Well now that the Wigan exhibition is out of the way, the group is going to continue with the work on Millport Victoria. Over the coming year we will be working on a new fiddleyard board, continuing the work on the shed area and also replacing some tired buildings, which have seen better days and it would be easier to build a like for like replacement rather than trying to rescue them.
The big news is the group has decided that as part of the re-wire, we are going to convert Millport to DCC
Well, I've not updated this for a few weeks now. All the track work which we had planned to relay or reposition has now been completed. However when looking more closely at the layout, we found a few more areas which needed to be lifted and re-laid which we initially tried to straighten/repair. These where tracks which had crossed base board joins and had been damaged at some time during storage/transportation.
Next stop now is the Wigan Finescale Model Railway exhibition on the 12th and 13
As planned, the spraying of the newly laid track commenced last night. The spraying of the track was undertaken using a badger airbrush spraying basic Railmatch sleeper grime. The main areas which received attention where the new sections which have been laid, shed and station/parcels area.
Whilst it is not easy to see in the attached pictures, Norman had applied different shades to the track areas to represent general grime/soot/dirt etc. This type of weathering will be applied over the areas
Although we have good clubrooms, they are not just used by ourselves and therefore we have to box Millport up after each session. We try to spend a good hour and a half working on the layout were possible.
Some of last nights tasks for the group were the laying of track in the station area and completing the track laying in the shed area. Also a start was made on giving some of the buildings some TLC in the form of a gentle dusting and hovering.
Below is a photo showing the track laying in
Right, as part of the plan to enable Millport to be exhibited again, the group has decided to carry out some extra work besides the re-wire which was already planned.
First item we tackled was the layout storage covers/boxing, these protect the layout during storage and transit to shows and clearly had seen better days. Fortunately we have quite a few members who are quite handy at carpentry unlike myself. Whilst these new covers were being made, new backscene boards were also fitted to help f
Well hopefully I will have got this right!
Some of you may have come across Millport Victoria in the past on the exhibition circuit. The layout was the creation of the late Norman Heaton who sadly died in the spring of 1998. The layout continued on the exhibition circuit for a few years afterwoods until a major electrical fault caused it to be placed in storage.
Below, I have copied the text from our webpage www.wiganfrm.org.uk which explains some of the history of Millport from its ear
