Both Shildon and Hartlepool Exhibitions were very successful witth lots of interest shown and many questions asked about tramway modelling.

At Shildon the talking Dalek stopped working on Saturday afternoon when the link between the servo motor and the Dalek failed. It was repaired ready for Hartlepool.

The sweeps brush and Dalek worked for a while at Hartlepool but both ceased to work during Sunday afternoon. On investigation there seems to be a problem with the servo controller.

Heathcote Electronics have said that there is no connection between the two halves of the controller but both servo motors work on their own but when the other one is connected neither work satisfactorily so the Dalek was chosen with the sweeps brush motor temporarily disconnected.

As the servo motor controller had failed it has been replaced with the motor connections reversed.

This should mean that the chimney sweeps brush moves almost silently when a tram passes a couple of places on the track instead of the Dalek moving and speaking loudly.

A tram shelter kit was bought for Seaton at Christmas from an online auction site. It included an old sea mine converted for collecting money for charity.

This has been painted red and placed near the events field entrance where many visitors should pass it.

As Gateshead No.10 has been sold it has been replaced by No.14 liveried as it was just before the tram system closed in 1951.

When the system was being run down, and advertising contracts expired, the adverts on the trams were painted out with new contracts made with the bus fleet.

It was built from a 3D printed body from Andy Burrows (Tramads) with an Alan Kirkman chassis built from plastic sections, using Halling bogies and a central motor.

The replacement IRDOT2-D, after being modified as suggested by Clive Heathcote, detected all the time so it has also been replaced by an IRDOT3-AD which has an adjustable delay set at the minimum of 3 seconds.

A small scene was added in 2011 in the events field where one of the drivers reversed his Morris Minor through the fence and was left with the rear wheels suspended over the lake.

Information has just come to light that the Lilac Morris Minor Million was one of 350 'special edition' models built to celebrate the production of the 1,000,000th Morris Minor in January 1961.

These had a special 1,000,000 badge on the boot lid made from one standard and one modified 1,000 badge.

The replacement IRDOT2-D has been redesigned so Clive Heathcote has advised that changing the 10uF capacitor for one with a smaller value will change the 5 second delay on undetect to between 1 and 2 seconds.

Gremlins have infected the servo motor controller wiring as the Dalek speaks whenever a tram runs over some of the track sections so investigation is needed.

The 3D printed Sunderland No.99 is back delivered by Alan Kirkman when he visited.

The Bachmann powered No.99 which has run since 2009 has been rewired from overhead to two-rail and sold.

Sunderland No.85 and No.99 have arrived, on loan, to supplement the tram fleet.

No.85 was nicknamed "The Covered Wagon" after a film showing in cinemas at the time it arrived in the Town. It was bought for the Villette Road route with its low bridge.

It was built from a KW Trams white metal kit by Alan Kirkman who fitted a scratch built chassis using Halling bogies and a central motor.

The 3D printed Sunderland No.99, in pre-war crimson, was designed by Andy Burrows, sold under his Tramads brand and completed by Alan Kirkman who fitted a scratch built chassis using Halling bogies and a central motor.

It is in addition to the Blackpool Balloon based No.99 fitted with Tramalan white metal ends, also built by Alan Kirkman, which has run on Foxwood Park since it was first exhibited.

A modified Scale Scenes horse trough has eventually been added to the Park after a long period in storage.

It was bought in 2015 because it had a spire which should have been fitted on the top where the pineapple is.

But the spire and the drinking bowl were used, along with a length of 12mm square timber and some 1mm card, to make the drinking fountain for Beamish.

Now that the problem with the spring points outside the tram depot appears to have been resolved the time has come to replace four of the remaining Bachmann chassis, which are now 11 years old, with Halling chassis.

The photo is courtesy of Alan Kirkman who has built these four chassis to fit, clockwise from top right, South Shields No.44, South Shields No.46, Gateshead No.77 and Newcastle No.96.

