Exhibition Layouts 2024
Pacific Crossing, Birkenhead (OO)
Suffolk Heights Light Railway (16mm)
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Ashwell Moor (O) - John & Kelvin Barnes
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Ashwell Moor depicts a small stabling / fuel point in the east of England. Set during 1988 - 1992, a variety of traction can be seen visiting. Built by Kelvin Barnes, the layout features a 'pointless' design using a sector plate to change tracks in the fiddle yard, thus allowing a larger scenic area.
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Beckland End (009) - Barry Weston
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A 009 layout built into a box approximately 2 foot square. The layout was professionally built and depicts a small village scene and station.
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Billton Goods (3mm) - Tony Briddon
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Billton Goods portrays a typical ex LNWR / LMS goods depot as operating in the early 1950s. Horse use is becoming rare, Scammel Scarabs and Bedfords are common and HGVs are mostly operated by the nationalised British Road Services (BRS). The layout depicts the working of a typical LMS goods depot of the period. Short freights from the nearest marshalling yard are ‘tripped’ to the depot. The loco shunts the depot and returns with wagons for forwarding. Whilst this is happening parcels, milk, mineral and passenger trains pass on the mainline. The aim is to portray as accurately as possible railway operations of the period and the grimy, sooty conditions prevailing on the railways in the early 1950s.
All track, structures, engines and rolling stock are handmade – the only items on the layout not handmade are the figures. All the buildings are modelled on prototypes, mostly from the Northampton area; in particular the signal box is a model of the one in which my father worked during the ‘steam era’. Points and signals are operated manually which simplifies wiring and improves reliability. Automated uncoupling is by modified DG couplings and electromagnets.
3mm is well supported by The 3mm Society and associated specialist traders, and a wide range of loco, coach and wagon kits, as well as track components is available to members. The operators are happy to discuss any aspect of 3mm modelling and individuals are welcome to view operations behind the layout, space permitting.
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Braughing & Standon (N) - Paul Dunn
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Braughing & Standon were two actual stations that formed part of the Buntingford branch line in East Hertfordshire, affectionately known as 'The Bunt’. The line closed to passengers in November 1964 and goods traffic in September 1965, all as a result of the Beeching cuts.
It was a small branch line, only 13.8 miles in length, which ran down from St Margarets to Mardock, Widford, Hadham, Standon, Braughing, Westmill and terminated at Buntingford. The layout is modelled to the 1963 and 1964 period, when steam had been replaced by diesel and where the neglected line was close to its final demise.
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East Quay (OO) - St Neots Model Railway Club
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East Quay is part of a small coastal town situated on a river estuary in the southwest of England. The ferry across to the other side of the estuary departs from the left-hand end of the harbour wall when the tide is high enough.
A number of prosperous small businesses have grown up along the line because of the trade brought in by the ferry and the coastal goods traffic. As a result, East Quay has limited passenger facilities and a short platform, but quite a busy goods yard. In the summer months East Quay is filled with holiday makers, but at other times of the year the area is the preserve of local fisherman and the remaining coastal traders. Today we see the little harbour at half-tide and the water is ebbing quickly. The few small craft will soon be resting on the muddy harbour bottom.
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Hawkins Tower (009) - Philip Moore
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The layout features a lake in an old Victorian Park where the locals and visitors go at weekends. There is also a folly in the form of an old tower named ‘Hawkins Tower’. The old narrow gauge railway has been partly restored and it gives visitors rides around the park.
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Mirkwood (009) - Tony Clarke
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Mirkwood represents a small Welsh slate quarry and associated village served by a narrow gauge railway. The village includes a church and a row of quarrymen’s cottages facing the foreman’s house. The station includes the usual facilities of a goods shed and locomotive facilities. The buildings are scratch-built.
The stock is built mainly using Parkside Dundas kits with some modifications, but there are several other manufacturers represented. The track is Peco Mainline.
Pictures are available on the website of the Beds and Bucks 009 group.
https://009bedsandbucks.wordpress.com
Mirkwood featured in the January 2019 issue of Railway Modeller.​
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Molehill Green (009) - Andrew Smith
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Molehill Green is a small hamlet in Essex… only there are two such hamlets (ten miles apart as the crow flies) named Molehill Green in Essex, one just to the east of Stansted Airport and one between Felsted and Braintree. So take your pick which one you think it is!

This small depiction of the Essex countryside shows a station on a narrow gauge railway line used to move gravel from the quarry sites to the larger town where the gravel is loaded for transportation to other areas. This small station looks like the trains terminate here, but they are really turned around before carrying on their journey down the line, and then return going the other way later. Although the gravel and goods trains dominate the running on this line, passenger trains also have running rights as this brings in workers and also serves the local villages.
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Pacific Crossing (009) - Dave Carson
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A lockdown ‘macrolayout’ influenced by the converted offices at the junction of Shore Road and Pacific Road, Birkenhead and the Hong Kong built trams of the Wirral Heritage Tramway.
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​Rossiter Rise (OO) - Terry Few
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Rossiter Rise portrays a fictitious through station somewhere in the suburbs of North West London in the mid-late 1950s. It includes platforms serving LMR suburban services, LMR branch line trains and London Underground services. At the front of the layout is a small LT depot.
