History

This page gives a brief overview of the East Dorset Group

Beginnings

Our group was started by Yvonne and Michael Shillabeer, the current webmaster of the N Gauge Society. He called a meeting of local N Gauge Society members at Pelhams in 1993. Michael missed the first meeting, as he was in hospital, so it was Yvonne that started us off. Around 20 members attended, a committee was formed, and it was decided to form a proper Area Group, affiliated to the N Gauge Society.

At first we just brought along stock, and chatted, but then the possibility of building a group layout was discussed. This was soon ruled out due to lack of storage space. Some of us still wanted to create something, so a modular system where each person could build a small part of a layout was devised. See the Modules page for details of this system. Eventually the number of modules were 10 straights and 4 corners, this was cumbersome to assemble and dismantle at a club evening, to this end two end return loops were built to give more flexible options.  In 2005 we decided to hold our own exhibition at Pelhams in October 2007, this gave us the incentive to re-lay the fiddle yard track and change the electrical connections to all modules.

This view shows the three board fiddle yard, these modules belong to the club. Each of our four main line tracks diverge in four lines, giving sixteen lines on which to load trains. October 2007

We have around 19 members who regularly attend, and will make newcomers most welcome.

Exhibitions

We were invited to attend a model railway exhibition at the Allendale Centre, Wimborne in 1999. At that stage we had no fiddle yard, and decided that we needed the impetus of a dead-line to speed us up a bit, so we agreed. We just managed to get the end two fiddle yard boards ready in time, although it hadn't been tested with the rest of the layout. It took a fair bit of fiddling about on the Friday evening, but we eventually got it going. Since then we have added more modules, and have attended more exhibitions.

Chris and Jon operating the layout during our exhibition at Kinson, October 2007

This is a list of the exhibitions attended so far: