Club Rooms Before March 2020
When we learned that there was a very real possibility that our current club room at Warwick Mill in Middleton was under threat with the probable sale of the mill to a developer we started looking seriously for new and possibly better premises.
After a lot of looking we found what looked to be a site with great potential at Park Works in Heywood. This site would be twice the size of the existing room and allow us to build a larger 0 gauge layout as a full continuous run model.
Below are some pictures of the result of our labours at the new premises and just what we achieved after several Months of hard work.
Our first job was to build a "workshop" in part of the premises which would be useful during the construction and serve later as place to do construction work on layout bases or working on locos themselves.
Here is the finished workshop.
In addition to the "workshop" we needed a dedicated Kitchen area that would also be large enough to serve as a "Meeting Room" for use when holding such events as the Annual General Meeting. It was designed to allow 60 members to be seated at such an event.
The first layout that was erected at Heywood was our large 00 gauge "Sumner Brook" as this would allow members to at least run some stock even during the construction period of the new premises.
"Summner Brook" is now fully operational and well used by many of our members on club nights.
"Knapford" our Thomas layout that is loved by children at our own exhibition and other events that it has been to over the years.
"Midhey" is a 00 gauge layout based on the early 1960s just before steam traction disappeared from the railway scene.
It is still under construction and we hope to have it ready to be exhibited at our 2015 show at Rochdale Town Hall.
0 Gauge layout "Wrye". This layout is over 40ft in length and there are plans to build another 0 gauge layout as a 4 track continuous run model so that people with 0 gauge stock can come and use the layout to "stretch the legs" of their models.
One of our members models "Livsey Lane" erected in the club room for work to carried out on it. Livsey Lane appeared in the May 2014 issue of Railway Modeller as "Layout of the Month"
Lees, a 00 layout being constructed at the club by our assistant secretary Brian Amis. There are several more boards that make up the complete model and once they are ready for connection then the picture will be updated.