!! For the attention of all current 7mm Narrow Gauge Association members !!

Whilst the magazine Narrow Lines is now quarterly and still posted to members, the newsletter Narrow News remains bimonthly, published every other month, six times a year. Since the beginning of this year, it no longer gets posted with Narrow Lines, being available only online. Being in a suitable format, It can be accessed on a mobile phone, tablet or computer and read on screen or, if required, printed out.

Each new issue is announced by email but it's become apparent that there are incorrect or out of date email addresses in the Membership Database. Members are therefore encouraged to ensure that their communication details and preferences remain up to date by periodically logging in to the website and going to https://7mmnga.org.uk/members/check_details.php where any incorrect details can be updated, particularly email addresses.

If the Association has an incorrect or incomplete email address, any electronic communication will not reach affected members and the only contact will be Narrow Lines received by post. As you will appreciate, this reduces the value of the membership subscription, which the committee are keen to avoid. As with every organisation, the onus is on the members to ensure that any amendment to their contact details is communicated.

Thank you for your attention. Here's looking forward to seeing a spike in the traffic on the Association's website!

I've been asked to share the details of the Ilfracombe Model Railway Society - to improve our online presence and hopefully attract some new members. The club is a great group of individuals and between us most of the major modelling scales are represented.
We have two Layouts in our N Gauge section, Pointless #2 which is a double-track double figure of eight layout where the track folds back on itself twice - it's surprising how much track is actually on the board and it offers a nice long run with some challenging gradients for stock - featuring several tunnels, a large viaduct as the centre piece over a lake and two smaller bridges as well as a four track, four platform station its great for watching trains run round.
We also have under construction a scale model of Ilfracombe also in N Gauge, this is at the stage where its structurally complete and wiring is being finished off leaving scenic details to be applied this long-term project is reaching fruition - I think we're all going to look forwards to seeing double-headed or banked trains head in and out of the station.

In 4mm / 00 Gauge we have a large layout operated from the centre, representing both Staverton on one side and Buckfastleigh on the other side from the South Devon Railway. This layout has had some pointwork replaced to improve running reliability and we will be touching up and adjusting the scenery as well - operating as a preserved railway this layout is always kept ready to operate and features some dramatic scenery joining the two scenes with a large stone viaduct at one end and a developing town at the other with the railway passing through. Capable of being operated in DC or DCC mode - as well as due to some clever wiring DC & DCC simultaneously there is something for everyone on here and its hosting rolling stock from the 1890's through modern day.

Moving up to 7mm / O Gauge, the layout Ashmoor Vale a branchline to a busy Market Town and Quayside capable of running in DC or DCC mode this is located on the Devon / Somerset border and has a mix of Great Western & Southern stock and buildings. A lot of the buildings on the layout are scratchbuilt or kitbuilt.

Other members of the club have their own layouts and projects in most scales & gauges from 009, 0-16.5/On30 up to 16mm scale and beyond! So there is something to interest everyone - even if you just want to come and have a chat with other like-minded individuals. I myself have only been a member for six months or so but have made some good friends and feel like I have contributed something towards the club working on the layouts.

We meet on Friday nights at 8pm til 10pm. We have a room above the Undertakers on Wilder Road in Ilfracombe, the post code is EX34 8BL and there is a car park on the opposite side of the road to the club room and currently parking there is free after 6pm (but please check the sign yourself for confirmation). We also have a break for tea/coffee & biscuits/cake mid-way through the night. There is also an extensive library of books as well as space to work on club projects or bring your own project along for some help & advice.

We are currently planning for our annual exhibition to be held around Easter as well so its an exciting time to come along and be apart of a club and make new friends as well as have fun. I am hoping to make some more posts on this thread with updates on our layouts etc and other news as things progress. Feel free to post on here or private message me if you would like some more information or to arrange to pop along and see what we're about.

Kind Regards,
Gary

More details can be found on their Fadebook page: https://www.facebook.com/EKMRSWhitstable

We currently have the boards sorted for our club layout and are looking to expand the membership.

Presently meeting once a month ( formally) and as and when required.

Please message me for further info.

Paul Plummer, Clive Simpson and Stan Monger-Godfrey are still Exhibition Manager, Secretary and Treasurer respectively. The other ‘ordinary’ Committee Members, David Bone, Janet Jackson and Peter Wells, have been joined by Michael Chipperfield who has been the club’s Webmaster and producer of the club’s fanzine, The Invicta Informant, since 2013.

The club was founded in 1962 and meets every Wednesday evening from 6:30pm up to 9:30pm at our clubrooms in Belvedere Working Men’s Club where we have been based since 2013. We are in the enviable position of not having to share our facilities with anybody else, so the rooms are potentially available every day of the week.

New members are always more than welcome. Before taking the plunge and signing-up, we suggest that anybody interested in joining the club visits the clubrooms on a couple of Wednesdays just to get to know the members and get a feel of the place.

