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St. Margaret's Hall, Coniston Road, Hatherley, Cheltenham, GL51 3NU
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Descriptions are based on material supplied by the layout owners
A Remote Depot A Remote Depot’ by J P Models This Modern image layout depicting a ballast loading yard and HGV garage, featuring a small fleet of radio controlled vehicles. Various types of open wagon are brought in, filled with gravel from the storage bins by one of the resident wheel loaders, before being taken away by the Class 08 shunter. Various road vehicles, trucks, buses and van, arrive and depart from the garage all day There are regular aggregate deliveries by tipper lorry and various loading and unloading operations from flatbed, low-loader and beavertail trucks. Various vans, pick-ups and Land Rovers with trailers are also a common sight. |   | |
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This is a fictional GWR Cotswold branch terminus typical of that area. It is pictured as it might have been in the late 1930's.
What makes this apparently typical model branch terminus different, even rare, is its scale of 3.5mm to the foot, 1/87 scale. Most items on the layout have therefore had to be scratch or kit built. Peco code 75 track is used and has replaced the previous track which dated from just after World War Two. The layout as a whole was initially built in the 1930's and was well ahead of its time then. Baseboards are original old wood of two by one frames supported largely on trestles. Two of the boards do have integral legs. Coupling are 4mm DG items which are operated magnetically. The signals are over 50 years old, and are operated by the wire in tube method. Control is analogue and points are operated by more modern SEEP point motors. | |
Derwent Road The Leighton Buzzard Light Railway inspired me to build this layout. I visited the line and was fascinated by a narrow gauge line running through a 1960’s and 1970’s housing development. The town still has a sizeable sand quarrying industry, with good enough quality building sand to export to Egypt. My model is of a fictitious 18 inch gauge line built to the west of the standard gauge main line that would have been the destination for loaded sand trains. I decided that the mid 1980’s was a good time-frame for the model; the railway is shared between the sand company and the preservation society with sand trains still running the entire length of the railway but the preservation society’s passenger trains terminating at Derwent Road.
The baseboards are built from 6mm ply and sit on metal trestles. Derwent Road is controlled using a Digitrax DCC system; track is Peco 009 with Cobalt IP digital point motors. The control system, lights and sound are built into the two boards: this reduces the layout setup time. The photographic backdrop was produced by a commercial printing firm from a panorama of 6 images . The rolling stock is a mixture of kits and scratch building with some items bashed from parts I have collected over the last few years. Structures are built from styrene, wood, brass and glass. I hope that it captures the feel of the quirky prototype, the wonderful Leighton Buzzard Light Railway. |   | |
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This layout portrays part of Dinas Junction station. This was the northern terminus of the North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways’ line to Rhyd Ddu. It is modelled as it was just before the First World War. Dinas is now part of new Welsh Highland Railway. Due to the unusual scale everything has been made from scratch. The hand-built track is spiked to wooden sleepers, the ballast being produced from crushed slate. The locomotives were constructed from nickel silver and brass, closely based on the manufacturers’ original drawings. Coaches and wagons were constructed from wood, nickel silver or plasticard on brass/nickel silver underframes. Stonework on the buildings has been produced by building up layers of Polyfilla onto a scribed plaster base, the resulting textured finish being painted in water colours. The corrugated iron for the sheds was produced from Slater’s sheet, suitably trimmed and pinned. Grass is made from individual clumps of plumber’s hemp, although some experiments with the modern static grass methods have been incorporated. | |
Fryupdale Brewery The layout was built for the 2002 DEMU small layout competition which among other things, stipulated that it mustn't exceed an area of 654 sq ins and have at least one working point. The track plan was arrived at using points that we already had in stock and a traverser, to save space and allow hidden sidings plus connection to the run round and grain uploading shed. We chose to model a brewery as we like beer! Such a prototype would also allow industrial buildings and a variety of wagon types. The wagons that can be seen are opens, vans, coal, grain and the odd internal user. The buildings are from the Walthers meat packing warehouse kit, from which we got the main building (with loading dock) and grain unloading building. The baseboard is built as a single unit with legs that plug into pockets underneath. The layout gives a chance to show a varied display of shunters and wagon types, some which are scratch-built. We wanted to build a layout that would be of use beyond the competition and be interesting to operate too, as such it has exceeded the original design brief. |   | |
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Heybridge Wharf is purely fictitious and is situated somewhere in Suffolk at one of the last inland wharfs still operating. The railway was built under the Light Railways Act as the Hey Light Railway to connect the town of Heybridge to the Great Eastern Main Line via Heybridge Wharf. The trains from the main line enter Heybridge Wharf via the line between the church and the gas works. This is the end of the line for the stock not allowed to proceed along the tramway to Heybridge Town. Those that are allowed will run round their train and proceed along the tramway squeezed between the gasworks and Colly Tobbold’s brewery. The wharf received one of the last barges still trading but now converted with a diesel engine. The layout is built of plywood with track by the 3mm Society and points from 3SMR. Points are operated by Hoffmann point motors and couplings are adapted B&B/DG. Stock is from the 3mm Society, Worsley Works, whilst some of the buildings are scratch built, most are super detailed Bilteezi card kits from the 1960’s. | |
