Bere Banks
- presented by
Keith Sully
- 4mm Scale
Bere
Banks inspired by the junction station at
Bere Alston west of Tavistock. It’s “as
if” the 1968 closure of the through route
between Meldon Quarries and Bere Alston
never happened. Providing an alternative
route avoiding Dawlish to Plymouth and
Cornwall, from Exeter, via Coleford
Junction, Tavistock to Bere Alston. The
branch to Gunnislake and a small goods yard
remain, with DMU’s serving the growing
commuters and tourists around this isolated
part of the county. You can watch diversions
and summer specials passing through on the
mainline. With Westerns, Warships and Hymeks,
supported by a cast of class 25, 33, 37 and
47’s providing the motive power. You may
recognise the distinctive LNSWR station
buildings. The overall layout had to be
compressed a little, hopefully capturing the
essence of the architecture in the area.
Join us to soak up the atmosphere of a
summer Saturday in the early 70’s.
Burlish Crossing
- presented by
Bewdley 7mm Group
- 7mm Scale
Burlish
Road is a “what if” layout and an adaptation
of the station, ‘Burlish Halt’, on the
Bewdley to Stourport line. The original
Burlish Halt was a small 2 coach halt,
situated around 1.5 miles from Bewdley
station. It was simply a halt, upon the
single track line, with some sidings for a
ceramics factory just to the Stourport side.
Burlish Road recreates the through line
between Bewdley and Stourport, with the
addition of sidings, goods shed and engine
shed. The ‘tunnel’ end of the layout is the
Bewdley end of the line and the ‘goods shed’
end of the layout is the Stourport end. The
sidings down the front of the layout
represent the ceramics factory, all being at
the opposite end of the station to what they
actually were. You will see a varied
selection of rolling stock running on the
layout. Most of the locomotives are of
GWR/WR Origin, with several of them being
examples of engines based at the local
Kidderminster, Stourbridge and Worcester
sheds. You will see a great deal of
locomotives preserved on the Severn Valley
Railway, as the owners of the layout are
both SVR Footplate Crew. The same story is
applied to the carriages and wagons that you
see, many either being SVR based or relevant
to the local area. There is a story behind
nearly every loco that we own, so if you are
unsure ask us about the background of it and
we will be able to tell you more.
City Basin Goods
- presented by
Stephen Dance -
2mm Scale
This layout is set in the late 1960s/early
70s somewhere on the Western Region of
British Rail and attempts to portray an
urban freight yard. Such yards were still
commonplace at this time, especially in
larger towns and cities where the freight
facilities were often quite separate from
the main passenger station. Examples on the
WR which were served by their own branch
lines included Reading Central Goods (closed
1983) and Newham which handled freight for
Truro (closed 1971). Traffic handled varied
widely, from general freight through
specific flows of bulk commodities such as
fuel, heating oil, bitumen and cement to
parcels. Most of these yards vanished during
the 1970s and 80s as freight traffic
patterns changed radically, concentrating on
block trains of just one commodity. Such
locations are now either derelict, or more
commonly, completely erased and buried under
office blocks, industrial estates, new
housing, or as in the case of Reading, new
road schemes. Even the traffic flows
depicted on the model which still exist on
today’s railways have gravitated to fewer,
larger facilities. General freight in the
form depicted here is long gone, and BR
abandoned the parcels market to the courier
companies and Royal Mail in the early 80s.
Indeed, National Carriers Ltd after
privatisation, many buyouts, takeovers and
mergers later is now part of the DHL empire.
The Western Region of the period still
managed to largely retain its own pre
nationalisation character, even 20 years
after the end of the GWR. Motive power was
unlike any other region being based mainly
on its own diesel-hydraulic designs.
Although steam had ended 4-5 years earlier,
much steam era infrastructure still survived
including redundant water towers and cranes
which will be modelled. Although now 'modernised',
the railway still carried much freight
traffic in speed restricted, short
wheelbase, wooden wagons and coal in
unbraked steel mineral wagons. The late
1960s was a period of great change for
railway liveries. The older green and maroon
colours for locomotives were giving way to
the new corporate image of BR blue. This
took many years to achieve and resulted in a
glorious hotchpotch of livery variations as
stock was gradually repainted. The blue
paint used during the early days did not
wear well, especially combined with engine
anti-corrosion additives and the new-fangled
mechanical washing plants, where the
chemicals used acted more like paint
stripper. Motive power straight out of works
after overhaul would look smart, but within
a year or two, details of previous liveries
could well start showing through the new
layer of paint as it faded and wore away;
sometimes sections of new paint just fell
off. All a challenge to replicate in model
form. On the model I have included fuel and
cement terminals, National Carriers depot
(where wagonload traffic and bulky sundries
traffic was dealt with), and a BR parcels
depot - all typical traffic sources of the
period. Domestic coal is still delivered by
rail, but the coal yard is assumed to be
'off stage'. There is also an exchange
siding which receives trainloads of
aggregates. A variety of privately owned ex
BR locomotives and industrials moves the
wagons to and from the unloading facilities.
The model is in N gauge using Peco code 55
track. Control is standard DC. For such a
simple layout DCC digital control is
unnecessary. Couplings have been changed on
locos and stock to the MBD/DG system and
uses electro magnets placed under the track
at strategic locations to effect uncoupling,
hopefully hands free!