Sunderland No.99 with the one remaining Bachmann chassis may be replaced by a new 3D printed body fitted with a Halling chassis.

These are the spring points at the Foxwood Hall end of the passing loop which have always worked as intended.

Ever since Foxwood Park was built there have always been odd times when trams have gone wrong road at the spring points at the other end of the loop beside the tram depot.

But when Sunderland No.100 & Newcastle No,102 were changed from Bachmann to Halling chassis, so they could run round the tight curve on Beamish, this problem got much worse and solving it became urgent.

The backscene and tram depot were removed before some tarmac was lifted to expose the sleepers at the depot end points.

These are the points at the depot end of the loop and shows that there is a significant difference between these points and those at the Foxwood Hall end.

The outer rail starts to diverge a lot further away from the frog than the inner rail and adding a spring blade to this rail did not stop the trams going wrong road.

These are the points outside the tram depot after the outer rail was moved about 1.5 mm, at the sleeper marked with an arrow, towards the check rail.

The point where this rail starts to diverge has moved to more or less in line with where the inner rail starts to diverge and much closer to the frog.

Moving the rail appears to have been a success as, after a short test with both Bachmann and Halling powered trams, they were all going left (correct road) into the loop.

At Model Rail 2020 last month the LED on top of the Tardis failed to work, after the event it was found that both wires feeding the LED driver module had broken where they were soldered on to the module. It has been repaired.

A new right angled bracket for the sweeps brush servo motor has been made from aluminium as the straight brass bracket has kept distorting in use, The servo motor settings have been adjusted to suit the new bracket.

Gateshead No.10 had its first outing on Foxwood Park at Model Rail 2020 in South Shields. It ran without incident once the trolley pole was adjusted.

The second Gateshead tram No.77 had trolley pole problems which eventually resulted in a broken pole, made from piano wire, which ended its appearance as its spare pole also failed in use.

The railbus was twice sprayed with white primer-filler and rubbed down to smooth the rough surface left by the 3D printer.

Next it was sprayed Gloss White before the roof was sprayed with grey primer and the bottom half with Ford Starburst Red.

It was finished with black foot boards, brass radiator surround / front bumper and glazing before the Kato 11-103 and Bemo 009 stepped rear coupling were fitted.

One of the last of the latest production run of 009 3D printed freelance railbuses from A1 Models has arrived along with one of the last Kato 11-103 chassis available.

A clearance test has been done and when in service the railbus will make a change from the tank engine or the Double Fairlie and will tow one of the 4-wheeled coaches if passenger numbers dictate.

Gateshead No.10 has replaced Grimsby & Immingham No.26. This tram has been returned to its owner after an extended loan period. Photo courtesy of Alan Kirkman.

This tram body is a 3D print and is fitted with a Halling chassis which allows it to run round the sharp curves on Foxwood Park.

As there are few signs of Gateshead No.10 being back in service at Beamish in the near future, it has been painted in the livery it carried before 2012 when it became Grimsby & Immingham No.26.

Another photo courtesy of Malcolm Fraser illustrates the second new Sunderland tram which Foxwood Park will have when it has been built.

KW Trams has produced a white metal kit for Sunderland No.85 which will appear in Crimson & Cream.

No.85 was better known as 'The Covered Wagon' and was the only tram sold and went to Leeds City Tramways where it was rebuilt into Railcoach No.600.

Andy Burrows has announced that he is going to produce a 3D print of Sunderland No.99 which will be sold under his Tramads name.

When available it will replace the current Bachmann powered No.99 which was made from a modified Blackpool Balloon fitted with Tramalan white metal ends by Alan Kirkman.

It may appear in this livery from an original black and white image coloured by our Sunderland expert Malcolm Fraser.

On a number of occasions at the Middlesbrough exhibition the second tram to arrive at the clockwise stop at the west end of the street ran into the tram already there.

