ELLESMERE

4mm Scale/OO Gauge

Phil Greaves

A scale replica of Ellesmere station, situated on the Cambrian main line between Whitchurch and Oswestry in Shropshire, which opened in 1864 and closed in 1965. Train services were essentially local in nature although there were through trains to Aberystwyth on the Welsh coast. There was also a branch to Wrexham from Ellesmere. A variety of smaller GWR Locos (including Manors) and some BR standard classes provided the mainstay of services in the 1950s and ‘60s. The layout is operated to a sequence representing a typical day of the period.

CATO PASS

4mm Scale/OO Gauge

Laurie Calvert

Welcome to the world of Steampunk, a Science-Fiction underground sci-fi missile silo/rocket launch bay in a cavern, based on a Saturn moon called Enceladus. As the Steampunk brigade operate Cato, the warring alien factions on the surface prepare to dive in through the launch hole and mount an attack on the base. Some of these aliens have owned Cato before, hence the different architecture inside the underground cave. Who will get Cato next?

BRADWELL POINT

4mm/OO Gauge

Marcus Lambert

A DCC modern image layout based on a nuclear flask unloading point. The layout can be seen running traction from The early 90s through to the mid 00’s. The layout consist of a 6ft x 1.5ft scenic area & 2ft fiddle yard.

BRANDGEIGHT

4mm Scale/OO9 Narrow Gauge

Peter Hardy

Brandgeight depicts all that remains of a 2ft 3in gauge light railway built by a late 19th Century industrialist Willson Henry who made his fortune by developing new techniques for casting and refurbishing church bells. He later acquired extensive farmlands in Leicestershire and Derbyshire and built the railway to link the small villages and hamlets in the area. Willson Henry later diversified into manufacturing small saddle tank locomotives for the many small mining and quarrying companies around the country. Today only Hector and Lady Jane survive and with extensive rebuilding by the volunteer staff, now provide the prime locos on Brandgeight, being supported by an eclectic mix of locos from the many existing narrow gauge lines in the UK.

LEICESTER SOUTH

4mm Scale/OO Gauge

Shipley Model Railway

This is a model of an actual location a few hundred yards south from Leicester Central station, as it was in British Railways days. The infrastructure has been modelled around the mid 1950s period but stock running on the layout covers a period from 1948 to 1963. This period spans control of the line by both the Eastern and London Midland regions. One of the most interesting features of the line was that it provided the most direct cross country service between the North East and South West. The resulting inter-regional traffic produced rolling stock and locomotives from the Big Four as well as later BR designs.

The ‘London Extension’ carried more goods than passenger traffic and the large goods yard was well used until the late 1950s. Wagons were moved around the goods warehouse area by ropes wrapped around hydraulically powered and non-powered capstans. Wagons were moved from one line to another by means of wagon turntables positioned at the front and rear of the goods warehouse. We have represented these movements using powered vans and our wagon turntables are fully working models.

The layout is operated using a sequence drawn from Working Timetables and Carriage Working Books. This provides a representation of the services that worked on the line.

VILLEFRANCHE-LA-CHAPELLE
French SNCF c.1990

3.5mm Scale/HO Gauge

Carshalton & Sutton Model Railway Club

Villefranche-la-Chapelle is a small layout designed to show a shunting yard in a fictional French town in the 1990s, serving a few industries at the same time, and based on memories of traditional French railways, sadly mostly now gone. The area to the right was possibly once a quarry, but is now used to handle local timber and stone traffic, while the sidings to the left serve the industries of the small town on the hill behind. There’s also a higher level line in and out of a platform, to allow an Autorail or two to be run.

The idea was to create the atmosphere of a typical French small town and its still-active rail system, something that had disappeared from the British rail scene in the 1960s, but which could still be enjoyed in France for many years afterwards.

With the addition of catenary in parts of the shunting yard, it’s now possible to see AC or DC electric engines, as well as diesel power.

KYLE OF MACALLAN

4mm Scale ‘EM’ Gauge

Adrian Walby

September 1966, at the locomotive shed at Kyle of Macallan, somewhere in the north-west Highlands of Scotland. Sream has long gone from the area, last seen here in June 1962 and, where the steam locomotives were once serviced, diesels now rest between duties, though not for much longer as the writing is on the wall for this somewhat derelict shed.

The layout is based on, but not an exact copy of, the shed at Kyle-of-Localsh and coincidentally, the shed lost its roof in a fire shortly after the end of steam, remarkably similar to events at Kyle-of-Localsh! The layout is built to 4mm:ft scale ‘EM’ gauge and is DCC controlled. All locomotives are ready-to-run converted to ‘EM’ and sound-fitted.

