1. Arcadia Pennsylvania - 7mm scale American switcher yard
2. Arrowmouth - Celebrate 30 years of this 4mm scale layout
3. Auch Ae - 4mm scale Scottish Region locomotive shed
4. Avon Bridge Junction - 4mm scale Midlands based layout
5. Bear Creek Junction - 3.5mm scale American logging layout
6. Bewdley - 4mm scale layout based on the prototype station
7. Broadwater Junction - 2mm scale railway
8. Farbine Road - A 4mm scale BR Blue era locomotive depot
9. Motley Sub Shed - 7mm scale locomotive shed
10. Rowington for Shrewley - 4mm GWR layout set in Warwickshire
11. Ventnor West - 7mm layout based on the Isle of Wight in the 1940's
12. Weaver Hill - 4mm main line modern image layout

Others being confirmed ..........

Arcadia Pennsylvania is a freelance, box theatre style, “time-saver” layout, it is depicts a fictitous, small industrial railroad freight terminal set in Arcadia, Pennsylvania, Eastern USA, as a backcloth the declining “Arcadia Steelworks” blast furnace and coke oven silos but they are not operationally related. A short line (APT) serves the location delivering various box cars, hoppers, flat wagons, gondola, and tank cars to several local operations. Motive power. Rolling stock and architecture represents the period 1960s to 1970s but there may be cameos of late 1980s diesels. The fright yards resident locomotives are leased to Central Railroad of New Jersey EMD SW9 (to be branded APT). In addition the route is worked by other motive power a Pennsylvania RR Alco RS-1, a Louisville & Nashville EMD SDP35 and (in cameos) an Amtrax Dash 8-32BHW all three are dual motored. The layout is mainly front operated with traffic generated using a 4-track traverser through a short tunnel into the freight servicing area. Points are controlled remotely using slow action motors. All four locomotives are Atlas models and are DCC sound-enabled. The layout is powered by an expanded NCE system.

It is fitting that Arrowmouth should be at this show as this year is the 30th Anniversary of when this very popular layout was first exhibited. Sitting on the beach, on one of those always sunny summer days. Suddenly the silence is shattered as a former LMS pacific speeds past on a Scotland bound train. These are the images we have attempted to recreate in model form. The West Coast Main Line at the end of the steam era and before the overhead electrification marched northwards to Scotland. Arrowmouth is a seaside town on the North West Coast and is close to Hest Bank, which is between Lancaster and Carnforth. The layout is based on the former London North Western Railway main line. The era is somewhere between 1963 and 1968 when steam was in its Indian Summer, in this part of the world. The scale is 4mm using "OO" gauge track. All the buildings on the layout are scratch built, mainly using thick card for the basic structure. These were covered with either brick papers or plasticard to represent stone or brick finishes. Various grades of sand papers have also been used to represent concrete rendering which, is so often found at seaside towns. The layout has been created as a package of not just the layout but also correctly formed trains for the era portrayed. This does not mean detailed locomotives pulling out of the box ready to run stock. More recently the layout has undergone a major refurbishment to bring it up to the standards of the Club's newer layouts. This has included totally a re-modeled the goods yard area with a new track layout and completely new scenery on both corners of the layout.

Auch Ae is a 4mm scale Scottish Region locomotive shed based in the 1960s. It is very much work in progress but showing it in a part built state gives the opportunity to see how a layout is built. All the track work has been laid using Peco code 75 track and wired for DCC operation. Buildings on the layout are scratch built and are based on prototypes in Scotland. The layout will be operated with a mixture of steam and diesel locomotives with many featuring working sound.  