Once back at home, experiments proved that because it has the shortest wheelbase, Sunderland No.99 was stopping with the front bogie over the IRDOT.

The bogies are too close to the IRDOT to be detected so the track section before the stop was not being isolated, causing the collisions.

This problem was discovered in 2009 when Foxwood Park was being built but, at that time, was fixed by using IRDOT-2D's with adjustable delays. However this was before the arrival of the shorter wheelbase No.99.

A short length of tarmac was lifted between the rails, another hole drilled and the IRDOT moved 1½ inches closer to the end of the stop and all trams are now being detected.

A new piece of Metcalfe tarmac completed the job however an exhibition appearance is needed to confirm that everything is working as intended..

During April, Alan Kirkman visited to do a number of repairs and improvements to the Beamish overhead.

While he was here he replaced the temporary pull-offs on Foxwood Park, made in February from overhead wire, with etched brass pull-offs from Mark Hughes.

He also adjusted the blade on the points at the depot end of the loop and all trams now follow the correct track into the loop.

Before the South Shields Exhibition some missing overhead pull-offs were replaced, without the proper parts, using some overhead wire which, surprisingly, did not cause any running problems.

One of the point check rails at the depot end of the loop had become detached at one end and was nipping the tram wheels so some road surface was lifted and the rail soldered back in place.

All of the Halling powered trams, Nos.26, 100 and 102, are going wrong road at the depot end of the loop points which appears to be caused by the different wheel profile used on the Halling bogies.

After not having any servo motor problems at the exhibition the digital motor which works the sweep's brush was relocated and the long linkage removed.

The motor was beside the controller and the Dalek but now is directly below the brush and connected by a brass bracket and the re-used chocolate block cable connector.

A servo extension cable connects the controller to the now distant servo motor.

As Foxwood Park will be back on the exhibition scene in early 2018, the photo gallery has been updated with the addition of Gateshead No.10 in its later livery as Grimsby & Immingham Electric Railway No.26.

The fleet now has eight trams from the North East of England with two each from Gateshead, Newcastle, South Shields and Sunderland.

The Double Fairlie locomotive is now finished with the addition of its ANNE nameplates from Narrow Planet, brass handrails, lamps and crew.

The side tank locomotive KAYE received its handrails at the same time. All of the handrails were fitted by Daniel Bliss.

As the digital servo motors used on Beamish do not seem to suffer from rapid uncontrollable movements when powered up, both of the analogue servo motors have been replaced with digital ones.

The IRDOT-2D at the west end of the street failed last year as it was not detecting the presence of a tram and isolating the safety section before the stop when it was exhibited at Shildon last October.

Its replacement was modified, at Heathcote Electronics suggestion, with the 1M delay resistor replaced by a 1M potentiometer and a 10K resistor in series on a piece of stripboard to give an adjustable delay, by Daniel Bliss.

A new servo motor controller from Heathcote Electronics has been fitted to replace the one moved to Beamish.

The Bachmann powered Newcastle No.102 has been fitted with a new scratch built chassis with Halling all-wheel-drive bogies.

The Bachmann powered Sunderland No.100 has been replaced by a similar Feltham tram powered by a scratch built chassis with Halling bogies and a central motor.

This tram has had the upper deck windows exchanged with those from an Atlas London Feltham, which also had the wrong ones fitted, giving both trams correct windows.

The smoke-box doors have been glued in, the fitting on the centre of the boiler removed and the hole in the cab roof filled.

The body was covered by small ridges which are a product of 3-D printing and while they were worst on curved surfaces such as the boiler they were present on most areas.

To make these ridges invisible it was sprayed with primer then cleaned with needle files and a small scratch brush three times to produce a satisfactory surface ready for the final colour to be applied.

The final colour, Humbrol No.20 Enamel, was applied to the body with the smoke-boxes, toolbox tops and cab roof painted black, coal hoppers filled with ballast and painted to look like coal with the domes and chimney tops in brass.

