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About Us

This is the Cumbria and Scottish Border Area Group blog site, members of 


The Scottish Border Area Group normally meet at the Men's Shed in Hawick, but due to current Covid 19 restrictions we have started this blog site so that our members and potential members can keep in touch with each other. Further information about our group can be found on the MERG website


The recently started Cumbria Area Group covers all of the CA  and LA post codes which is a large geographic this link  area with members potentially having to travel  long distances to meet up. Although a location for meetings has yet to be decided, the Kendal or Penrith area is probably the most central. Further information about our group can also be found in this area of the MERG Website..

 As both of our groups are fairly small, a shared blog for people with shared interests seemed a logical development. You are therefore welcome to share the Blog URL with anyone who you think may be interested.

We have regular Zoom meetings but for reasons of privacy and security, links are for members only and either sent by secure email or found on the non public areas of the MERG website for which a login and password are required,

For non members interested in Electronics for Model Railways, you can use this link to find details of  what MERG membership offers and how you can join us. You can be assured of a warm Welcome.


Popular posts from this blog

3D Printing Presentation

Sunday's Zoom meeting had our largest audience so far with 19 members attending from various parts of the country. Alan Geekie gave us an excellent and well received presentation on 3D printing that included FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) and SLA (Stereolithography apparatus) types He first showed how we can source "things to print" using sites like Thingiverse. His own filament printer was the Prusa i3 Mk 3S which is available either as a kit (£699) or pre-assembled (£899) and features a self leveling bed. It also benefited from an additional multi material upgrade kit and he demonstrated the start up sequence of leveling, homing, clearing remaining filament from the hot end and then beginning the print.  The process of slicing where a 3d object drawing file (.stl) is broken up into the x,y,z drawing coordinates for each individual layer was also explained. Alan then moved on to resin printers using another Prusa model, the SL1 and its associated curing and washing mach
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Train sequence / timetable using Arduino

                              Following discussions in a MERG Zoom meeting about potential projects for the Cumbria virtual area group I have started this blog to share my ideas for building a train sequence / timetable system based on an Arduino UNO. The trigger for this project was Andy Robb's article in the MERG journal (June 2020 edition). In it Andy describes using an UNO with a OLED display to produce an electronic station display board.  Having tried out Andy's version I started thinking about expanding the idea and have come up the following list of possibilities: 1. Replace my card index train sequence with an electronic version. 2. Have the train sequence synchronised with the on platform displays. 3. Display an analogue clock on the station display and have it display the train times. 4. Store the position reached in the sequence so that it starts where it left off on power up.  To make the project of greater potential interest to other modellers the following
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Carriage Lighting

 Another great session at the West of Scotland Group yesterday. Keith Shovelin treated us to an excellent presentation and demonstration on carriage lighting for both DC and DCC layouts, Featuring Davy Dick's original Pocket Money Kit PMP 19 created back in 2015, Keith showed how this strip-board circuit could be installed in a 00 gauge coach with reasonable modelling skills. He did give the warning to try this on some old coaches first as disassembling detailed modern coaches does present some risks to the unwary. For those using DCC an additional diode bridge circuit can be installed so that power can be taken from the track rather than the 3 volt button cell. An image above of Brendan Harris's Pullman Coach (WOSAG) To make it easier to place the circuit within the carriage, a surface mount version was designed using a board designed by Fraser Smith. This might also be suitable for undermounting and even on N gauge stock. This is unlikely to be available as a kit because of t
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