The decision to produce smaller layouts that I can handle in my advancing years, has proved to have been the correct decision. They can fit in a Ford Cmax car, or of similar, but still open up into a reasonable sized layout and with a nine feet long scenic area can also fit into a moderate sized room.  In an effort to reduce the weight without compromising stability I have used lightweight baseboards marketed by Grainge and Hodder Ltd of Cradley Heath, who I have found to be excellent.  Again "Avon Bridge Junction" is a fictitious location and as the name suggests is somewhere near the River Avon. As there are two River Avon's you can take your pick as to its possible location. There is nothing unusual about the layout, but it is modelled as a joint railway either Great Western Railway and British Railways Midland region or Great Western Railway and Southern Region. There is a mixture of types of infrastructure. Its "theoretical" original location was a Midland line but rationalisation saw Great Western Railway signals replacing out of date Midland variety The layout has code 75 track throughout, Peco points, Seep Point motors, a mixture of "Scenic" readymade buildings, plastic constructed signal box, and scratch build houses. The Signals are from the Dapol range, The trees, I'm afraid, are ready made, my enthusiasm still does not run to trying to replicate Beeches, Cedars and Oaks these days, My favorite period for modelling is the 1950s 1960s era for which I have plenty of appropriate stock to run, but occasionally you may see the odd stranger from another region appear. I still use screw link and three link couplings for authenticities sake as my hand is still steady enough to handle them. The layout is 17 feet long including the fiddle yard by 18 inches wide this includes a 4 feet turntable fiddle yard at either end. minimizing the need to handle stock during running.

Arcadia Colorado became the 38th state of the Union on the 29th December 1876, only 25 years after the first settlement was established in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. However during the 50 years up to 1900 the area boomed thanks to silver and gold strikes around Leadville and in the Front Range, San Juan and Uncompahgre Mountains. This in turn led to boom times for both the Narrow and Standard Gauge railroads of the area, especially after the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad reached Leadville in 1880. To say that construction of the railroads in the Rockies was difficult is a massive understatement. Indeed no other railroad construction in the Old West, even in the mountains of Washington State and Oregon, faced the hazards and difficulties of the terrain tackled by the Rio Grande in the 1870's.  Men and mules alone accounted for the mountain grades that brought the three foot iron to Alamosa and Silverton and over Marshall Pass into the Gunnison country.  All supplies and construction material had to be carried in for the railroad by mule team or trains of oxen. Railroad ties were transported lashed to the backs of burros while rails were tied to saddles and trailed along the ground.  In their ongoing pursuit of the riches of the mountains the Narrow Gauge railroads built towering structures to scale the mighty canyon walls and tunnelled relentlessly through the bluffs and outcroppings to reach the work camps. Thus by the Georgetown, Breckenridge & Leadville Railway reached Silver Plume via the Georgetown Loop in 1884 and the Manitou & Pike's Peak Railway completing the rack and pinion line to the 14, 115-foot (4, 302 m)  summit of Pikes Peak in 1890. Meanwhile the Standard Gauge roads ploughed through the valleys following the mighty rivers upstream, as typified by the Royal Gorge War between the Denver & Rio Grande Railway and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad in 1879. Thus we have the setting for Bear Creek Junction! Although a fictitious location, the layout is set in one of the many canyons typical of Colorado where mining and logging proliferated.  Here you will be able to see fragile wooden trestle bridges curving round mountains, view soaring steel trestles crossing valleys and hear the sounds of steam engines roaring out of rock faced tunnels.  With steam predominant on both the Narrow and Standard gauge tracks, the marvels of late 19th and early 20th Century motive power will parade before your very eyes. Wonder at the intricacy of the dual gauge track where the model point work had to be hand built to suit the location, and look out for the 2ft 6in gauge mine tram. Listen to the working of the lumber camps and mines in the mountains and admire the laser cut wood and scratch built model buildings and structures in their working environment.  The setting is also bounded by the wilderness of the mountain forests where you will be able to see Black Bears in their natural habitat. But a word of caution is required as these animals are wild and unpredictable, so please . . . DO NOT FEED THE BEARS!

The concept for the model of Bewdley, based on Bewdley station on the Severn Valley Railway heritage line in the West Midlands came from a club member Graham Heald. The group of members who have principle worked with Graham on the modelling and electrics for Bewdley were Chris Maners and Ray Reed. The period of the layout is set in the late 1960’s. The locomotives and rolling stock used on the model reflect the locomotives and rolling stock which ran through the station at the time. Bewdley is a regular on the exhibition circuit where it has been honoured on a number of occasions with being chosen as “best in show”. As well as the station being accurately modelled the adjacent streets and properties in the vicinity of the station and the major railway viaduct have all been represented on the model of Bewdley. The layout is operated to a timetable sequence based on the local railway timetables from the sixties.   

