Grampian Area Report 12th November 2024

We've been making good progress on several fronts on Dunallander. We continue to meet at Roy's shed on Tuesday evenings and the occasional Saturday, with Roy spending a lot of additional time in the shed, and also other work being done away from the layout.

The path towards the Springbank mill has been realigned to make it more prototypical. Near the mill too, but on the opposite bank a small burn has appeared. Meantime, the site of the electricity sub-station has grown and following a tip off at Perth, we contacted the SSE Heritage unit, who were very helpfull and sent us a site plan, some historical and technical information and some images, resulting in Roy carrying out some baseboard surgery to enlarge the site.

Roy has now resumed tree making for the hill east of the main line and a fair sized wood has now appeared.

In August we visited the Stirling Archives to inspect three large-scale Aerofilms pictures of Dunblane dating from 1962/63. As a result Roy has done yet more baseboard surgery, involving about two square feet across the join with the northern part of the junction board.

We have gained a lot of new information about the goods yard, including the water tower and a previously unknown second goods dock.

After spending months of plastering, fettling and painting the goods yard we've found ouselves remodelling the entrance area and creating a lot of raised ground above the plaster between the entrance and goods shed.

Away from the shed, Mike has completed the buildings for Caledonian Place. Working out the levels here and building a demountable sub-structure will be the next task for the area.

On the locomotive front we have used the last few spares of Ballantine driving wheelsets to replace a broken geared axle on a GEM parallel boiler Patriot, several ex LNER locos have been coaxed back into life, and we have discovered we have all the necessary parts for completing a part-built Foxhunter WD 2-8-0.

We were invited to the Elgin Modelfair on the 2nd /3rd November where we displayed the viaduct board. It was a very successful weekend and again we have learned a few things from people who knew the area in the 60's. Below are some photographs taken by Tony over the course of the weekend.

Our next planned exhibition will be at Elgin next year with hopefully the completed layout.

June Grampian Area Group Report

DUNALLANDER UPDATE

Tony and John have continued working on the ground cover on the goods yard and Roy has been busy with the scenics, including some tree building, on the viaduct board ready for the visit to the Perth Exhibition. Mike has continued modelling the buildings and is now down to his last five.

The highlight of the month was the Perth Exhibition where we had the viaduct board as a demonstration along with a small screen showing some of Mike's buildings and photos of the full layout as it was at the Aberdeen Exhibition in October. We picked up quite a lot of information from people who knew the area and also a possible source of information for the sub station. During the course of the weekend a couple of bridge engineers paid the stand a visit and were very impressed with Roy's bridges, so a massive thumbs up for our bridge builder. The other highlight of course was once again meeting up with the team from the Forth and Clyde Group with their excellent layout Mearns Shed.

Below photographs taken by Tony during the weekend and two of Mike's latest building.

Faery Bridge

Alasdair Campbell's Jumbo

Mike's latest model building of 16 Caledonian Place

The Perth Exhibition would not be complete without the Saturday night exhibitor's BBQ at Wester Pickson Railway

May Grampian Area Group Report

DUNALLANDER UPDATE

Roy has completed the mammoth task of rewiring and is now continuing with the scenics on the viaduct board which we will be displaying at the Perth Exhibition on the 29th/30th June at the Dewar's Centre. The scenery work to date has involved the making of a lovely model of the 1911-built Faery Footbridge (Faery Brig) over the river, which is a very early example of the use of ferro-concrete, which Roy has modelled in plasticard. Roy has also fixed some fencing in place along the river and began laying static grass along with a spot of tree making. Tony and John, following the laying of plaster in the goods yard, are now doing the tidying up work including removing plaster from below the gaps under the rails and painting of the area has also began.

Mike is now making the final batch of buildings, primarily Caledonian Terrace, John has built and fitted the goods dock and Tony has been dealing with some of the loco issues highlighted during the Aberdeen Exhibition. A big thank you goes to Mick Simpson who is very kindly remotering our Britannia.

As mentioned we will be at the Perth Exhibition on the 29th/30th of June so if you are visiting please drop by and say hello.

A couple of photos of the progress Roy has made on the viaduct board

On arrival we thought there had been a bit of a disaster but it was only Roy finding a way to get some scenic work done on the centre of the board (calm down and keep plastering)

Dunallander 21st December 2023

A brief update following on from the layout's showing at the Aberdeen Exhibition in October which threw up some changes required but in the main much more positives.

