Model Railways have been a part of my leisure life since I was a boy. The interest started with the O Gauge tinplate track and rolling stock which my father set up either in the lounge room or my bedroom when I was in Primary School. There were two clockwork locomotives, a Royal Scott in LMS livery and a Shire in LNER green livery. The track used to get set up for a few weeks at a time until I had become bored with it and then it was packed away in a box. I don’t remember what happened to it but presume it was sold at some stage.

 

 

With this initial interest in model railways there was also a developing interest in the real full size railways. The power and smell of the steam locomotive was always impressive to small boys and I was no exception. Although we had a car, which was not very common in those days, trips from Croydon to London were always by train and although the Southern Region passenger services were mostly electric multiple units there were still a few steam passenger services through East Croydon and all freight was steam hauled. So train spotting became a pastime for me and my Grandmother helped out in this with trips to places like Waterloo and Clapham Junction where she would sit and read whilst I spotted steam locomotives.

 

 

During my Primary School days Summer holidays were spent in North Devon and a regular treat was a trip from Barnstable to Ilfracombe in the observation coach of the Devon Belle. There were also some trips from Barnstable through Torrington to Halwill on the North Cornwall line.

 

 

I think I was about eleven when my father started our interest in OO gauge models. In the early 1950s there was not the huge range of Ready to Run models that there are today but the industry had just started and there were a few models available. My first venture into OO gauge modelling was probably a result of my father’s interest rather than me being the real catalyst. Without my knowledge he had started to set up a permanent model railway layout in the study of our house in Shirley. This room was 9 feet by 7 feet with a small bay window on one wall and a high window overlooking the driveway to the house. Once I was in bed he must have worked quietly on this layout until it was established enough for it to be shown to me.

 

 

He had erected a pine wooden baseboard shelf of varying width around the room with a lift out section at the doorway, although you could squeeze into the room and duck under the baseboard without removing the lift out part. It was essentially a twin track oval around the room with a main station and yards on the window side and a small station with a passing loop in a tunnel on the other side. The track was all hand made with nickel silver rails soldered to brass brads driven through plywood sleepers. Each of the two loops and associated sidings was controlled by a separate controller which my father had made from old war surplus parts just as he had made the transformer unit. Sections were controlled with individual switches contained in old bomber switch panels he had picked up from ex war surplus shops. Initially apart from actual platforms there was no scenery. We gradually built this over the years until the layout was fully sceniced.

 

 

The first locomotive was a Gaiety 0‑6‑2 Tank. This was used with a few plastic open wagons. Over the following years of my time at Secondary School Christmas and Birthday presents were usually additional rolling stock. This included a Battle of Britain pacific made by Graham Farish; Four Hamblings blood and custard coaches: a Hamblings Royal Mail coach and Buffet coach in SR green and several Graham Farish die cast wagons. We also hand made some additional stock either from kits or from scratch. My father also made a model diesel 10000 in tin plate and we had a two car DMU powered by a Romford Motor Bogie.

 

 

As I approached adolescence my interest started to wane as I found other things of interest in my leisure time. However the model railway was always there and did maintain my interest until my father decided to remarry following the death some years before of my mother. This was in my last year of school and I went to live with my aunt when he sold the house. The layout was dismantled but all the rolling stock was placed in a box which I took to my aunt’s house.

 

Figure 1 - Beechmouth Station

 

My interest was maintained and I built a very small single branch line layout whilst I stayed with her. By then proprietary track work was available so the job was easy. A move to college hostel, marriage and an eventual move to Australia put model railways on the back burner for almost twenty years.

 

 

We were in Thailand when the model railway bug began to bite once more. By then we had two sons aged 9 and 7 and a daughter of 6. In 1980 I was working on the Khao Laem Hydroelectric Project in the Kwae Noi valley through which the infamous Death Railway had been built by Allied prisoners during the Second World War. The railway route was through the dam site and we had collected many rail spikes and fishplate bolts during the early stages of construction. We had also travelled over the famous rail bridge at Kanchanaburi by train up the valley to the extent of the current rail system. This was in the days before the area saw a major influx of tourists although there was a Son et Lumiere presentation at the Bridge in Kanchanaburi occasionally.

 

 

A holiday visit to the UK rekindled the interest in model railways and I brought a Hornby freight set, some Peco track and a couple of coaches with the intention of developing a small layout whilst we were on the project.

 

Figure 2 - Loading sheep in Kerrisfield goods yard

 

So a small harbourside station to fiddle yard with a timber mill served by a small siding was developed. A move to another project in Sarawak interrupted the development but as I had designed the layout to be portable this was no real problem. Each board was 4 feet long by 15 inches deep and the whole lot folded up to form a small box for transportation. Although operation was important it was really the construction of the layout and scenery which was the main reason for it’s being. This was a pleasant relaxation from everyday work on a major construction site in the middle of the jungle.

 

 

The layout lasted almost three years in this form before we returned to Australia.