Additional weight was added by filling the smoke-boxes with rolls of lead flashing with more inside the tanks above the powered bogie, all held in place with double sided tape.

After two holidays in North Wales, a family Christmas gift contained a Double Fairlie steam locomotive body kit which needs to be cleaned, assembled and painted.

It was produced by CW Railways and is a 3-D print based on the locomotives used by the Ffestiniog Railway. and was designed to fit on to any of the Kato 11-105, 106 or 107 bogie chassis, in this case an 11-106 will be used.

The kit came complete with smoke-box doors, cab roof and two pairs of cylinders with Bemo couplings which will replace the N gauge couplings on the chassis.

A large number of flowers were added before and during the North East Diecast Collectors Club Toyfair at Locomotion in early July. This photo shows the west end of the main street.

A dazzling floral display adorns the east end of the main street especially on The Railway Inn courtesy of the recently expanded estate gardening team.

At the recent Newsham Model Railway Exhibition in Blyth Foxwood Park was judged to be the 'Best in Show'.

The Ron Railston Memorial Trophy was presented to us, but unfortunately we had to give it back when we left, however we did get to keep the small award.

The two locomotives have now been named, after Sir George's daughters, in a small ceremony at the Park railway.

The tram locomotive has been named ANNE and the side tank locomotive has been named KAYE using the excellent Narrow Planet name plates.

The second C W Railways 3D printed locomotive has been painted green and will be named KAYE.

It has been fitted with oil lamps and will have etched brass nameplates from Narrow Planet and crew added later.

This second C W Railways 3D printed side tank locomotive body was purchased recently along with a Kato 11-103 power unit.

It was ordered with full tram skirts, open cab doors, BEMO couplings, round windows, safety valve cover and arrived in three pieces, the body, skirts and roof.

A Corgi Emergency Ambulance has been added with four flashing blue LED's controlled by a module from Black Cat Technology.

The module was fitted under the board with solderless LED holders used to connect the LED's to the module. The ambulance crew and casualty have yet to be added.

This C W Railways 3D printed tram locomotive was an eBay purchase from a seller in North Wales and has been very well detailed with driver and fireman, front and rear lamps, handrails and numbers added.

It was already numbered No. 6 which is appropriate as it is the sixth locomotive to be used on the Park railway.

It is powered by a relatively cheap and easily obtained Kato 11-103 tram chassis. Many of the 3D printed 009 models produced by C W Railways are powered by this Kato chassis.

Having bought a part pack of trees some time ago, some have finally been added around the Park. They have improved its appearance.

Foxwood Park appeared at the very successful Model Tramway Exhibition held at Beamish, The Living Museum of The North on April 6th and 7th as part of the 'Our Friends Electric' event.

Alan Kirkman kindly gave me the opportunity to run his models of Grimsby & Immingham No. 26 and Stockport No.5 on Foxwood Park over the two days.

However Stockport No.5 was found not ready to be run and spent the exhibition parked on the depot head shunt. Photo by Alan Kirkman.

The other model, G & I No.26, ran faultlessly over both days with its Mark Casson designed and 3D printed body, Alan Kirkman designed and built chassis using a central motor, drive shafts and all-wheel-drive Halling bogies.

Alan has also removed the trolley towers from Gateshead No.77 and Foxwood Park No.275 and has replaced them with T-poles. They also ran without problems during the exhibition.

Another tram has been built by Alan Kirkman, it should be instantly recognisable as Newcastle No.96 another of the large F class bogie trams originally built by Newcastle Corporation Tramways in 1903 and rebuilt with extended platforms and enclosed upper deck with long open balconies in 1905.

The body is built from two Blackpool Dreadnought kit sides and Blackpool Standard dashes, bulkheads and roof and has the usual Bachmann Brill mechanism. It is fitted with a 'T-pole', a trolley pole with no sideways movement fitted with a wide flat collector at the end instead of a wheel.