Many of the structures are scratch-built, whilst others are kit-built or modified propriety models. The majority of the rolling stock is not ready to run ‘off the shelf’, but a collection of unusual and rarely modelled items, including conversions, scratch-built and 3D printed construction.
As well as the services mentioned above freight and light engine workings mean that almost anything can make a surprise appearance as motive power! The layout is designed to be operated in such a way that trains are moving!!! Rossiter Rise has featured in BRM Magazine, Hornby Magazine and the LURS Underground News.​
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Signa Dale (009) - Sudbury Model Railway Club
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Nestling in a valley in the limestone hills of the Peak District, Signa Dale is a small town served by a narrow gauge light railway. The layout represents the 1950s when trains continue to serve the isolated farms and villages of the local area against the rising tide of road transport. A nearby limestone quarry, with its stone crushing plant, provides a steady flow of mineral traffic. This is supplemented by regular collections from the local creamery. Inspiration has been drawn from the sadly closed Leek and Manifold Valley Railway, Signa Dale’s station having been adapted from the surviving building at Hulme End.
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St Saviour Street (N) - Tim Chandler
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St Saviour Street is a small urban terminus, set in the BR ‘Corporate Blue’ era (1970s – mid 1980s). What appears to be double track is actually two single bi-directional lines. The track layout is a development of the well-known ‘Minories’ track plan.
The station sees much local traffic using first generation DMUs but also has locomotive-hauled through trains to major destinations. There is also a significant parcels service with a dedicated parcels train. Stock is almost all Graham Farish with some vehicles modified to use magnetic couplings allowing hands free uncoupling.
Buildings are from Metcalfe kits, although not all have been constructed as intended! The station roof is a Peco OO kit. The Red Star Parcels building is scratch-built. The track is all Peco code 55. The points are operated using ‘wire in tube’ from behind the backscene. Electrical control is ‘old fashioned’ DC.​
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Suffolk Heights Light Railway (16mm) - Graham Wilkins
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A display of 16mm to the foot scale narrow gauge locomotives and rolling stock that run on the Suffolk Heights Light Railway Garden Railway.
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The Scole Railway (O) - Colin French
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FACT: The Scole Railway was built around 1850 by direction of William Betts, owner of the Frenze Estate, Diss at that time. He decided that a standard gauge railway would be the best way of transporting produce from his extensive market garden business to London and other centres.
The length of the railway was about seven miles, had five junctions, two river bridges and three level crossings. It commenced just north of Diss Station where there was a loco shed for the line’s two engines. The railway brought in manure from London stables and coal for the brick furnaces and domestic use. Farm produce, bricks and tiles from the 400 acre estate was the outgoing traffic. William Betts died in 1885 and as he had lost both his sons previously, the railway came to an end and was sold off in 1887 along with the estate.
FICTION: This layout imagines that the line was not sold off, but the new landowners formed a cooperative and kept the line alive with business much as before and shows how it might have been in the mid 1930s had it survived. The track would have been re-laid during World War One when the need for home produced food was at its height.
The layout represents the goods only terminus at Scole, which still generates freight traffic and so the line remains to serve this facility and the local community for goods and coal traffic. The railway still owns two steam locomotives.
The layout is a micro shunting puzzle layout built to a scale of 7mm to 1 ft and shows what can be achieved in this scale in a very small space. The whole board measures 36 inches by 12 inches and is an ideal layout for a newcomer to the hobby or for someone trying out a different scale without spending too much money. Shunting is carried out randomly or by using a wagon cards and dice system.
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Tollesbury Quay (O) - Michael Gurton
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The model is based on the supposition that a short goods line was constructed from Tollesbury Station on the Kelvedon, Tiptree and Tollesbury Light Railway to the quayside in order to serve the local businesses and provide transport links, such as fish and seafood to Billingsgate in London. Tollesbury was one of the prime Essex locations for fishing smacks during the 19th and 20th centuries.
The model depicts a boatyard and slipway, a fish packing shed and the Tollesbury Granary (which still actually exists), which had a multitude of uses for local growers and producers as well as transhipment using sailing barges.
The period is the 1930s when house-drawn carts and wagons were still in use. The J98 loco is a model of one that was actually used on the light railway between Kelvedon and Tollesbury.​​
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Wymill (OO) - Glyn Bennett
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A fictitious GWR micro branch line station with minimal good services including cattle dock, goods shed, milk dock and coal yard. Scenery, buildings and structures are scratch-built using mounting count, plastic card and brick papers, except the Peco water tower.
Locos and stock are by Hornby and Bachmann using a DC handheld controller. Track is Peco code 100 with points and uncouplers operated by coat hanger wire.
The baseboard is made of 6mm plywood on a light frame for ease of transport and handling. Pelmet lighting is LED strip light.
A micro layout gives opportunities to include finer details and small cameo scenes such as the children running over the bridge; returning from school, while some lads have sneaked off to play in the woods on the tyre swing. The cattle dock railings have been damaged and are being repaired while passengers patiently wait for their train. All buildings have lighting and detailed interiors.
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