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Layouts at the 2025 Redditch Model Railway Exhibition

It is planned to have a selection of layouts in the popular scales. Layouts Booked so far confirmed will include for our 2025 show on it new MARCH date:

 
  1. Auch Ae - 4mm scale Scottish Region locomotive shed
  2. Bere Banks - 4mm scale layout based in West Country
  3. Burlish Crossing - 7mm scale layout based in the Midlands
  4. Copper Wort - 4mm scale layout based in Burton on Trent
  5. City Basin Goods  - 2mm scale 1960s/early 70s  Western Region Goods Yard
  6. BNSF Metra  - 2mm scale North American based layout
  7. Millbrook  - A NEW 4mm scale Western Region layout based in the West Midlands
  8. Motley Sub Shed - 7mm scale loco shed
  9. Oakenshaw - 4mm scale layout based in West Yorkshire
  10. Penybontfawr - 4mm scale layout based in Mid Wales
  11. Seaford Promenade - 4mm scale Southern Region Terminus
  12. Tan Y Coed - 4mm narrow gauge layout based in Wales

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


Auch Ae - presented by Buchanan McInroy  - 4mm Scale

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.  

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.  

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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

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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.

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Penybontfawr - presented by Steve Monk  - 4mm Scale

Penybontfawr is a small town located in the Tannant valley in mid Wales. The original line was built to transport stone and minerals, mostly granite and lead ore from the lead mines at Llangynog to Oswestry and beyond. The layout is loosely based on the station and small goods yard at Penybontfawr and is a might have been had the line been developed further after the GWR took over the line after the grouping of 1923. It is also assumed that the line between Penybontfawr and Llangynog had been closed after the line was subject to severe flooding and land slips on the line west of Penybontfawr. The model was built in 2018/19, and all the track is Peco code 75 bullhead. Most of the buildings and infrastructure is scratch built from plastic card and painted with household emulsion paints. The exception is the signal box which is a Ratio kit. The goods shed is a true scale replica of the prototype that existed at Penybontfawr. The trees are a mixture of both handmade and Woodland Scenics tree kits, ground cover is hanging basket liner and various shades and lengths of static grass. The level crossing gates work as do the signals, The gates, signals and points all being electrically interlocked to prevent any conflicting movements.  The layout is wired so that it can run on both 12v DC analogue or DCC albeit not at the same time! The layout also incorporates a built in “auto-shuttle” where a local auto train or DMU can be left to run back and forth automatically, giving the operator a break to sort out stock in the fiddle yard or chat to visitors at exhibitions

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Seaford Promenade - presented by John & Peter Smith   - 4mm Scale

Seaford is a town located on the south coast of England not far from the Port of Newhaven. It has a station located at the end of a single-track line on a branch from Lewes via Newhaven. That is the reality! In this 4mm scale model set around 1960 we assume that the town has grown into a large popular resort, something like Brighton, that has warranted a much-enlarged station with train services from London Victoria, London Bridge, Brighton and other south coastal towns, also from other parts of the country, the latter often requiring a reversal at Redhill and change of locomotive. The layout is 20 feet long on 4 x 3 feet baseboards plus two 4 feet boards that carry an off-scene traverser. The layout uses fine scale track which also has dummy conductor 3rd rail and is DCC controlled.

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Tan Y Coed - presented by Bernard Morgan   - 4mm Scale narrow gauge

Tan Y Coed is a 009 Layout believed to be a representation of Tan Y Coed which used to be part of the Corris line. However, it looks more like Tan Y Bwlch on the Ffestiniog to us! This layout did the rounds in a former life in the 1990s and later but has been asleep for over 25 years. Now it has been renovated, rejuvenated and has a good 20s buzz about it now.   It is totally DCC powered by Z21 and each loco has its own unique sounds recorded at Ffestiniog. The layout has a 2-track station and trains based on the Ffestiniog line come and go during the day.  There are the occasional guest trains which also make appearances.

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