Firstly it is with great sadness that I heard that Roy Thurston, the builder of Lansdowne Green passed away on June 18th 2017. I only met him the once, although I had several telephone conversations and email exchanges with him. He was one of the very early members of the 7mmNGA (member number 14!) and a true Gentleman. Since I had promised to keep him up to date with the renovation of Lansdowne Green I am sorry that I did not manage to get it fully restored. I hope to be able to invite his family to the first working outing of the layout, once it is ready to show Work on the layout has been on a back burner as the exhibition season has been taking much of my time. However, with a huge amount of help from Chris we have replace some of the baseboard timbers, which were cracking due to age, and started to extend the board backwards to make the back scene fit in better. We have also managed to finish the modular change over board, which allows Lansdowne to be connected to Slindon, Chris's modular board The most recent achievement has been to make new transport and storage boards to allow the module to be moved around with less likelihood of damage!
Current on-going work includes a second modular interface board to allow connection to Pallingham Quay, my original Slindon module. Pallingham had a short spell as a Gn15 layout, but was built to the specifications of Slindon, so reverting to 0:16.5 will be simply a matter of adding the correct scenery! On Lansdowne Green itself I am continuing with the rearwards extension to give the back-scene more space I will review the leg supports once the board is fitted with back-scene and sidewalls, as the current legs may not be stable enough for the extended board.

 Now that the better weather is with us I have started to build the boards which will allow us to connect Lansdowne Green

to Slindon Vale;

As Lansdowne Green was designed to be viewed from both sides, whereas the Slindon Vale concept sees each module as an individual scene, with a back-scene and a theatre front, we had to decide which side of Lansdowne was to be the front! We agreed that the track should leave the baseboard at the back, making it easier to hide the crossing join.. 

A couple of sessions with Chris Davies as well as some time spent at Southbourne Men's Shed have finished the board and a set of lightweight legs for it.

Did some work this weekend!

Stupidly I took no pictures this weekend! We had a group Pratt and Tickle session in the workshops of the Southbourne Men's Shed, where we worked on Doug's new layout for the Narr-O show on April 22 in Merston. Lansdown Green had quite a bit done to iot, the legs were shortened to fit the height of the Slindon Vale modules and height adjusters were fitted. I also cut ply for the back scene and the side walls, planning to try and fit them at the Bacon and Bash session to be held at Pagham Church Hall on 25 March.

Just an Update!

Not a huge amount to add today, after a couple of bad months health wise,but just to keep the flow going;
Lansdowne green is going to a Group 'Pratt and Tickle' session this weekend at Southbourne Men's Shed, where both Doug and I are members, to enable me to start on the construction of both extensions and side and back walls. I have been working through the wiring with my trusty (Ex MoD) AVO 8 mk5   an old but utterly reliable measuring device! (Not unlike some of our club

members, old but reliable!) I have also managed to blow and vacuum off a lot of the signs of age from the boards leaving a much nicer look altogether. I'm not sure if the difference is clear on these photo's, but it's easy to see  'in the flesh' so to speak!

Before Cleaning

It has been decided to make some concessions to progress, and replace the 40 year old H&M solenoids with R/C servos. just as soon as we can find a suitable controller for them. I also want to make a new control panel, as that will not be in the public eye, and rewire the layout to enable DCC OR DC running, to fit in with the rest of the Slindon Vale concept.

After Cleaning

The investigation of the wiring has shown that several places where a break is needed there is none, (after points being the main problem) and in a couple of instances there is no feed to the track where there should be. All minor stuff which will be easily remedied as soon as things are re wired.

Anyway the asylum is calling, so I'd better get back before Matron ups my medications to keep me from wandering off!