The following layouts are expected to be at our 2023 exhibition. Click on any of the layout names to see pictures or videos of the layout.
Abergavenny Blackbrook (P4, Newport MRS) is a small 1950s terminus, imagined to be a branch line built to have a station closer to the centre of Abergavenny. Passenger services from nearby towns work into the station, as well as some freight.
Arun Quay (OFS, Gordon Gravett) is a small wharf and shunting yard in Sussex in the 1950s. It showcases the skills of its builder Gordon Gravett, author of many books on modelling. It uses Alex Jackson automatic couplings. Trackwork is finer than standard O gauge, with a gauge of 31.2mm
Collingwood (OO, Simon Paley) is heavily based on Fareham Station near Hampshire’s South Coast on the West Coastway line between Portsmouth and Southampton. The time period set between the years 2003-2017, and is meant to portray an accurate model of the privatisation era. The layouts centrepiece is a fully working signalling system controlled by a IECC style panel displayed above the layout via a Raspberry Pi and MERG CBUS modules. This demonstrates now the modern railway signalling systems work.
Copper Wort (OO, Peter and Julie Goss) shows an Edwardian period Burton-on-Trent brewery and High Street circa 1902. Private railways served the brewery premises which were served from Midland Railway secondary lines running down from the main line in and around Burton railway station. This created dozens of level crossings across most of the town centre streets. The track plan is based on Worthington’s Brewery around the High Street road crossing and includes maltings, brew house, ale stores and cooperage.
Dawlish Warren (N, Chris Martin) depicts the station as it was during the 1960s together with a short section of sea wall. The station is approximately scale length with scratch built platform buildings but compromises have had to be made elsewhere. It includes the camping coaches, the Mount Pleasant Inn, the Victorian Footbridge, Langstone Rock, the ice cream stand and the little tunnel under the railway to the beach car park.
Drws-y-Nant (2mm FS, Nigel Ashton) is a station on the Llangollen line, modelled in the 1930s. It features a roadway with vehicles powered using the Magnorail system, a moving chain with magnets under the road surface.
Freshwater (2mmFS, Ian Morgan) was the western terminus of the 12 mile long Freshwater, Yarmouth and Newport Railway on the Isle of Wight. Opened in 1888, the Southern Railway lengthened the platform, removed the loco shed and carriage shed, and modified the track layout slightly in 1927, but the line was never very successful, and closed as early as 1953.
Hazelbury Junction (OO, Farnham & District MRC) is a through station on the Southern region of British Railways.
Haydon Square (O, Farnham & District MRC) is a small goods depot built by the LNWR as a spur off the London and Blackwall Railway, Aldgate High Street. The model adds a small passenger station to show how it might have operated in BR days.
Kingsfield (OO, Barnhill MRC) is a fictitious town nestling in Oxfordshire 15 miles west of Oxford. The population of the town is approximately the same as Oxford and has grown in a similar manner over the years. The local commerce comprises of metal fabricators, breweries, timber merchants and other small to medium size industries. The period modelled is from 1958 to 1965, so steam and green diesels prevail.
Kinmundy (EM, Southampton MRC) is a fictitious station built during WW1 to serve an airship base near Peterhead, to help protect the fleet at Scapa Flow. The model is set in 1968, when it still mainly serves an RAF station, and still has a passenger service, soon to be axed by Beeching, as well as freight.
Launceston Steam Railway (OO9, Richard Holder) is a model of a narrow gauge line in Cornwall which was opened in 1983. The model is not an accurate model of the railway but aims to capture its character and atmosphere.
Lego Town (L, Robert & Andrew Ankers). Another version of a Lego layout built by two young visitors who came to the exhibition in 2021 and exhibited last year.
Newvadden Parkway (N, Redruth MRC) is a fictional station in Cornwall set two miles south of the growing town of Tolvaddon near to the A30 road, which is being converted into a motorway. It is set mainly in the present day, with stock from the last 30 years. The station includes a diesel locomotive depot and a DMU depot.
Old Parrock (OO, Paul Rhodes) A light railway, roughly in the area of the old East Grinstead to Tunbridge Wells West line. The railway buildings are a bit of a mixture but they do include a typical Brighton lock-up. Tablehurst Mill, which was part of Tablehurst Farm in Forest Row until it was dismantled in the early thirties, was the inspiration for the layout.
Rainbow Rock (Gn15, Charlie Fox-Wilson). A whimsical layout inspired by the cartoons of Roland Emett. A quarry mines the rock for colourful sweets, the railway transports it to the sweet factory. All the buildings and most of the rolling stock are scratch built.
Rossiter Rise (OO, Terry Tew) is a fictitious through station set somewhere in West/ North West London during the mid-late 1950s. At the front of the main scenic section is a small LT depot with two tracks leading into the works plus a head shunt leading to a single road steam shed. Directly behind this is a London Underground bay terminus platform. Then there is a pair of through tracks constructed as four-rail DC in the style of LT and the North London Line. Finally, at the back, is a through bay platform which is non-electrified.
Roshven (OO, John Noorani and Joe Marsella) is based on a proposal for building the West Highland Line north from Craigendoran Junction on the Clyde, but the plan was abandoned before a bill went to Parliament. The model is set in the period 1987-2003 when RETB (Radio Electronic Token Block) signalling was introduced, and includes an audio-visual representation of the RETB system.
St Etienne en Caux (HOe, Charles Insley) The model, although freelance, is based on a number of northern France narrow gauge railways, in particular the CF du Calvados, the CF Froissy-Cappy-Dompierre and the Tramways de Pithiviers a Toury. The station at St Etienne Quai is based on the harbour side station at St Valery on the metre gauge CF de la Baie de Somme. Although the Calvados system is now closed; happily the other three lines are still with us and well worth a visit. The model is set in the late 1950’s.
Titherleigh (OO, Liphook and District MRC) is a branch line terminus set in the 1950s/60s.in the west of England in old LSWR territory.
Woodhead (N, Gary Atkinson) is a model of the station of the same name on the now closed Manchester, Sheffield and Wath (MSW) route through the Peak District, and includes the start of the Woodhead tunnel. The layout is set from when it was electrified to 1500V DC in 1954 to the lines closure in 1981.