The TramCam is now working. My grateful thanks must go to Jon Laws for modifying and rewiring the camera and fitting it in the tram.

As you can see it is rather full with the space above the trailing bogie filled with the rechargeable PP3 battery.

The two red wires in the middle of the chassis go to an on / off switch for the camera which Jon has modified to fit into the space on the front platform in front of the motor bogie.

Two analogue Servo Motors, a Servo Motor Controller and a Dual Timer have been purchased from Heathcote Electronics to enable the sweeps brush to go up and down and to make the Dalek at the end of the street turn to face the visitors. They are both operated by a single sprung centre-off switch (up for brush & down for Dalek) fitted at each end of the board.

The Servo Motor Controller and Dual Timer have been mounted on a small board under the layout which is hinged so that it can be moved from horizontal to vertical for setting the motor movements. It can be seen (centre) with the Dalek voice board (left) with the servo motors and linkage to the sweeps brush (right).

When power is first applied the servo motors seem to have a mind of their own, sometimes moving rapidly from one extreme of rotation to the other, before moving to the start position, and at other times there is no drama as the motors just move straight to their start positions.

There was nothing mentioned on Heathcote Electronics website although when questioned Clive Heathcote told me that the motors need to 'charge up' when power is applied. It doesn't happen every time but the linkage to the brush had to be redesigned to give extra movement for the occasions when it does.

A small scene in the events field has been added where one of the drivers has reversed his car through the fence and has been left with the rear wheels suspended over the lake. A number of marshals have arranged for a tractor to help remove the car.

There are more improvements in progress which should be implemented before our first exhibition at Perth Green in March. Full details will follow in due course.

The TV and the receiver for the camera video output are now mounted on the back scene.

Only the video output (yellow) has been connected, as connecting the audio output (white) causes serious feedback and the receiver does not have a red socket.

The painting of Foxwood Park No 275 has been completed, not in French Blue as originally intended, but in the darker Blue and White of Sunderland District Tramways.

It just needs to be glazed and have the headlights fitted to be ready to fit the camera.

Recently a set of four four-wheel Talyllyn coaches built from kits were acquired which will replace the bogie coaches used to date.

They are in need of some attention to improve their running but once done they will be a useful addition to the railway.

Not much has happened this month as we have been to Blackpool for two weeks but the tram body has been returned by Alan Kirkman with its tower and pantograph fitted, rewired for live overhead and with the chassis modified for sharp curves.

The final livery will probably be French Blue and White with "Foxwood Park Tramway" on the lower body sides and it will be numbered 275.

As supplied the camera, battery connector and wiring (see below right) are too big for the space available so will need to be modified to fit.

After much searching a 7" TV was located at Maplin to show the camera output. After it arrived and connected up the camera, eventually it all worked.

It is fitted for wall mounting so it should be easy to mount it on the back of the tramway above the backscene.

After seeing Jon Laws model railway layout which had a mini video camera inside an N gauge coach, I have decided to try to fit a camera inside one of the trams to give a drivers view. There isn't a suitable tram in the present fleet so I tried a Manchester Parcels Car, which would have been ideal for the purpose, but found that it was too small.

After checking the body size, a Bachmann Brill Tram was acquired which has enough space and will fit into the fleet, as all the other trams are Bachmann powered. when Porto No. 275 was bought for spares, but when it arrived it was found to be too good to scrap, so it was restored and repainted as Foxwood Park No. 275.

The tram body needed to be raised by 3 mm to make room for the PP3 battery which sits on top of the trailing bogie and powers the camera. This involved fitting a Plastikard mount at each end of the body with a piece of brass strip glued on the upper side for the screws to cut into.

At the same time a strip of Plastikard was added along the bottom of each side of the body to hide the chassis, the lower door windows were filled in and Plastikard steps were added below the doors.

