Since the end of the open day season and Santa’s Visit things seemed to have gone a bit flat at the Dorchester Railway. However the mild weather spurred me on to get out and do something.

So taking a look at the railway I decided to level out the worst of the incline a bit and change the point where the trains crossover from one track to the other to improve running. After all the railway has been down for four months without a change (something of a record for me!).

Although it was a bit chilly. It was dry and so the railway was roughly laid out to see how it went. It seems to work well and I hope to fully ballast track at Easter. I like to experiment with ballast. I have used Wickes pea shingle and also horticultural grit in the past. This year I thought I would try using the pea shingle as a base and then top dress with some Alpine grit, which is smaller than pea shingle.

If anyone has a good suggestion about track ballast please post in the forum.

I do not fix my track down, mainly because I like to change it around a bit, nor do I solder the track joints but I do pinch up the track joiners and add a little graphite grease then add the plastic clips. This seems to produce trouble free running with the LGB MTS and  the Aristocraft Train Engineer systems that I use.

Again your views on this are welcome in the forum.

In amongst all this my son decided to go all American on his layout and I picked up some nice rolling stock. There went my budget for the year. I have found that there is either a lot of second-hand stuff about or there is nothing. Whether you have the finance or not you have to grab it.

It has been a real pleasure to be able to be up and running at the weekends at this time of year. It would have been nice to have a day running with snow on the ground but who knows I may still get the chance.

As we go into March there is the excitement of a good round of shows coming in April especially the 16mm AGM and the G Rail  of which will be featured in my next ramblings. Maybe I could spend some of 2006’s budget because you cannot come away from a show empty handed can you?

Finally well done Jason on the website it is looking good. I am a bit biased though (he is my lad).    

Roger : March 2005.

You can find me on the forum and look forward to reading your posts on my first Ramblings.