A selection of stock waiting for the layout!

The first three boards that will house the permanant way yard were adapted from an earlier aborted layout and so need to be adapted for Quaker Lane.

Images showing the construction of the permanent Way on the Layout. Built to 16.5mm gauge 00 using C&L components we aim to give the illusion of a finescale layout with both wooden ond concrete sleering.

Well it's now approximately 2 years since the layout was conceived and although progress may appear slow, several important developments have taken place!
1. We have moved clubrooms - We are now the occupants of new rooms in Darlington Railway Museum. This has been made possible by the redevelopment of the museum and the generous offer made by the museum to house us in the main museum building!
2. We have taken the plunge and purchased a DCC unit (Lenz 100 with a 5amp transformer, thanks to the very friendly and knowledgable people at Digitrains!) We've also wired it up and we are now in the process of chipping locos. We've also decided to go the whole 9 yards and some locos will see Digital sound chips fitted, (the first being on 37667!)
3. Its also Gala season and there are plenty of locos to bash! So progress may get delayed depending on which Peak, Tractor or Vac is out! For this we make no apologies whatsoever!

Well a month has gone since the last update and looking at Q.L sitting in its new home you might think that not much has happened, (and to be honest you'd almost be right!)
We have however purchased the static DCC chip module thingy to allow the points to function via the handsets. We've also purchased the point motors for the yard (fullgerex for the yard, toitoise for the main!) And weve endured the torture that is the A.G.M. (most of us escaping with any duties on the committee, well apart from Andy, but as I say If you get called away in the middle of the meeting to attend to a Automatic Half Barrier you can oly expect to get voted onto the committee in your absence!

June has very quickly become July and after much hard work and frustrating times we were finally able to fulfil a long standing commitment to show Q.L. as a working demonstration at Hartlepool! For a first time out we were pleasntly surprised at the quality of running and in total had less than a dozen derailments over the weekend. We were also pleasantly surprised at the amount of interest that not only the layout but also the demonstrations brought and on the strength of that found ourselves with several invitaions for the coming 2 years!
So with its first exhibition under it's belt and the fact that we have proved our DCC theory, we can now proceed with the next 2 baseboards and then the next 2 and then the final 2 scenic baseboards! OH then thers the small matter of an 18 road split fiddle yard with a flyover!!!!!!!!!

Not a lot to update on! Will people stop having holidays!!!! Still people have been busy away from the club working on Stock which is far more fun. Meanwhile at the club the trackbed for the main running lines is finally being put into place and very soon the arduous task of laying several thousand Dowmac sleeprs will soon begin - how the hours will fly by!!!