Hillside Exchange This is a new layout created during the last lockdown intended to fulfil outstanding commitments to some local charitable Exhibitions. The layout is a purely fictional representation of a passenger exchange between “Standard” and “Narrow gauge” trains on a preserved railway, located in mid Wales A second standard gauge line is constructed independent of the preserved line, and designed to represent the present day operational railway. This is operated by my own design of a simple shuttle controller, and provides essential continuous movement on the layout. The Standard Gauge track is built to P4 18.83 standards using largely ply and rivet techniques to paper templates, while the Narrow Gauge section uses Peco 009 with small radius point-work. All are electronically operated with a Capacitor Discharge unit with switch control by means of a control panel mounted on the main baseboard. |   | |
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Huntley is a small railway centre in Gloucestershire, with a strong military history. The local volunteers restored the railway back to running order in the early 2000’s. | |
Malmesbury WEBSITE Malmesbury was acquired by us in November 2018. It was built several years ago by a Vicar in the Midlands. He sadly passed and the layout was offered firstly to Malmesbury Museum then Swindon Steam Museum, both declined, reasons unknown. The model is scaled down to half size but it shows the flavour of the line. The cattle dock is also in the wrong place so I hope I can rectify this at some point. Parts of the layout have been refurbished and our plans are this will be an on going project. |   | |
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Ottobeck is a fictional town served by a main line branch railway. It was also an interchange with a narrow gauge system that went up into the very steep mountain area around Ottobeck. The narrow gauge went into decline so a river was diverted to make way for a new road system which was built to serve the villages that were once served by the railway. The layout is constructed of plywood on a timber frame. Buildings are mainly kit built and control is analogue using Gaugemaster Controllers. | |
Peasevern Yard Peasevern Yard is inspired by the Midland Railways Avon Street yard in Bristol, nestled in the shadow of Bristol Temple Meads station. In the late 1970’s the yard was used for the transport of cement, Molasses and occasional scrap trains with trains being handled by 03’s and later 08’s. The sidings were removed in the 1980’s and little trace of the railway remains today. The layout is a loose copy of a layout I had built previously in 4mm, Peafore Yard with the same track plan and a number of the scenes and buildings replicated on this layout. The upper level of the layout incorporates a small part of Temple Meads Station and the now demolished parcels conveyor. Operationally the yard incorporates a private scrap sidings while the rearmost siding is used as a holding sidings for wagons going to the United Distillers and Blue Circle cement sidings these are both assumed to be off scene. |   | |
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Smoke Leaf is a simple American HO 1:87 Scale shunting layout, representing the Rio Grande Railroad during the 1970s up to the mid 1990’s. Smoke Leaf is a small sorting yard offering the local and co-operative businesses access to the main Rio Grande Railroad and beyond, some miles away in the fictional town of Burkittsville in Colorado. The shunting yard is operated by a small crew of local but experienced railroad men and women, called "leafers" and they handle the locomotives and cars you see before you with ease and confidence. | |
Thomas We would like to thank Trevor Hallam for looking after the Thomas Layout for many years at our exhibitions and also for refurbishing it at his expense. Unfortunately because of ill health Trevor is no longer able to continue so it was decided to offer Thomas free of charge to Hucclecote Railway Modellers on condition they bring it to all of our future exhibitions. This is the model railway where Children can become Engine Drivers on the Island of Sodor and has of course been inspired by the Reverend Audrey books. Our Thomas and Friends layout has been built for ten years now and in that time we hope it has encouraged many new railway enthusiasts to build a train set of their own. Originally it was intended as a space filler at shows so needed to be small, easy to transport and have a simple track plan, easy for small children to operate. After its first appearance it was clear this model railway would have to be included at all our exhibitions. It incorporates a tunnel, station, level crossing together with locomotive and goods facilities. Train drivers should look out for many of the popular characters; Henry, Percy, Toby, Cranky, the Troublesome Trucks, not forgetting the Sir Topham Hatt better known as the Fat Controller. The famous anthropomorphised rolling stock is mostly from the Thomas range and we are sure most of the adults and all the kids will love it. Happy Driving, but please observe the track speed limits. |   | |
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This layout is inspired by various locations in the Forest of Dean. Whitcliffe Quarry is an actual place to the south-west of Coleford. The prototype is a lot larger than the model, I have had to down size the stone crushing and storage plant to a much reduced version of the real thing. Fred Watkins was the local entrepreneur who operated the quarry, along with the engineering works and scrapyard at the end of the real life Sling branch, using modellers licence I have placed all the points of interest adjacent to the quarry complex. The layout also features the sand siding, plus an abandoned horse-drawn tramway wharf for loading stone blocks from local quarries. This is based on the prototype at Bicslade wharf near Cannop Ponds. Stock operated on the layout is what was actually used on the Coleford branch but is expanded to what could feasibly have been seen if the full service had been maintained until closure of the line to the quarry in 1957. Operation is DC analogue and points are manually operated as in real life. | |
| Displays | ||
Model Bus Federation WEBSITE | NARTM (road transport) WEBSITE | |
Model Fairground . | Gloucestershire Road Haulage miniature | |
A taste of America | The Lancaster story WEBSITE | |
Spicy Santina's | ||
| Modelling Demonstrations | ||
| Mark Begley | Richard Self | |
| Steve Harrod | Trevor Hale | |
| Trade | ||
| Collett's Models of Exmouth WEBSITE | Penduke Models WEBSITE | |
| RCSW (Pre-owned) Models, Clive Reid | Rly books, timetables, photos, Stewart Blencowe WEBSITE | |
