Who Was there?...

1. Cherwell

4mm scale, OO gauge

Solihull Model Railway Circle

A scenic OO gauge, 26 feet 6inches by 10 feet 6 inches, four track mainline with an integral branch line. It features working automatic signals and has largely scratch built buildings with a local theme (The Manor House, The Mason’s Arms, The George Hotel, The Fat Cats, Kings Heath library, Tyseley Station, and Water Orton Station). The layout was built mainly to display scale length mainline trains, those being run reflecting the varying interests of the membership. Trains run are usually British outline, but can come from any part of the UK mainland and from any date between about 1900 and 2010. If you look carefully you can see: Pigeons roosting under the station bridge; Foxes using the track bed as a shortcut and one fox eying lambs, gulls eggs and the shepherd on the upper pasture; Cats watch building work in the arch from the platform; Gulls above the sea and on the cliffs with a lonely Cormorant.

2. Kendorf

1mm scale, Z gauge – Continental

Ken Jones

The layout is 123 cm x 50 cm and features the fictitious small German town of Kendorf in the mountains, famous for it’s small chapel, now a tourist site, and the Martyr’s cross on top of the cliff. The railway enters the town with its typical German one platform for local trains from single-track tunnels from inside the mountains. Special trains include a long beer train and the City Bahn express, as well as local and other services. Steam and diesel locomotives can be seen on the layout. There is room at the station for through trains to pass in either direction or to hold them on the appropriate loop. Notice the beer garden popular with tourists and town folk, the 2 people meeting behind the shop, tents and the people on bicycles. The track work and electrics are all Marklin as is all the rolling stock, including a mixture of steam and diesel locomotives as well as a special beer train and the City Bahn Express. The layout is controlled by one Marklin controller. The buildings are Faller and Kibri. The radio mast is from Blair Line in the USA. Other accessories are from Marklin, Brawa and Noch. The streetlights are Viesmann. The fiddle yard at the back contains loops and storage sidings. The whole layout is no more than the size of a large draw in an old dressing table. It was completed in 2004.

3. Embox

2mm scale, N gauge – Continental

Ken Jones

Since the town bypass was built through part of the orchard, the town has developed its own transport policy and now runs a light railway from a new town centre station with a connection running through the town to the nearest mainline station. This was achieved by cutting through the rocks, forming a new station and a small park in what was once a dreadful part of the town. Cars and Lorries are restricted from the town centre, but a free secure car park and unloading area has been created out of site behind the shops.

The multiple unit, is a Kato  chassis with a Japanese modified kit supplied by Peter Dibben. The trees in the orchard are by Jules. The station is an Aurora kit, no longer available. The layout has working lights by Viesmann. The people are by Preiser.

The fencing is by Faller and by FKS Modellbau. The vending machines, hot dog stand and preserved stationary steam boiler [steam donkey] are from the Ebay shop in USA.

The seagulls are from Karen Rush art studios.

4. Highley Unlikely

2mm scale, N gauge – British Preservation

Tim Johnson (Solihull Model Railway Circle)

Representation of Highley Station on the Severn Valley Railway in approximately 1990. Stock used is ready to run and track work is Peco.

5. Eurobahn Zwei

3.5mm scale, HO gauge – Continental

Gary Ball

This layout was built to show unusual locomotives: steam, diesel and electric of Swiss, Austrian, Italian and German origin.  These models are from various leading Continental model manufactures and there are also some brass scratch built models on display.  All train movements start from the hidden fiddle yard and move out onto a twin track mainline running to the station at the front of the layout and then back to the fiddle yard. A third line (Automatically operated shuttle) which also starts from the fiddle yard, but straight away starts to climb a 1/24 incline up to the high level station where there is a castle. From the castle is an alpine style of road, crossing over a bridge and through a tunnel. The fourth line is also automatically operated at one minute intervals with added attraction of a working level crossing. Look out for the classic car gathering.

6. Merrivale Road

Mark Miller

Merrivale Road is a 00 Gauge layout using Digital Command Control, set in West Yorkshire Circa 1987 in features the BR Blue era with a few Railfreight locomotives and stock starting to appear.

Merrivale Road is Situated to the West Side of Bradford and is purely a ficticous layout, it is situated at the end of an imaginary branch off the Hailfax to Keighley Route which ran via Queensbury and Denholme.

This route was closed at the time of Beeching but for this layout i am imagining that the route has been truncated at Thornton with the Branch to Merrivale Road being left open whilst work was Ongoing to both of Bradford's eastern termini , Foster Square and Exchange ( Now Interchange), the branch also has a further connecting to a freight branch towards Fairweather Green for Ballast and also to serve various factories.

Locos consist of class 20's through to Class 37's and 47's with Class 108 and 101 DMUs. Sometimes other locos such as class 50's can be seen on railtours.

7. Lochnagar

4mm scale, OO gauge – Scottish

Nick Palette

Situated on the North East coast of Scotland, this small fishing port is served by a branch line that has somehow survived into the “blue diesel” era. Set in the early 1970s, the current timetable provides passenger service to and from Inverness. A daily freight train delivers coal and general merchandise, most wagons returning to Inverness empty. There is also a daily parcels train which can also contain fish vans as required.