 

 

With our eldest child now requiring Secondary School education we needed to stabilise our previously nomadic lifestyle, at least for a few years. This meant settling down into a house of our own in Cooma where we were based. We were lucky to be allocated a company house on a large plot which backed onto the bush and within a few months of moving in we were able to purchase the house. The land sloped quite significantly and the house was suitable for extension so we planned to add a family room with a workshop beneath it on the downhill side as well as a patio outside the family room backing onto the bush. This required some rock excavation and we did this ourselves by hiring an air compressor and jack hammer and slowly excavating the foundations over several weeks. Whilst doing this it became evident that we could also excavate under the lounge room behind the proposed workshop for a dedicated model railway room. The house was built on concrete piers and there was already about 120cm clearance under the floor of the lounge.

 

 

Excavation under the house involved removing material from between the supporting piers as well as the removal of some piers and replacement of these supports by longer steel columns. Over several months this task was achieved with the result that there was a 2 metre clearance between a new concrete floor and the underside of the floor structure of the lounge room over a U shaped walkway area. The rest of the space where the existing piers were was concreted at a higher level with brick walls around these places. The result was a model railway room of about 5m by 6m ready for the establishment of a layout.

 

Figure 3 - Traffic waits for trains to pass at the level crossing on the line between Beechmouth and Kerrisfield

 

Because I already had the small branch line layout we had had in Thailand and Malaysia I wanted to incorporate this into the new layout. I also wanted to have a relatively large terminal station with carriage sidings and a large freight yard as well as a substantial locomotive depot. The terminus needed to connect to a continuous run track system with ability to return trains to the terminus where most of the train formation would take place. Hidden storage sidings were also wanted so that there could be variety in the train formations coming and going from the terminus. The branch line terminus system needed to connect to the main line system and this was planned to be at a country station on the mainline. To achieve this all in the space available required that the layout comprised twin tracks which passed twice around the room involving two distinct levels of trackwork with interconnecting sloping track.

 

 

The setting of the layout was to be the southwest section of the Southern Region of British Railways in the late 50s and early 60s so that both early crest and late crest liveries could be used as well as a variety of coach liveries and goods stock. As the branch line had been set up as Western Region this would be retained and operated as a separate part from the mainline using WR locomotives and stock.

 

 

Hornby Zero 1 had come on the market a few years earlier and with the relatively complex layout proposed this control system was adopted as it would save a lot of work on the electrics of the system. Points were to be controlled by Peco stud and pen contact system with a Capacity Discharge unit for good operation.

 

 

The baseboards would be made from 12mm chip board. This was rather a hard material but one which would not warp. The support structure was made of 28mm x 50mm pine and the chipboard bases were framed with 19mm x 50mm pine. The layout baseboard was split into sections with the largest being a full 4ft x8ft sheet. The sections being bolted together as I felt that a move from the house was inevitable and bolted sections would enable a reasonably easy dismantling and moving when the time came.

 

Figure 4 - Looking across the fuel depot and engine shed towards Beechmouth station

 

Using Peco track setter paper cut outs of points and a series of large radius curve formers the layout was developed onto the baseboards which had been set above waist level to make work on them easy without too much stooping. As with the small branch line layout I felt that the scenic presentation of a railway running through town and country was just as important as the working of the layout itself. Access to the completed tracks was essential so this meant that the central terminus boards could only be a double arm reach width as could the tracks on the boards around the outer walls be only at the extremity of easy reach. Scenery could be beyond this but would need to be on modules which could be removed to work on.

 

Figure 5 - Kerrisfield Station

 

Track was duly laid and wiring for the Zero 1 DCC system of control connected up. Points were operated from two Peco stud and pencil mimic boards, one for the terminus and one for the country junction station. A separate press to contact system was used for the fiddle/storage yard beneath the country station.

 

 

The location of the fictitious Beechmouth terminus was somewhere in Devon/Dorset where trains could arrive from London as well as from lines further west. Beechmouth serves as the port for import/export operations and a passenger ferry to foreign shores, rather in the way of Weymouth. Beechmouth is also the terminus for trains from the north via the S&D through Bath. The original idea was that trains from the S&D would terminate and start at Beechmouth but initially they didn’t go anywhere just around the layout and back into the terminus. Double tracks led out of the station in the London direction with a single line climbing in the opposite direction to the country junction station to complete the “out and back” train movement arrangement.

 

 

Beechmouth has a small local goods yard with coal staithes, timber yard and goods shed adjacent to the incoming single line with separate head shunt. The station itself has six platform faces. Two of these can accommodate 8 coach trains, two can accommodate five coach trains and two accommodate three coach trains although the latter are used primarily for parcels and local commuter services. Adjacent to one of these short platforms is the local postal centre and a short siding serving a milk processing factory. These provide the reason for significant parcels wagons and coaches and milk tanker traffic. A separate run around track is provided for these facilities. Arrival of passenger trains is followed by the station pilot drawing off the coaching stock to the carriage sidings to release the train engine which proceeds to shed for servicing.

