Winchester Railway Modellers

WINCHESTER RAILWAY MODELLERS

CHAIRMANS CHATTER, our quarterly newsletter

Summer has finally arrived and the rails are buckling already. Scorchio! When you find it too hot at home, just remember, the temperature in the clubroom is always pleasant. Get up there and play trains or (if all else fails) do some modelling!

Dave R

Chairman's Chatter
April 2026

General chatter

The last quarter kept us reasonably busy with two exhibitions for Redbridge, one for Bruce's Lockton Lane and the NSE 40th birthday celebration day at the club.
A special thanks to the organising team of the NSE day for coming up with the idea, the smooth running of the day and for putting out invites to folks. It was good to see 3 layouts running with NSE stock (mostly) and a good number of visitors enjoying the day. Not only the visitors enjoyed themselves as a fair few members were in attendance chatting and playing trains.
Thanks to Bruce and Helen for their sterling efforts on the catering front (as always).

Redbridge Wharf (Clive "Watty" Watson)

April saw another successful exhibition for RW at the NEC sponsored by Key model world, sharing the hall with different modelling groups made for an interesting and enjoyable weekend.

Saturday June 6th saw us celebrate the 40th anniversary of Network South East at the clubroom, invited guests from the railway modeling world came to see Redbridge in a relaxed and informal atmosphere, some brought their own stock to run and video which was great to see, no doubt spreading the word about WRM.
NSE Dayrf Thanks to young Rich for organising the day and using "most" of his stock, all members attending reflected on a relaxing day chatting and playing trains, special thanks to Bruce for the bacon baps, much appreciated

Abbotstone (President Shaw)

Abbotstone has been in use in both DC and DCC modes. At present we will be in DC mode, but I remind members we can split the layout so only part is DCC if required. Good use was made on NSE day. The L&B project is moving forward with the addition of Bratton Fleming station to the layout. From a list of stock owned, we appear to have a full complement. I hope members will support the Winchester GOG Open Day at Sparsholt on Sunday 16th August. You have supported this local club in the past and part of the L&B and Lockton Lane will be there for you to operate.

President's Ponderings

The emails regarding thoughts on the Redbridge operating method has brought some useful comments and suggestions when we consider the control of Eastleigh. Without doubt we shall need to make use of technology and this side of the planning I leave to those who know. Part of the joy of having a layout is the operating when most of the hard work is done. To this end I anticipate drawing up a wish list.

Club outings have not occurred to date. Various reasons but not completely forgotten.

Project "Eastleigh" (Dave R)

We now have eight of the twelve Eastleigh boards assembled apart from diagonal bracing. Four have also have been spray painted with primer/undercoat. Much work has been done to work out where the substructure of the boards potentially interferes with turnout operating mechanisms. Thankfully there do not appear to be too many problems. We will now proceed with construction of the remaining boards and fitting of alignment dowels.

Eleven of us had a rather hastily arranged meeting to discuss general design issues. This covered transport, staging, lighting, backscenes track construction and operation. We managed to come up with some basic solutions but much still needs to be resolved especially in the control department.

The next big construction job will be the transport/staging trollies along with lighting rig and backscene supports.

If you want to get hands on, now is your chance as we have a lot to do. If you fancy taking the lead role in any department that can easily be arranged.

Back Issues of Chairmans Chatter

Previous years Chairman's Chatter are available in the archive

Jan 25	Apr 25	Jul 25	Oct_25
Jan 26	Apr 26

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