Passenger trains normally consist of a class 24 or 26 and two BR Mark 1 coaches there is one service that is covered by a two car DMU. Freight and parcels services are usually in the hands of a class 20.

The layout uses Peco code 100 track and is DCC powered.

8. Birmingham Moor Street

4mm scale, P4 gauge – British

Simon Stevens/West Midlands Area Group of the Scalefour Society

This layout was built as an entry to the 2007 DEMU Minories Challenge to build a terminus station with three platform faces in 7' x 1'.  The layout represents the terminus side of Moor Street station in central Birmingham which opened in 1909.

Moor Street terminus handled suburban services to the south of the city, Leamington-Spa and Stratford-upon-Avon until replacement by the current through-station when Snow Hill re-opened in 1987. 

The station building and terminus platforms were restored by Chiltern Railways in 2003 but, as yet remains disconnected from the rail network. Work to correct this has commenced and will bring them back in to use for the start of 2010 December timetable.  

The layout is operated in the transition period between steam and diesel traction. In this era, most suburban services are in the hands of DMUs but some steam hauled trains are still to be seen.  Freight and parcels trains reverse here to use the connection to the neighbouring goods depot. 

We extended the layout both length and width-ways for the Scalefour Society, DEMU Challenge to lengthen the platforms and include one of the three wagon hoists serving the lower level of the goods depot.  The layout has been simplified and shortened to fit the space available but the key features of Moor Street's station building and three platforms are modelled, including one of the traversers! 

Control is by Lenz DCC or by conventional DC.  Working signals operated by model aircraft servos have been scratch built by members of the WMAG, as were the structures and scenic features. We hope you enjoy our slice of Birmingham nostalgia.

9. Haston Nomad

4mm scale, OO gauge – American

Chris Gilbert

Set in the middle of the State of Wisconsin, Haston Nomad was once a small railroad junction town, served by both the Milwaukee Road and the Old Soo Line Railroads. With the takeover of the Milwaukee Road by the Soo Line in the late 80’s efforts were make to save money and many duplicate line were axed. The main Milwaukee Road line through Haston was closed in early 1990 but the old Soo route was kept to serve the Premier Gold Grain. With many rural lines still bleeding red ink, the Soo Line filed to close the railroad to Haston in early 2000. At this point the State of Wisconsin stepped in and purchased a number of doomed lines from the Soo, including the line to Haston, which it has now contracted the Wisconsin & Southern to operate.

The line is normally operated by one of the WSOR’s small fleet an MP15ac switchers. 1502, nicknamed “the bandit”, is still in Milwaukee Road orange and black. While 1505 has passed through the WSOR paint shop at Horicon and is resplendent in the Wisconsin and Southern’s red and grey colours. Should one of these units not be available then chances are a GP38 will be on duty.

Grain from the Haston elevator is normally handled in 4750 cu Ft. 3 bay hoppers although a number of smaller 4650 cu Ft hoppers can be seen.The operating instructions for the Haston elevator are that all inbound empty hoppers are first moved on to the scale track which is on the front road so the freight car can be weighed.  The hopper is then moved to the rear siding for loading once full it is once again placed on the scale track to be weighed. Things get complicated when there are more than two hoppers waiting to be loaded.

10. Syreford Station

On16.5 / 7mm narrow gauge - British

Roger Brown

The Cheltenham and Cotswold Hills Railway company was proposed in 1811 to carry the products of the Stone Pipe company from the Lower Guiting to a junction with the Leckhampton branch of the horse drawn Gloucester and Cheltenham Tramway and, from thence, to Gloucester Docks. The act of parliament for the 3’ 6” gauge plate way failed at its third reading in may 1812 and the stone Pipe company also failed soon after when installed systems in London and Manchester would, literally, hold water!

Syreford station is the upper terminus of the viable part of the line, had it been built and survived the Stone Pipe company’s failure. The line has been converted to a conventional, locomotive drawn, 2’ 4” gauge railway and is depicted in the early 1950’s when tourism is becoming significant proportion of remunerative traffic.

Track is hand built using nickel silver code 80 rails and copper-clad sleeper strip.  Buildings are a mixture of textured DAS PRONTO on ply shells and scribed styrene sheet. Scenery is carved from polystyrene foam blocks, coated with Artex and covered with commercial scatter materials, mostly from Green Scenes range, to simulate vegetation. All the trees are home made using twisted wire frames and Woodlands Scenics foliage. The back scene is hand painted and is a view of Sandhurst Hill as seen from Sandhurst Village near Gloucester.

Locomotives are of various percentages; scratch built, modified proprietary, scratch built bodies on proprietary chassis, kit built bodies on proprietary chassis, 100% kit built etc… Both scratch built and proprietary chassis have been improved with DS10 or Mashima motors, two stage gearboxes and heavy flywheels where possible. Passenger coaches are at present from the Peco range while the larger proportion of the freight wagons are from Wrightlines, the rest are scratch built from styrene sheet.