This is unashamedly a 'watching the trains go by' layout intended to entertain members and public alike. range of sources was used for its implementation: coastal and estuary lines like the Cambrian, others in the West Country as well as some Scottish and Southern scenes. The main location for the look of the line was the Dovey estuary section of the Cambrian, though the line can be run to represent any region with a quick change of the signal box (we have several). With the siding down to the disused wharf long since closed, the signalman’s job is lonely here where the branch serving a quarry heads off inland. The layout now features working signals. A new design of baseboard was developed with open frames around a structural spine of the backscene board. This has proved very successful. Wiring is kept above the baseboard level on the fiddle yard side of the backscene for ease of maintenance. Ease of carrying was also designed into the layout whose four sections will each fit between the wheel arches of most cars. The type of baseboard structure is reasonably light with the legs also designed for lightness. Exhibition lighting was carefully planned for strength and lightness too.

Farbine Road Wagon Repair Depot is a fictional depot loosely set in the Midlands area. There are two elements to it, the Wagon Repair Depot along with a small passenger terminus station which encompass passenger and parcels operations. The layout can be based anytime from mid 70s to the late 80s depending on how we feel on the day! BR blue  will be the main colour seen but other liveries can occasionally appear. Many different types of civil engineering stock can be seen on the depot for repair with many different classes of diesel traction visiting the depot and station during an operating session. The main inspiration for Farbine was memories of trips as a youngster into Birmingham from Bescot passing Duddeston Wagon Repair works. Our starting point was the shed building scratch built by my late father.

This is a minimum space 7mm/ft 0 Gauge layout occupying approx. 10ft x 2ft floor space upon which the main scenery is the fleet of locomotives! The collection of locomotives was once described as a ‘motley’ one, so it seemed the natural thing to do, when constructing a layout upon which to display them, to call it ‘Motley’! Engines need somewhere to rest until the time of their next working. The sub-shed seen here at Motley provides that space. This is not a large motive power depot, just somewhere to park locomotives between duties and perhaps replenish the tenders or clean clinker from the firebars. So much for the fiction, the locomotives themselves occupy most of the space on this small layout. Upwards of twenty engines can be seen ‘on shed’ at any given time and they will be seen going on and off shed, and being repositioned to allow others to move. The locomotives are rotated through the course of an exhibition, to allow different models to be on view. Most of the locomotives and other scenic items have been hand built from kits, and we are grateful to Keith Blake, Aidan Houlders and others for building these, and to Andy Wilkie who assists with the operation of the layout. It is possible to operate this layout with locomotives from BR (ScR), BR (LMR), BR (WR with SR interlopers!) or a wide variety of industrial types, or a mixture of all of these………. The layout is widely used to publicise The Stanier 8F Society Ltd, owners of Stanier 8F locomotive No 48773 [also known as LMS 8233 and WD307], currently awaiting overhaul and located in the Engine House at Highley on the Severn Valley Railway. For further details about the locomotive or membership of the Stanier 8F Locomotive Society please ask one of the operators.  

There is not, and never has been, a station called Rowington for Shrewley. This is an imaginary station situated between the real villages of Rowington and Shrewley. In true Great Western Railway fashion it is nowhere near either village. Just to the north of the imaginary station was the real station of Rowington that was the real junction with the Great Western branch to Henley in Arden. The period is set at 1922, so is pre-grouping and a lot of the coaching stock is in the 1912 lake livery. Virtually all the locomotives and rolling stock have been built from kits or scratchbuilt. It is built to 4mm scale with 16.5mm gauge trackwork made by SMP. Signals are a major feature on the layout and are made from a mixture of Ratio, Model Signal Engineering, Scalelink, Colin Waite and Springside components. Buildings and structures are modified kits or scratch-built and are all Great Western Railway prototypes. The scenics are from Penhaven Products and Woodlands Scenics, but the trees are handmade. Younger enthusiasts might like to guess how many cats there are on display. The layout was featured in the February 2010 edition of British Railway Modelling magazine.