More details about the club, its layouts and its exhibitions can be found be found on our website:

www.ukmodelshops.co.uk/erithmrs/index.html

If you are interested in joining a friendly, active and local society please contact the club via the ‘Contact Us’ page on our website:

http://www.ukmodelshops.co.uk/erithmrs/contact.html

Any further news about the club will be posted on this thread.

10am to 3pm - all are welcome to come along and see our layouts and run your own locos and rolling stock on our test track

We can be found at 11 Duke Street - overlooking Platform 3 (London bound) of High Wycombe Station.
There is plenty of parking next door in a pay&display car park and on the road outside.

Next open day is Saturday 14th February

And then on Saturdays 28th March, 18th April, 16th May and 20th June

For more information about the club go to www.hwdmrs.org.uk or email secretary@hwdmrs.org.uk

DEFine 2026 poster A4 colour.pdf

Our annual mini exhibition featuring:

A selection of Club and guest layouts including

Ingatestone – OO gauge, Anglia set in the last decade continuous run

Orchard Wharf – EM gauge, London docklands early BR era

Lacey Dale – N gauge, Derbyshire rolling countryside continuous run

Rye Sands – OO gauge, Kent coast South Eastern Railway cameo

Lea Valley Railway Centre – O gauge, NE London preservation

Golden Mile – 2mmFS, west London micro layout, with full automation.

MRC Modular Layout – New Project demo

Our shop stocks a wide selection of pre-owned models – we’ll have a table of bargains, and new items not in our online shop. And you can ‘click and collect’ from our online shop post free as long as you order by Thursday 26th December (other on-line items won’t be available on the day)

Refreshments (including a selection of freshly made rolls and Greene King beers) will be available.

Please note there are steps or stairs to all rooms.

Tickets on the door – £5 for adults £1 for children – and we take cash and the usual cards / contactless payments.

We are ideally located for travel by public transport with King’s Cross station a few minutes walk away and a number of bus routes stopping even closer – check out the TfL website to plan your journey.  Parking is available in local side streets free of charge on Sundays, and we are outside the CCZ.

Faced with the choice of (a) spending a lot of time and money refurbishing TT2, or (b) building a completely new test track or (c) having no test track at all, the group opted decisively for (b) some time ago.

Building on the lessons learned from the effects of storing and frequently erecting and dismantling TT2 (DRAG meetings occur twice a month), the group opted for a higher spec of materials. Tim Horn was commissioned to produce all the baseboards (and covers) and an new support system was devised, based on the experience of building and exhibiting the P4 Balcombe Viaduct layout owned by John Farmer (Re6/6) and Rod Cameron (10800). This is based on the use of commercially available steel trestles and a ladder framework, made up of 20mm square steel section. The photos will make this clear.

Nick Rogers (Brinkly) was appointed by the group to project manage the whole thing and various other individuals became involved in leading certain aspects of the build. John refurbished all the metal trestles and designed and built the entire steel substructure upon which TT3 will sit.

Nick himself and our much-missed dear friend Brian Pearce worked tirelessly (in Brian's shed as a construction base) on the woodwork - assembling the Tim Horn components, making various modifications and additions that were deemed necessary and varnishing the whole thing. They also laid the cork during this process.

Tim (CK) was 'Trackmeister' and Rod Cameron was in charge of the electrics and wiring, with our treasurer Dave Browne responsible for the control panel.

It is now fully in commission and working well without all the 'humps and bumps' of the old TT2!

(A precis of CK's original post on S4 Webforum.)

As it's only just over a week to go, here's a link and QR-coded poster that should lead you to our website.

The layout recently visited the Warley MRC Exhibition near Tamworth (at Statfold Barn Railway Museum), only its second outing to a visiting Club's show - the first being the Spalding Exhibition last November.  We had lots of nice compliments at both exhibitions!

So if you live in or close to this part of East Cambridgeshire/West Suffolk do try and pop a long to Newmarket and have a look.  The event has been organised by Newmarket Town Council and remember entry is entirely FREE - but take note of the limited opening times (see poster) to avoid disappointment!

Here's a good video of the layout produced by SHGP media to give you an idea of what you'll see.

We are not  putting a price on them - just a donation to club funds and postage.

We would like them to go to a good home.

Colin 

This is our first venture into narrow gauge and, like the wagon works, the theme will be ‘small is beautiful’, allowing easy transport to shows.

This is the first board, on which there are already some musings regarding the positions of buildings and a rough track layout. A small ‘fiddle yard’ is yet to be added to one end.

The idea is that, once this ‘town’ area is finished, there will be a second board hosting a quarry scene, while a single-track standard gauge line can also be bolted on to the front, using a slim baseboard.

The aim is for the town and quarry sections to be exhibited either separately or joined together and the project is being managed by two of our more recent recruits, Craig and Tom.

