Olney Model Railway Club - Home Page

This is a site for people who want to improve their knowledge of equipment and modelling technique and who would like to join a club of like minded people within the Milton Keynes, South Northants and North West Bedfordshire area.

Welcome to the Olney Model Railway Club Website.

The club, founded on the 25th February 1993, is small and friendly and currently has a membership of 24.

We are seeking more new members of any level of skill and experience, from beginners to experts, to assist in building the layouts, or just to run their trains on a much larger tracks than most people have available at home.

The club is affiliated to the CMRA - the Chiltern Model Railway Association. For their Home Page, click here.

Contents and Layout Guide.

The site is divided into eleven sections, with a navigation bar at the top of each page.

A section has been added, called Articles. The first article is called "Electrics and Model Railways" and is a beginner's guide to wiring a model railway.

A further section called Olney Station Project has been included. We will add to the page as the project takes shape. To accompany the new page Barrie has written an in depth article on the history of the Northampton to Bedford Railway (added to in March 2016).
A second article has been added to that page, describing a special passenger train journey along the line in the summer of 1951.

The latest page to be added is the Current Layouts page, describing the three layouts currently being worked on by members of the club.

The latest photographs showing the progress of the Olney Station Project have been added to that page.

Top of Page

Messages.

Hello Malcolm,
The last meeting on Thursday night (31 August), was well attended, with tea or coffee and biscuits available. We spent the evening running members locomotives and stock, cleaning track and checking the operation of the Olney Station and Yards layout and the Bucklebury Lane layout. We again had a short operating training session for members, ready for our exhibition on 2 September. Keith E completed the new layout storage racks on the landing at the top of the stairs, giving the club the ability to store up to four eight foot long layouts.

The Bucklebury Lane layout was taken to the Silver Fox exhibition on Friday afternoon (18 August) and set up ready for the opening to the public on Saturday. Many thanks to Keith E for providing transport and helping with the fetching and carrying. The layout performed reasonably well with a couple of issues, which were either fixed on the day or rectified on its return to the club room. There was a lot of interest from visitors to the exhibition and a good day was had by the operators. Many thanks to the Silver Fox club for a very well organised event.

Three of our members are either recovering from road accidents or major surgery. We wish them a speedy and full recovery.

The club AGM was held on Thursday 3 August 2023, at the Olney Centre.

The changes to the test tracks have been completed. The circular test tracks have been altered to allow for a lift out section, so that access can be gained to the front of the Olney Station layout without having to duck under the test track, when the occasion demands. We are working on the Olney Station layout, building two mimic panels for the fiddle yard, relaying some track to prevent a derailment fault and redesigning the lift up section.

Thanks to Peter for writing the Phonebox Magazine article regarding the exhibition and taking photographs of the event.

Alan B has kindly donated some locomotives and rolling stock for use on the layout.

Chris has fitted DCC decoders to the two car Diesel Multiple Unit and a 0-6-0 3F tender engine, which were run on the layout. Peter has provided some photographs of the exhibition 2017, which are now on that exhibition page.

The bus wiring on the two OO gauge test tracks and the O gauge tracks have been completed. Wire connections have been made to all sections of track (except the points) using droppers and bus cable. Loco running is much smoother as we are not relying on the track and rail joiners to provide all the power. One of the 00 gauge track circuits has been converted to DCC running. Many thanks to Chris for all his efforts.

Top of Page

You have probably seen it already, but Olney and District Historical Society have an article about the Northampton - Olney - Bedford line, which may be of interest for the Olney Station project.
Click here for the article.

If anyone doing research into the Olney line, would let me know the web sources or any other details, as we progress, I will put them on the Olney station project page.

The new style web page is up and running, as you can see. Hope you like the look of it. Most of the old pages have been replaced by a diversion page on to the new website in case they have been bookmarked, or accessed via Google or other search engines, which may still hold the old data.

Best wishes. John.

P.S. I have included, because of popular demand, a table of the site statistics for the year to date (31 August 2023).

statsaug13

Top of Page

Contact us through facebook or Instagram by clicking on the required logo.

This page was last updated on 1 September 2023.


© Olney Model Railway Club 2023. All rights reserved.


(index)