The final job was to remove the four body mounting lugs, which fitted into the steps, from the chassis which is then held in place by two screws through holes already present.

It soon became obvious that the sails from the Dapol kit were too delicate for exhibition use so a new cross was built from brass channel and square section tube.

The plastic Dapol sails were glued to lengths of this square brass tube before being attached to the brass cross.

This is described on the Building the Windmill page and has made the sails robust enough for the handling they receive while on the exhibition circuit.

We exhibited at the North East Diecast Collectors Club Toy Fair in March and when we were setting up the windmill was switched on the sails would not turn.

After the event electrical failure was ruled out, so the outer wall was removed to investigate and the sails shaft in the cap had become tight and could not be turned by the motor.

It was removed and tidied up with a file, and both the motor and sails shafts were given a squirt of WD-40 and two extra fixing bolts were added to the top of the motor mount.

A replacement outer wall was made from an empty cereal packet using the windows and doors salvaged from the original. The card used was half as thick again as the original and it really improved the appearance of the mill.

Alan Kirkman has just built and delivered a model of Gateshead No. 77 (Ex Newcastle No. 52), to complete the tram fleet. The image shows No. 77 approaching "The Railway Inn" tram stop.

Some photographers at the station, two Daleks and some posters advertising the Doctor Who Exhibition have been added around the Park.

The tower mill is now finished and has replaced the post mill in the scenery. Some replacement images for the photo gallery showing the tower mill have been uploaded.

A new page, with diagrams and photos, describing fully the construction of the tower mill has been added to the Foxwood Park menu.

A wheel has finally been found on which to build the tail fan, it appears to have been from a Timpo wagon.

The tail fan is now complete and the tail fan platform has been built on to the rear of the cap from small timber sections.

To reduce twist in the tower two diagonal braces were added on each level and it is now much more rigid.

Once everything is painted the mill will be test run again for some time before the outer wall is fitted.

The completed tower windmill should be installed on Foxwood Park ready for Blyth Exhibition later this month.

A tower mill plan was found on the internet which has allowed the model to be based on the mill at Fulwell in Sunderland.

Our last ex-fibre optic lamp motor will be mounted in the base driving the sails at 5 rpm using two Meccano 23a pulleys and a cassette player drive belt.

The photos show the cap with drive shaft, Meccano pulley and belt, the motor with Meccano pulley & mount.

The cap has been made from the top of a wooden fence post finial with a 1/8th hole drilled for the main shaft driving the sails and a 3/4 inch hole drilled from below and opened out to a rectangular shape to allow the drive pulley to be fitted. The fan tail has yet to be designed.

The paper pattern was glued on to the card and all of the cutting out and dry fitting of the card structure was completed before the main mill structure was finally assembled.

Because it will be very difficult to do any running repairs after we fit the outer wall, the mill has been test run for many hours without the drive belt coming off the pulleys.

The police box from Harburn Hobbies has had the cast light removed by filing a flat on the top and then carefully drilling a 1/16th hole into the centre.

Once this was drilled to the maximum length of the drill, it was increased in size and depth until there was room to get the extended wires from the 3mm blue LED through.

The remainder of the light was then filed off and the area painted, the LED was fitted and finally the base and top of the LED and the police box were painted.

The wires from the LED were connected to a Modelex MDX1L single LED flasher unit mounted under the baseboard.

The completed 'Tardis' was then placed, with two Daleks, on the grass near the 'Dr Who' Exhibition entrance at the side of Foxwood Hall.

Foxwood Park was well received by visitors to Middlesbrough Model Railway Exhibition, despite a dead short on the railway which rendered it unusable, and a dead section on the outer circle of the tramway which meant that trams could only be run inner circle.

As no suitable backscene paper was available, two new roads leading out of the village towards the viewer have been made, with two additional blocks of low relief houses covering the old roads.

Townscene cloudy sky paper was used, which is available in continuous lengths, with Peco landscapes with the sky removed mounted on 1 mm card in front.