Like the new wagon works layout, the current plan is to use these layouts to develop our understanding of the NMRA’s Layout Command Control (LCC/OpenLCB) system, using very low-cost ‘off the shelf’ modules (e.g. Arduino-compatible ESP32s) with software currently being tested by one of several Lawlogg members who are also in the Merseyside Area Group of MERG.

https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/edinburgh-and-lothians-miniature-railway-club-makes-desperate-plea-for-new-home-1-4897141?fbclid=IwAR2VLFwnSdFtdDswLim2d8MSUIKOYskw3zsWq-lVoc31YY7rgJJIv8fpwpo

Sorry for a link to something with so many adverts!

Unfortunate that the land was sold without their knowledge.  Hope they have success in finding new premises.

Please delete if there is already a thread for this - searched and didn't find one.

Here they are, adorned with some (as yet un-weathered) new wagons … along with some pics of visiting locos running on the layouts at our previous open day. 

Feel free to bring your O-gauge stock for a run and see for yourself our four existing layouts, plus various other displays and s/h sales etc. 

Admission free (donations welcome). Free parking. Public transport nearby. Light refreshments. Demonstrations. Pick up a used bargain!

(Click HERE for more details.)

.

.

I have been meaning to do this for quite a while but never got around to letting you all know about our club in Durham,

Basicly we meet every Wednesday Evening from about 7pm in our own Clubroom, which is inside the Framwellgate Moor & Pity Me W.M.C., 34 Front Street, Framwellgate, Durham, DH1 5EE . Visitors and prospective new Members are always welcome.

for any questions or information on how to join, please ring the number below for details:

07947298840

The Club is constructing a 4mm Scale model of Shincliffe station on the Leamside Line.

The layout is 24’ x 8’, and will have a scenic section from the A177 bridge at the north end to the occupation bridge at the southern end, on the approach to Bowburn. We do not envisage having to do too much in the way of compressing the station area; certainly not the distance between the bridges, which is full length in 4mm scale.

We will be using a little “modellers’ license†in that we will use the 1920s track plan, but our intended running period, at least at first, will be 1948-1967; in other words ‘steam & green diesels’. Ultimately we would hope to accumulate stock for an earlier period too, perhaps even as far back as NER days.

We are scratch building the point work, with SMP for the plain track. All buildings will require scratch building; the signal box in particular should make an attractive model!

Baseboard construction is now complete, the laying of track is under way, and we are engaged in accumulating as many photographs and other information as possible. All pertinent information would be gratefully received.

Please see our web site for pictures and details

http://durham-district-mrs.webs.com/

all the best

dan

So the club's new G gauge layout has been designed to show what you can achieve in a relatively small space and the new layout has been designed with these ideas in mind.....

1. Small, light baseboards - easy to carry with just one person

2. Easy and quick to set up on a club night

3. Easy and cheap to transport to exhibitions -  baseboards fit in an estate car.

At the club's recent OPEN DAY there was only room to set up two out of the three boards, but you can see the concept.

If you would like to come down to our clubroom and meet the G gauge team please send me a PM as the layout is not up every week, but this coming Friday our Multi Gauge Running Track will be up in the club and needless to say it does have a 45mm gauge circuit - why not bring some stock along and give it a run?

Here's a spoof 1950s-style newsreel of Liverpool and West Lancs. 'O' Gauge Group preparing 'Ballan Road' ahead of the Rainhill Model Railway show on 1st/2nd March 2025.

https://lawlogg.uk/2025/02/24/preparing-for-rainhill-2025/

Just a quick update on our large 4mm f/s layout.

After the long involuntary, covid-induced break, we have made excellent progress on our finescale layout, "Bigbury Bay". This will be an exhibition-standard layout at just under 30' in length. Most of the wiring has now been completed and the scenic side of things is progressing well, plus the ballasting has begun at last. It is a large double-track WR based station located on the south Devon coast with three platform faces, a goods yard, carriage sidings and facing onto the coast. Still much to do of course, but our small and friendly group welcomes newcomers, so if you live in the area, and feel you would like to be part of a small group, please message me as you would be very welcome to come along, join us for a cuppa, chat, friendship and help us complete this project. In the meantime, best wishes to all, and I hope to see some of you at our next exhibition - EXMOOR RAIL 2025 on Saturday 31st May. Full details will be published soon. In the meanwhile, best wishes to all,

exmoordave

So, I'm trying to get a show of interest and depending on numbers there might be the possibility of a meeting space/club house. Anyway, if anyone is interested please follow the link and join up and share your skills, thoughts, collections, layouts etc. Sorry it's only on Facebook at the moment, but website and other socials will be forthcoming. If you don't have FB then please contact me on here and I'll eventually add you to a mailing list when I get around to it.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1088908712145507

Join us now for just £24 and get all the benefits of membership until the end of February 2026.  

The Scalefour Society can help you move to 4mm finescale modelling in 2025.

Have a look at the attachment or www.scalefour.org for more information.

We look forward to welcoming you to our friendly and helpful Society.

New Year Resolution from the Scalefour Society_2.pdf.PDF