Roy, as usual, has done an immense amount of work on the layout and is replacing a large amount of the wiring on the station board with a heavier grade of wire to improve electrical reliability.

Tony and John have been covering of the goods yard with a house repair filler as recommended by Alisdair. (We didn't realize that we had so much fun doing the ballasting).

The paved area on the island platform has been extended after a miscalculation by your's truly (another senior moment).

Mike is continuing with the layout buildings.

We had originally planned to attend the Perth exhibition with Dunallander in June 2024 but the consensus within the group was to defer this until the layout is in a more completed state, although we may still be attending with one of the boards as a demo but this has still to be confirmed. We are however planning to take Dunallander to the Elgin show later in the year.

We are aiming to have the layout completed early to mid 2025 at the latest and allow Roy to finally be able to start on his own layout which has been unfortunately delayed due to Covid.

Again a massive thank you must go to Alisdair Campbell, Jim Watt and the Forth and Clyde Group for their invaluable help, advice and Modelling skills throughout the year and looking forward to meeting up again in 2024.

Last but not least we would like to wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and all the best for 2024.

Dunallander looking quite appropriate for this time of year.

Dunallander 28th /29th October at Aberdeen Exhibition

This was definitely a touch of the 'Show must go On', between floods, Covid, Colds, train cancellations, and a flight of stairs we finally made it and had Dunallander up and running come the Friday evening.
Prior to Friday we completed work on the ballast and the permanent platforms, but special praise must go to Roy for the immense amount of work he put into getting the layout operational, and his new cassettes and cab control worked extremely well over the course of the weekend.
Despite flooding in his area, Mike delivered his buildings to Roy's in time for the exhibition but unfortunately tested positive for Covid and could not join us for the weekend.
It was great to meet up with Scott who joined us on Friday to help with setting up, and operating on Saturday when we were also joined by Jim Watt and Alisdair Campbell for Saturday and Sunday.
The weekend went very well and highlighted a couple of issues to improve on for our next outing but nothing major. The only downside was Jim tripped on Sunday and ended up for quite a few hours in A & E accompanied by Tony.
Thanks must go Aberdeen Model Railway Club for thier assistance over the weekend especially to Karl for transporting the layout to and from the venue. A special thanks must also go to Roy's wife Margaret, not only for puting up with Roy disapearing for hours to work on the layout but for helping with the breakdown on Sunday.
Below is a photograph of some of the members of the team. From L to R John Galbraith, Jim Watt, Tony Heywood, Alisdiar Campbell and Roy Bremner. Unfortunately Scott had to leave prior to the photograph being taken.

Dunallander Sunday 1st October

We are currently meeting every Tuesday evening preparing for the Aberdeen Exhibition on the 28th / 29th October.

Roy continues his work on the non scenic boards and cassettes and recently discovered a problem with some of the wiring on the scenic boards which he has resolved.

Tony has completed tidying up the ballast and has been testing some of the layout's locomotives and discovered a few problems. Tony attended this weekends Locomotive Workshop organised by the Forth and Clyde Group and took the opportunity to take a couple of the problem locos with him and enlisted the help of Jim Watt and Alisdair Campbell. Mick Simpson has also come to our aid and is looking at a couple of locos.

Work is progressing with the new platforms.

Mike has continued to produce the layout's buildings, the latest of which are shown below.

The Weighbridge

Dunblane Hotel

The Garage Showroom and Rear Workshop

Dunallander Saturday 9th September

Although this is our first blog since May we have not been idle, but unfortunately the tasks we have been carrying out have been of the more 'Less Sexy' but necessary catagory. Ballasting of the main lines has been completed and Tony is now busy carrying out the tidying up operation following a good vacuming and ensuring all the lines are clear of those odd annoying little pieces of ballast that get stuck to the inside of the track.

Roy has again completed an immense amount of work on the scenic boards and has now turned his attention to the non-scenic boards getting ready for the Aberdeen exhibition on the 28th / 29th October. Roy has also made new Cassettes, which are a great piece of model engineering and will be the subject of a later post.

Tony has also been carrying out work on some of the layout's locomotives, again in preparation for the Aberdeen exhibition.

Work has commenced on the goods yard and replacing the temporary platforms.

Mike has been busy on some more of the excellent buildings, the Mill and the buildings at Bridgend, photographs of which are shown below.

Hopefully we will be at the stage soon where we can get back to posting more regular updates and be able to show our progress.

The Mill

Bridgend