STANDEN WATCHETT

1.385mm Scale ‘Z’ Gauge

Graham Jones

This freelance layout features stock from the LNER just prior to Nationalisation, progressing through the ages to BR Eastern Region in the mid 1990s when diesel was king and then on into electrification with working colour light signals. The area modelled is somewhere on the East Coast Main Line.

The left of the layout features the station, town and sidings. The middle section carries gentle countryside with the single-track branch line dipping below the main line. While on the right, the layout is completed by a viaduct over the canal before the track disappears into the tunnel.

The station is constructed below the town with only the platforms ends showing below the station canopy. This creates the impression of a large station area but is in fact only the return loops to the fiddle yard, which is capable of holding up to twelve different trains.

This is the first time that a ‘Z’ gauge layout has featured at Gaydon

WATERHULME

4mm Scale ‘OO9’ Gauge

Ian Drummond

The Ashbourne & Bakewell Railway was one of England’s least known narrow gauge lines, and although a preservation society saved it, now nothing of the line remains. Waterhulme was one of the main stations on the line, forming an interchange with a BR branch line, which ran to the main Buxton to Ashbourne line.

The year modelled is 1967, the last year of the line’s operation, and is based on the railway’s steam gala weekend. Most of the line’s rolling stock is in use, and the BBC are making a live outside broadcast from the line. Many of the locomotives comes from the private collection of Mr. Alan Bolt, who had been the driving force behind the formation of the Preservation Society, and had collected locomotives from many British and overseas narrow gauge lines as they had closed. We also have some special guests from the Skarloey Railway.

In truth the layout is loosely based on Waterhouses Station on the Leek and Manifold Railway. Many of the features of the line are modelled, including a transporter wagon demonstration train carrying a standard gauge wagon. The line is true to its setting in the Derbyshire Dales, with limestone cliffs a feature of the layout.

LEIGH BRIDGE STABLING POINT

4mm Scale ‘OO’ Gauge

Craig Holt/Leigh Model Railway Society

A small stabling and refuelling point set at the end of a freight yard. A ‘What If’ the railway lines around Leigh, near Manchester, had remained open. Set in the BR blue diesel era.

ROSAMUND STREET (LOW LEVEL) SIDINGS

4mm ‘OO’ Gauge

Brian Rolley

Rosamund Street (Low Level) Sidings are located in the shadow of a British Steel Co. Works, in a rundown part of town. This is the sort of place where 1970s train spotters would need to go in order to find that elusive shunter or two that have still to be underlined in their Combined Volumes. The layout is operated as a ‘shunting puzzle’ using photographic cards relating to each of the wagons used on the layout.

BURSHAW NORTH WESTERN

2mm Scale ‘N’ Gauge

Dave Forshaw/Liverpool Model Railway Society

Burshaw North Western is a fictitious station location on the West Coast main line (WCML), in North West England. The overhead wires are almost complete as part of the Weaver Junction to Glasgow project to complete the WCML electrification from Euston to Glasgow, which will be switched on in a couple of years’ time. New 4-aspect colour light signalling has recently been commissioned as part of the upgrade.

So in Burshaw it is the early 1970s, steam has gone and still banned from the main lines. The British Rail corporate blue-grey image is sweeping across the country, but not yet complete. The Total Operations Processing System (TOPS) has yet to be implemented, so all locos still carry their original numbers. The D and E prefixes are disappearing as there are no longer any steam locomotive numbers for them to clash with. Some are still in green or electric blue, with varying amounts of yellow on the front ends, as well as rail blue.

Coaching stock is mainly in blue grey, with the occasional maroon interloper. LM Region has just taken delivery of its first air conditioned stock (Mark 2d), but most trains are formed from Mark 1, 2a and 2c stock, gradually being cascaded as the new designs take over the prime trains, including the ‘Royal Scot’, which is usually in the hands of a pair of English Electric Type 4 Co-Cos (later Class 50).

Freight is also in a transitional period, as the traditional short wheelbase, unfitted and vacuum-braked wagons start to give way to the new air-braked stock, including HOP AB (HAA), OPEN AB (OAA) and VAN AB (VAA). The Freightliner brand has been running for a few years, and established block working, along with merry-go-round (MGR) coal trains, and oil trains with 100 tonne bogie tank wagons. Motorail is in operation as the reliability of output from British Leyland as it was recently branded is somewhat lacking!

There is a four-track continuous circuit (Up and Down Fast & Up and Down Slow) and a branch line, plus diesel MPD, giving the potential for six simultaneous movements. The fiddle yard can hold over 30 trains, giving plenty of variety on a relatively small layout.

Like previous WMRC projects, we like to run authentic formations and use unusual rolling stock, so for this layout, practically all locos have been renumbered and many un-refurbished and/or repainted to make them correct for the period. Early AC electrics (Classes 81 and 85) have been created, along with the prototype HST and ‘Manchester Pullman’.