Members projects

Some club members not only contribute to the club layouts but also have their own projects, here is a selection.

Hackney.

The EBMRS had intended to build a model based on Finchley Road & Frognal, North London Line, and I wanted to be able to contribute stock.   This led on to me designing a layout inspired by Hackney, also on the North London Line, between Dalston Junction and Poplar.  The real location is Hackney Graham Road, which had a goods and coal depot built by the Great Eastern Railway and this was overlooked on the west side of the Liverpool Street to Cambridge line.   This aspect forms one boundary of the layout, and the western end boundary is the approximate location of Greenwood Road.   The similarities end there, as the scope is simply for me to run model trains – as with many others, I have adapted history to suggest one of the many proposed cross-London lines was actually built, creating more traffic and leading to an additional London Underground line to the east end too..   

 The plan includes about 20 storage roads, a coal drop yard, a small reception yard and through lines to Broad Street, St Pancras, Poplar, North Woolwich and Tilbury.   The big appeal for me is the scope of trains that actually ran, with a great deal of freight to and from the docks and Temple Mills yard, and across London.  Locomotives from Willesden, Camden, Hornsey, Stratford, Feltham, Norwood Junction and Hither Green sheds were all regulars, some from the LTSR section  and many others too, reflecting the origin & destination of trains.  

 It’s a long project, so it will possibly never be finished – but it’s amazing what I’ve learned already, and I’m sure it will continue to entertain me.

Alan Cooper

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Little Salkeld

The layout is closely based on Little Salkeld station on the Settle and Carlisle line as it was in the early 1960’s. The station saw stopping passenger and freight trains as well as traffic that passed through. The sidings were also used by slow moving trains as a temporary refuge to allow faster traffic to pass. Little Salkeld closed to freight operations in the mid-1960s and the yard sidings were then removed. The station finally closed for passenger business in 1970 although the Settle & Carlisle line remains active today, and the station building is now a private residence.

Track is N Gauge using finescale code 40 rail in the scenic section with hand built points and code 55 Peco streamline in the fiddleyard. Templot S/W was used to recreate the track layout to be as close as possible to the prototype and minimal compression was required. Control is via a Lenz DCC system combined with a conventional mimic control panel switching Tortoise slow action point motors. The buildings are a mixture of scratch built and modified Metcalf kits which reflect those at the original location. Rolling stock is modified, detailed and weathered ready to run.

The layout was featured in the March 2019 edition of the Railway Modeller magazine and a number of subsequent articles on specific aspects have also appeared in BRM magazine

Paul Moss

Exhibition managers can download an information sheet below

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Sutton Highgate

However, in my version of history, the Lancashire Derbyshire and East Coast Railway didn’t run out of money when they got to Lincoln, but managed to struggle on and made it all the way to Sutton. The LD&ECR originally planned to approach Sutton via Washingborough, Baumber, Tetford and Alford, which would have resulted in an almost direct west – east approach into the town. In 1897, the year the LD&ECR reached Lincoln, the most convenient open site for a terminus in Sutton-on-Sea was in the area shown on the map. This location would have allowed an easy route into the town from Alford along the south of the road shown as High Gate. Hence the name for my model, Sutton Highgate. This is a copy of an 1888 OS map showing the site of my proposed terminus.

The Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway was taken over by the Great Central Railway in 1905, became part of the London and North Eastern Railway upon the grouping in 1923 and finally became part of British Railways Eastern Region in 1948. The period set for the model is the mid 1950s, so the station is looking a bit run down and most of the steam locomotives still operating look rather work weary. DMUs are starting to make an appearance in an attempt to cut running costs but, despite the fact that the summer holiday traffic is still heavy, the remainder of the year runs at a loss and closure of the line under the Beeching cuts, is inevitable.

All the buildings on the layout are scratch built from plasticard and, wherever possible, are copies of actual structures that existed along the LD&ECR. Trackwork is SMP Scaleway 16.5mm gauge code 75 bullhead, points are from Marcway and the point motors are Cobalt. Power is DC and control is via the excellent Pictroller hand-held controllers. Most of the locos have been built from kits (Craftsman, Alan Gibson, London Road Models, Anchorage, DJH) and there are also a few ready-to-run offerings from Bachmann and Hornby (suitably weathered and detailed where necessary). Rolling stock is partly kit built and part proprietary and I have tried to ensure the overall picture has an ex-GC feel to it. Uncoupling is by Spratt and Winkle couplings using magnets buried in the trackwork and signals will be Dapol, if and when they produce something suitable.

The layout is 16’ x 2’ and is fully wired up and operational. However, you will see from the photographs that there is still some way to go on the scenic side. The white buildings are card mock-ups to check everything will fit where it should and that they form a pleasing picture when viewed together.

Bern Munday