Club Roadshow

Before the formal inauguration of the OO Live Steam club in 2011 Adrian Campbell was already attending shows, initially with small circuit of track (his Mark 1 layout)

By the time the club came into being Adrian had already built a larger single track Mark 2 layout and initially this was used for any event attended by the club.

By January 2012 Adrian had produced another, more solidly built Mark 3 version, again single track.

In February 2012 the layout was again rebuilt, this time by Adrian, Richard Hallam and myself, Chris Oakes. This version was known as the Mark 4, and was further modified several times throughout the year. Although worked on by several people the layout still belonged to Adrian, not the club.

The first real suggestion of a club owned layout was originally tabled by Eric Fenwick at the November 2013 AGM. On behalf of the club Eric had already started to raise funds for this project by selling specialist tools

At the same meeting Jimmy Whitehouse indicated that he was building a layout (at his own expense) to cover Wales (north and south) and the M4 and M5 corridors and Chris Oakes and Richard Hallam indicated that they also had plans to build an independent fully scenic layout that could also be loaned for club use.

These layouts were intended to be additions that would all be used in addition Adrian Campbell’s existing layout. As you can see at this time those involved with the club were very optimistic that we would attend many more exhibitions and these layout would all be needed.

Less than a year later reality had set in and we had begun to realise that despite all the optimism the necessary resources to staff these layouts would not be forthcoming and a complete rethink would be needed.

By the time the October 2014 AGM came around Adrian Campbell and Charles Leekham had raised the possibility of achieving the Clubs Modular Baseboard aim by modifying a product from Filcris (Cambridge) who market a garden railway system based on recycled plastic. Although the club voted against becoming involved with this system Adrian and Charles were making headway independently on this project. Plans for a layout were published and it was designated as the Roadshow Mark 5.

Also over the year the Mark 4 Roadshow had started to show its age and was proving more difficult to set up for reliable running. Twelve months of exhibitions with this layout had definitely educated both Richard and I that the idea of a separate large scenic layout was just not a viable proposition for two people so instead we put our energies into designing and building a replacement Roadshow for use by the club. To achieve this we had joined forces with Eric who had shelved his proposed layout pending getting this new layout up and running.

Much thought was put into the design before a single blow was struck, including Chris building craftsman built mock-ups in cardboard and the plan also included an outer “track in a trough” for the public to try for a 126MPH run. This version was designated as the Mark VI (no idea why we suddenly switched to roman numerals, but we did!) but the planning, committee and build processes were extensive and the Mark VI didn’t actually make it’s its debut until the 2015 Warley show

What follows is the story of those layouts covering not only the how but also the why things were done the way they were at the time, and how each was part of the learning curve that eventually evolved into the current Mark VI Roadshow.

To make it easier to find things at a later date I will create separate discussions for the Marks 1 & 2, Mark 3, Mark 4, Marks 5 and Mark VI and add links from here to each one as I complete it.

Link to the Marks 1 & 2 story

https://www.oolivesteam.com/forum-1/club-roadshow/the-ools-club-roadshow-marks-1-2

Link to the Mark3 story

https://www.oolivesteam.com/forum-1/club-roadshow/the-ools-club-roadshow-mark-3

Link to the Mark 4 story

https://www.oolivesteam.com/forum-1/club-roadshow/the-roadshow-mark-4