Olney Model Railway Club - News and Events

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.

News and Local Events.

The photo shows the range of types and scales of the models running on the club test track at the last club meeting. These varied from utility locos from the second world war era in O gauge through historic steam locos in OO and modern diesel passenger trains in OO and N gauge.

Please click on the picture to enlarge

Olney Model Railway club will be holding its 2023 Exhibition at the Carlton Club on Saturday 2 September. For the latest information and details of the layouts appearing visit the Exhibition page.

The emphasis this year is again on smaller layouts that could be built at home, so the clubs Olney Station layout will not be shown, but will be accessible by visiting the club room. The photo shows detail of one of the layouts to be exhibited.

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Typical Layout

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On the club front there have been changes to the club room. The Olney Station layout will be permanently housed with the test track in the larger room. This will once again allow members to run their own locos and rolling stock. This has always been a substantial part of the activities on club nights. The test track allows running of O gauge, OO gauge and N gauge trains of authentic length and makeup.

Space has also been made to run and refurbish two existing layouts whilst a new N gauge layout is under construction.

A lot of work has been done to improve the club room. The electrical wiring has been replaced with more ring circuits installed to allow for better heating during winter. The first room has been redecorated and the old store room at the top of the stairs has been fitted out with benches and wall covering and a new ceiling has been installed. The ceiling above the stairs, which was very tired hardboard, has been taken down and replaced. Material has been purchased for a false ceiling in the first room and has been installed. The areas have been repainted, by a small working party on Tuesday mornings. Some old, but serviceable carpet has been donated and has been laid. The stair carpet has been removed and scrapped and one of the wooden treads has been replaced and replacement carpet fitted.

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Showing the earlier developments to the layout. The operations board was moved to the rear and a new sector plate and fiddle yard was fitted.

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Showing a general view of the layout during setup.

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Showing a close up of the scenery during the Blue Diesel era.

The last outing of the layout to Kempston MRS in its St Peter's Creamery version .

Kempston 2018

The traverser extension is shown in the background. Note the new building to the left in the foreground.

The layout has now been retired, with the base board reused to construct Buckleberry Lane, a new layout using servo point (turnout) motors and relay frog switching.

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The club membership is still increasing, but we would welcome 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 track than most people have available at home. A new club member brought an interesting live steam model to a recent club meeting for advice on maintaining it in working order. We have a number of steam modellers and so were able to give an opinion.

The club meets every Thursday from 7:30 in the permanent club room behind the Carlton House Club. Members have a wide range of interests from live steam models to N gauge. Just come along and join in, see Club Night or phone 01234 241686 for more details.

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Most of the news items have been composed from extracts of articles written by a club member for the local area magazine "Phonebox", published and distributed by Orchard Press. See their web site, click here for a look.



The Club has been notified of the following forthcoming events in the area.

25 - 26 November 2023 - Warley Model Railway Club
The National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham B40 1NT.
For full details, visit their web site, click here

A full diary of events can be seen at The Chiltern Model Railway Association
web site, click here for details.
The club is affiliated to the CMRA - the Chiltern Model Railway Association. For their Home Page, click here.

Further exhibition and event information can be found at the UK Model Shops site click here.

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

This page was last updated on 31 August 2023.


© Olney Model Railway Club 2023. All rights reserved.


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