Minories headed north to the historic Derby Roundhouse – for the Michleover Model Railway Group exhibition. John, Rob S and Tom headed north on Friday in a transit van (which came with a special adaption to first gear to keep the driver awake), where we met up with former chairman …read more.
May 16, 2018
Minories November 2017
We’ve had a busy few weeks, leading up to two exhibitions over consecutive weekends in November- Tolworth then Wakefield. It would be fair to say we weren’t quite ready for Tolworth Showtrain – so apologies to the Hampton Court MRS and those who came on the Saturday morning. However with perseverance we fixed the key …read more.
Nov 25, 2017
Sticking point
There are six points on Minories, all operated with Tortoise slow action point motors with Exactoscale baseplates transferring the movement of the motor through a tie-bar under the baseboard to wires soldered to the underside of the switch rails. There are stretcher bars between the switch rails, and although these do provide some mechanical joints between the two switch …read more.
Nov 7, 2016
Converting Heljan Class 23 to EM
The Heljan Class 23 is one of the simpler conversions to EM gauge. I don’t think there are any revolutionary ideas here, but hope this may be of use to anyone else contemplating the conversion or looking for an easy one to start with. The model as supplied picks up electricity from the …read more.
Sep 24, 2016
Minories at 60th Anniversary Exhibition in Romford
We were delighted to be invited back to the Ilford and West Essex Model Railway Club’s exhibition “West Essex Modelrail” on 23/4 April, their 60th annual show. It took place at the St Edward’s School in Romford, We were in a small pocket of EM layouts, opposite Mike Bell’s “Prospect Wharf …read more.
Apr 23, 2016Layouts on tour – Spring 2016
Our layouts are all designed to be portable, so they can be taken to exhibitions. This spring we are delighted to have been invited to some great shows, including: 20th Feb – Minories (GN) headed into Southern territory at Tonbridge, whilst Happisburgh Goods went in the opposite direction to Biggleswade 12/13th March – Caledonian Goods (aka Mrs …read more.
Feb 7, 2016
Track building – Part 1
One of the more frequent questions I get asked at exhibitions is how the track is built. Modelling in EM there isn’t much choice for anything other than plain track, but my track building goes back to my teenage OO days. Despite living only a couple of miles away at the time, I originally stumbled …read more.
Dec 27, 2015
Class 127 DMU
Class 127 4-car DMUs formed the local passenger services on the Midland main line south of Bedford, so have always been on the list of stock required for Minories. A club member started work on a unit back in 2007, but it didn’t get very far. In the interim, I made a 3-car 116 …read more.
Oct 19, 2015
On our way to Peterborough
Our invitation to the National Festival of Railway Modelling has been the incentive to get a few more things progressed on the layout. A major resignalling scheme has seen searchlight starter signals mounted on an etched brass gantry installed, replacing the Berko 3-aspect signals originally installed as a temporary measure hours before the first …read more.
Oct 15, 2015