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.
