THE STRATHSPEY IN 4 MM

Construction of the Station section renewal is proceeding, if somewhat slower than we had hoped. At least we have managed to squeeze the turntable into more or less the correct position, as it was, slightly behind what is now Morley’s Shed Mk 2. When finished, we can perform shunting operations in the yard independently of the two main lines, so there will be three power supplies, with remote control possible for our visitors.

We have added two extra tracks that we have come across in our research; one goes up to the right of the Goods Shed south wall, and the other goes up to the Engine shed RH door. This will add interest to the layout as well as being historically nearer to correctness. In fact it seems that the PW teams would have been changing the layout of the station complex to meet changing needs as Boat station was at one time pretty busy. Duncan Cook tells me that during WW2, up to ninety trains passed through Boat every day! There was a big ammunition dump where the RSBP centre is now that was a precaution against invasion elsewhere in the country.

Rolling stock: We have had a very interesting donation from Dr Morley containing carriages and locos from the Fife area, Thornton Shed etc. Also after a long wait, a 117 class DMU came up at Hattons before they closed, so we now have a three car LIMA set and a spare unpowered car. I now have to get some speed whiskers applied somehow to go in place of the half yellow ends. We must also thank Liz Robertson for passing to us Iain’s collection, amongst which was a useful Class 08 shunter in the correct BR green livery like our D3605. Indeed we are very grateful for the many donations we have received over the past five years for we have representations of 90% of the railways rolling stock and have purchased just a few interesting or significant items (secondhand). In particular, we now have a Gordon for our Thomas collection, and stretching our relevance policy just a little, we have a Caledonian Single in Midland maroon.