The end boards have the scene attached direct to the sky paper, but to help with the perspective the rear scene has an additional layer of 1 mm card to space it away from the sky paper.

All the street lights have now been fixed in position and will be wired to the copper tapes on the underside of the boards later.

Most of the fencing purchased on eBay has been built, painted and glued in position, so after some landscaping is completed we are almost ready to start populating the scene.

Foxwood Park will eventually host a gathering of the Morris Minor Owners Club and will have cars parked all over the site.

All road areas are surfaced with Metcalfe tarmac and the depot area is finished in traditional concrete. The grassed areas are now all finished and the lake bed has been painted dark green and varnished with two coats of clear gloss polyurethane varnish.

The buildings have finally been placed and most of the pavements have been laid using Metcalfe self-adhesive paving slabs. Only the pavement along the front edge remains to be completed.

The railway platform has been constructed from reclaimed sleepers (wooden stirrers from a local cafe) stood on edge and then filled with rubble and topped with concrete.

An elevated coal store has also been made from the same material and filled with ballast and painted satin black, this will be located just next to the water crane outside the loco shed.

One locomotive has now been serviced and tested so the platform can be fixed in place. Unfortunately the motor on the second one has failed and will need to be replaced.

The current tram fleet consists of South Shields 46 (ex Tyneside Tramways 4), Sunderland 100, Newcastle 102 and Leeds 525. Other trams will be added when they become available.

Not much to report this month, but the small amount of news is very significant. My thanks must again go to Alan Kirkman who has erected and tested the overhead.

Finally all the planning has paid off and we had four trams, two working in each direction, running hands off without incident for an extended test period.

The green paint has been out again and all of the poles and bracket arms have been touched up where the paint was cleaned off for soldering before rust sets in.

The entire tram track is now wired and tested in both directions with all 4 trams.

The automatic stops have been tested with one tram going each way using wander leads, and adjustments made and they do work as planned.

All the trams have modified Bachmann chassis from either the Brill or PCC trams and have fantastic slow running.

The railway has been run using a controller and the station stop and its initial adjustments have been made using a Halling tram chassis.

The two second hand locomotives need to be serviced (not having run for about 30 years) then a train can be run.

The buildings have all been test fitted so that the traction poles could be positioned, holes drilled and fitted ready for the overhead to be assembled.

The entire 009 track is now ballasted and the Heathcote Electronics IRDOT's and SA8 Station Stop are in position ready to be wired up. Almost all under-board wiring for the tram and railway is connected but not yet tested.

A redundant RS232 25 pin extension cable with a plug on one end and a socket on the other was used, cut in half with one half wired back to the control panel and the other connected to track sections and lights on the front board.

The rear board was wired directly from the control panel to the track using wires from a redundant Centronics cable. It is difficult to believe, but there are almost 95 metres of wire under the two boards.

The tram and railway tracks are finally finished along with under-board rods for all six turn-outs (3 tram & 3 train).

As a lot of 3 mm steel rod was left after making the traction poles, some was used to recreate a method shown in the April 2008 edition of Railway Modeller for turn-out operation.

Some chocolate block connectors were cut up and used to clamp onto the round bar with turn-out operating pins soldered onto them.

The small brass knobs were old stock in a local DIY shop and because of that, the threads are imperial, so they were glued on to the 3 mm rod.

As a change of style was required from the Sunderland tramways, which used a lot of Metcalfe kits in red brick, most buildings are from Superquick kits.

The tram shed, engine shed, carriage shed and Motor Museum are all scratch built.

Foxwood Hall is a kit-bashed Metcalfe mainline station. All buildings have wooden strengtheners built in and will be fixed in place with screws through the baseboards.

The carriage shed, because it crosses the board joint, is made complete with floor and track and lifts off for transport.

It is located by three brass rods through the corner pillars which fit into sockets in the baseboard with two supplying power for interior lights.