Railway Society and Model Railway Society

The two societies exist to promote the knowledge of transport in general and rail transport in particular within the School. The Railway Society regularly visits railway installations, and has over the past few years been to the Severn Valley Railway, The Bluebell Railway, The Great Western Society at Didcot and the model museum at Pendon in Long Wittenham, Oxfordshire. Recently, we visited the National Railway Museum at York. In June 2009 we visited the North Norfolk Railway and had a guided tour of various installations on the line. The societies are the longest running, non-sporting, clubs in the School, having only four different members of staff in charge during the approximately 60 years that they have been going.

Our model railway takes the form of a double oval with various sidings, and a single line with a passing loop to a terminal station. The stations are named after places visited on CCF camps near Folkestone, Kent.

Over the last year or so progress has been made on the scenery with several parts of the model being decorated with materials to represent a farm yard and an orchard. Progress has also been made on getting the goods yard to work properly and this is slowly coming together. Several members have had a go at the task of writing a timetable for the layout which is proving quite a challenge. With the goods yard coming back into operation, we hope to mix goods trains with the passenger trains. The block instrument system is used to pass trains from one part of the layout to another.

Skills have not been neglected either, with a couple of sessions being given over to soldering techniques and fault finding on electrical circuits using a multimeter. Classes have also explained how the signalling system works.

Attendance is very good, with the Model Railway Room being full on most Tuesday and Friday afternoons. Some of the new members in September undertook a project to build a portable layout on a one foot by three foot board, just using three points. This was later extended to include another board to give a bit more room. The fruits of their labours are illustrated in some of the pictures. The layout is not normally open to the public, but it has become quite a feature of the London Open House, in September. where CLS is open to tourists and the general public. Many favourable comments are received each year.