 

 

Adjacent to the longest platform are two separate carriage sidings which will accommodate six and seven coach trains respectively. Then there is the main port complex of sidings some of which serve the two dock faces where large cranes are available for freight handling. There is also a cattle dock and end loading bay for vehicles. Incoming freight trains terminate on an arrivals line where the train engine can be released to shed whilst local shunters pick up the rear of the train and take it up the long head shunt next to the incoming double track from London. Separate access to the four road loco shed and turntable is provided adjacent to the freight arrivals line and a two engineers service facility sidings are located between the head shunt and the turntable. The loco facility has a coaling stage with coal wagon ramp next to which is an oil terminal siding and a scrap metal dealers siding.  This whole freight complex can accommodate a wide range of freight wagons.

 

Figure 6 - 31127 passes Kerrisfield church with empty clay wagons

 

Kerrisfield the country junction has three through lines, the centre of which access both the up and down main lines and can be used to hold trains or pass trains in the platforms. The station has two through platform faces for the main line and a through face for the connecting line to Beechmouth. On the far side of the station is the bay platform for the branch. The station throat at the branch line end has five tracks, up and down main, up and down passing lines and a freight transfer line for the branch where goods wagons can be assembled for transfer to mainline traffic. A three road goods yard with separate head shunt is located on the operator side of the station whilst the branch line has a run round facility as it approaches the bay platform together with a couple of short sidings for wagon storage.

 

Figure 7 - A Q1 heads towards Kerrisfield with a goods train while a while a standard Class 9F brings an excursion train from the north towards Beechmouth

 

The single track branch line travels across country past an extensive quarry facility before entering a tunnel which exits adjacent to the timber mill just before the branch ends at the small fishing village of Timtown.

 

 

This layout was established over a period of years in the mid 80s and with a Zero master controller and three slaves it was possible to run a train in each direction on the mainline plus one on the branch and one doing shunting in the main station with relative ease as long as you kept your wits about you and did not have any disastrous derailments!

 

 

The inevitable move of house came in the early 90s when we moved out of Cooma to a 50 acre property some 10km from town so our daughter could pursue her interest in horses. I still wanted to have the model railway operable so it was carefully dismantled and the various sections stored on the verandah until I had built a shed to house it. With a purpose built 6m x 6m shed constructed the sections re-erected and the task of connecting the track and wiring commenced. Several overseas work assignments meant this took a number of years and indeed, despite the simplicity of the Zero 1 wiring requirements no train ever ran on the system before I was assigned to a long term position in Lesotho and the farm rented out as the kids had all left home and Trish accompanied me in Africa.

 

 

On return from Africa I retired from full time employment and we moved house yet again to a small property at Clarence Town in the Hunter Valley. The model railway was dismantled once more and the baseboards and stock stored in the garage. Some 4 years later another change of home meant another move and the model railway moved from garage to large farm shed.

 

 

In 2007 I inherited my parents home in Tonbridge in the UK and we went over to live there for a couple of years. Visits to various model railway exhibitions and trips on many of the preserved lines in the UK rekindled the desire to get the model railway up and running again and with this in mind I started to collect several new locomotives and rolling stock to take or send back to Australia.  We returned to Australia in August 2009 and immediately set out looking for a house where we could finally retire to. So at the end of 2009 we moved yet again, from the farm to what we hope will be our final home for the remainder of our lives. My requirement was either a suitable room to re-establish the model railway or a triple garage in which I could have two car spaces to set up the railway. It was this latter arrangement which prevailed and the model railway was eventually re-erected in early 2010.

 

 

The existing model layout would not fit into the garage so some redesign was needed. The terminal station was retained as was the country junction station. However the branch line would not fit in and that side of the layout needed to be rebuilt. Unfortunately some of the track had become damaged during the various moves and storage as had a lot of the scenery. As the layout had been set up for Hornby Zero 1 it was sensible to now adopt modern DCC control and after some research into available products I decided on the Gaugemaster system which has proved to be good in operation.

 

 

The redesign of the layout meant that I could actually add the connection to the S&D line with a suitable 6 road storage yard. Another three road short storage yard has also been added from one of the hidden tracks below this yard to hold more stock. Adjacent to the S&D connection a small siding complex servicing a milk depot, a la Seaton Junction, has been added. The country station layout remains the same but the branch from it stops just out of the station, too short to hide a train so it may need to become a Beeching axed line.

 

 

Reconnection of the electrics took an age and some of the pointwork had to be replaced but by mid 2010 the first trains started to run again after almost 20 years. Rather like a preserved railway in the UK. Some of the old locomotives and rolling stock purchased in the 80s has been pensioned off to be replaced by the current much better detailed models. The stock of Southern Locos has been substantially added to with such things as N15, N, Q1, T9, M7 and rebuilt WC as have BR standard locos with 4MTs, 4MT and 2MT tanks. Bullied and Maunsell coaching stock compliments BR Mk1 stock in appropriate sets. There are now some 20 plus locomotives in running condition and with the station platform faces, hidden storage loops and sidings up to 16 formed up train units can be run.

 

 

The ongoing task is to maintain the pointwork electrics which sometimes appear problematic and need to resort to “hand of God” operation. The whole of the scenery is being upgraded, rebuilt or replaced making extensive use of the new Metcalfe kits replacing a lot of Superquick models which have suffered structural damage in moves and storage.