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Happy New Year to all our website visitors old and new.
2016 was another successful year for the 12AD MRG, Helenston and Milton Street MPD both attended exhibitions, and work continues on a new project, Coldblow Lane, SE14. Bill is a master of haircuts, Spencer is still an R.A.B, Keith is getting on a bit and Joe still cant make up his mind. We continue to learn aspects of our hobby from each other, to each others gain. The year started getting Helenston from bare baseboards to an exhibitable scenic state in readiness for the Kyle exhibition which took place in May. Following on from that show, Helenston was scenically upgraded to attend the Cathcart show at the end of October. This last show saw us win The McMillan Torphy 2016 for the layout's coal drops. Sadly though, Keith has decided to take his layout off the exhibition circuit for now whilst he concentrates on real life! Hopefully Helenston will be back on the circuit soon as it was very well received in its 2 outings, and it was 12AD's first group effort from the outset. In between the above, we were busy preparing Milton Street MPD for both the Maryport & Perth shows in April and June respectively, Spencer was was beavering away on his own mostly! The former show was very successful, unfortunately Perth didnt follow suit. We had problems with the layout's points, with the layouts most important point failing on the sunday. The decision was taken to bring forward the installation of a Megapoints control board, replacing the point motors with servo's, along with installing extra feeds to the point rails, ready for the Warley show. At this point we'd like to thank Stan & the gang at the Perth club for inviting Milton Street MPD to the 25th Anniversary show, and for the fantastic hospitality which gets better year on year. The Warley show eventually went well after a saturday morning of frustration and stress (big thanks to Dave Fenton from Megapoints for saving us!), but we have now taken the decision to replace the electronic controls for Milton Street MPDs turntable with a dedicated DCC chip, as we have found the existing electronics too unreliable for exhibition use. Bill is continuing Eagleshams' upgrades by replacing the fiddle yards with traversers, installing a Megapoints control board and associated servos, and switching from DC to DCC control, which is a major undertaking. Joe's new layout Coldblow Lane, SE14, is still under construction, at this moment, the majority of the scenic formers are in place, ready for ground cover. Our layouts now follow a standard pattern:
Eaglesham, along with Milton Street MPD, has received an invite to Wakefield in 2017, whilst Joe's new layout Coldblow Lane, SE14 has been invited to the Kyle, Perth and Falkirk shows this coming year. Rockvilla Goods, Joe's old layout, was feature in the June 2016 issue of British Railway Modelling. In October, we sadly lost a good friend and great modeller, Jimmy Anderson. Jimmy was a founding member of the East Kilbride Model Railway Club where we all met. Overall 2016 was successful and enjoyable, if stressful at times. Thank you to all longstanding and new visitors to our little corner of the internet, and to those who visit our layouts at exhibitions. We wish you a happy and prosperous 2017 Bill, Spencer, Keith & Joe 12AD Model Railway Group
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