Club Roadshow

For the start of the story see

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

Back in 2011 when the OOLS club was first inaugurated one of the aims was to “To build and operate one or more Roadshow and exhibition layouts” and at that time the only layout available to attend shows belonged the club chairman Adrian Campbell.

Prior to the formation of the club Adrian had built and operated a couple of different versions of layouts that he used to demonstrate OO Live Steam. Although I never saw it in action the Mark 1 was smaller, around 6’ in size but was quickly superseded and by the time I first met him in April 2011 (outside the York show) he was working on a modular system.

This mark 2 was very much a ‘work in progress’ with many new ideas being trialled, one of which was the use of a metal template to pre-drill locating holes for the pins used to hold the track in position.

On this version the baseboards were fastened together by bolts in the centre of the hardwood end section that were also used to transmit the power between boards plus the play in the bolt holes allowed for slight adjustment to align the tracks.

Because the baseboards were shaped like an inverted U these were difficult to reach to tighten up enough to prevent movement during the day resulting in regular derailment issues.

Also not really understood at the time were the issues associated the with high current draw required by these locos and although the layout was wired as a bus it had several weak points that caused issues over the length on an exhibition.

This was the system in use when the club first started exhibiting the layout, seen here at Warley 2011.