Copper Wort
- presented by
Pete Gross - 4mm Scale
This
is my fourth railway modelling project which
is currently under construction. A scene of
an Edwardian period Burton-on-Trent brewery
and High Street circa 1902. The concept of
the layout is one large brewery premises
located in the centre of Burton on Trent at
the turn of the 20th century. Breweries at
this time were often very large concerns and
the property and land footprints spread
throughout the town in all directions.
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. I
wanted to create a town scene and level
crossing amongst the brewery to show this
concept working. I wanted a lot of the
renowned Bass red paintwork on the vast
array of brewery buildings. Striking,
definitive and memorable from an earlier
visit to The National Brewery Centre in
Burton on Trent more than 20 years ago. In
contrast the High Street, typically late
Victorian / Edwardian, has a lot of browns
and beiges. Brilliant white is a thing of
the future in my little model world. The
track plan is based on Worthington’s Brewery
around the High Street road crossing and
includes maltings, brew house, ale stores
and cooperage. The track design is taken
from Cliff Shepherds book Brewery Railways
of Burton on Trent and bent round into a
hexagon shape. Each hex board includes
scenic centre pieces and when joined up
provides the complete process story.
Buildings are based on the breweries of
Bass, Ind Coope, Trumans, Peter Walker and
others, located in and around Burton on
Trent. There is a High Street scene on one
board that divides the brewery in two.
Brewery trains have to squeeze behind
buildings, around tight corners, and across
the road crossing to get from one part to
the other.
BNSF Metra
- presented by
Nigel Harrold - 2mm Scale
BNSF
Metra is a North American N Scale DCC sound
layout, with small town and station situated
somewhere on the BNSF Metra commuter line,
which is one of the many running in and out
of Chicago. The station sees regular
stopping Metra and Amtrak passenger trains
on their way to and from Chicago. The tracks
also see varied container and freight
traffic running through on the two
bi-directional tracks serving the many
container and distribution depots around the
city.
Millbrook
- presented by
Joshua Hall & David Boot – 4mm scale
We welcome a totally new layout this
weekend. The idea for this layout came
about at the March 2024 Redditch Model
Railway Exhibition. My grandfather (David
Boot) was exhibiting his end-to-end layout
‘Charlton’, and I was along helping as I
have done ever since I can remember as a
small boy. We were both reminiscing about
the days gone by where we’d exhibited many
layouts, but especially, my personal
favourite layout ‘Knowle Bridge’, which was
a continuous run layout. With this in mind,
I started the build of the new layout, we
could operate together. The layout is still
very much under construction. The track
layout is loosely based upon Badminton
Station, a GWR station situated on the South
Wales direct line North of Bristol.
Badminton’s track layout leant itself to a
continuous run exhibition layout, but also
provided enough else to keep the viewers
engaged. The location ticked all the boxes
for me: through platform lines for local
stopping services or as refuges for goods
trains, through fast lines for express
passenger workings, small up siding with a
goods shed and cattle dock to allow for a
small amount of shunting. I decided to give
the layout an altogether different name, as
I have never intended to create an exact
replica of Badminton, merely a nod to the
location. The name comes from a brook local
to my home along the Teme Valley near
Worcester, locally known as Mill Brook.
There is a railway link to this name, and in
1905 GWR started a Motor Wagon Transport
service along the Teme Valley between
Henwick and Shelsley Walsh, with a route to
the best of my knowledge passed my front
door, but most importantly used to stop to
collect water from the above-mentioned Mill
Brook. My modellers licence has created a
world in which this service became popular
enough with goods for local hops/fruit and
passengers for the world famous Shelsley
Walsh Hill Climb a railway line was formed,
along which Millbrook Station could be
found. The layout is built using PECO
Bullhead track, Dapol signals and controlled
by DCC, with a forward-facing scenic section
and large fiddle yard at the rear. The
buildings are a mixture of kit built, kit
bashed, and resin cast buildings from
numerous sources. The rolling stock and
locos are all ready to run, and a mixture of
my own collection – but undoubtedly
bolstered by my Grandfather’s (David Boots)
collection, the layout has been designed to
have the ability to be exhibited using stock
different periods, but will most likely be
replicating the years towards the end of
steam.
Motley Sub Shed
- presented by
Rob Newman - 7mm Scale
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. 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. 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, diesels from the ‘green’
era or a mixture of all of these………. The
layout is widely used to publicise The
Stanier 8F Locomotive 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
Oakenshaw
- presented by
Redditch Model
Railway Club - 4mm Scale
Oakenshaw
is a fictitious West Yorkshire mill town set in
the early 1960's located somewhere near to the
real town of Keighley on the Airedale line. Like
so many of the Yorkshire mill towns the layout
portrays a town in a valley centred around a
river crossing. Regional boundary changes in
1957 brought this former Midland Railway Station
into the short lived North Eastern Region of
British Railways. The station is very much based
on Midland Railway practice and the scale is 4mm
using "OO" gauge fine scale code 75 track. All
the buildings on the layout are scratch built,
mainly using thick card for the basic structure.
These were covered with plasticard to replicate
stone or brick finishes. The structures have
then been painted and weathered to represent the
prototypes from the area. The fiddle yard
features sixteen roads and is capable of holding
24 separate trains. All the buildings on the
layout are scratch built, mainly using thick
card for the basic structure. These were covered
with plastikard to represent stone or brick
finishes. Trains are made up of correctly trains
for the era and location that are hauled by a
mixture of steam and diesel locomotives.
Penybontfawr
- presented by
Steve Monk - 4mm Scale