Wantage NG Tramway 
Richard Holder OO9 gauge 4mm scale
The Wantage Tramway was a standard gauge railway that linked the market town of Wantage in Oxfordshire to the GWR mainline which was two and a half miles from the town. The tramway had some very unusual locomotives and rolling stock for a British railway, and the train shed is also pretty unique. Unusually the small engine shed straddled the sidings that fed the local gas works.
The layout is Richard's interpretation of what the Upper Yard at Mill Street might have looked like, had the tramway been built as a 2 foot 3 inch narrow gauge line. Richard does not claim that this is an accurate model of the terminus, but he hopes that it does give an impression of the area in the 1920's.
Originally the tramway closed to passengers in 1925, but goods traffic continued until December 1945.
The railway buildings are accurate models of the originals, apart from window size and style. Here Richard has used plastic windows that he happened to have in stock. Some of the other buildings have also been scratch built using card and plastic. Models from the Hornby Skaledale and the Bachmann Scenecraft ranges have also been used.
The two main tram locomotives, Hughes tram number 4 and the Matthews tram number 6, have been built using Worsley Works brass etches. The models run on Kato 9mm gauge tram chassis. The three tram cars, numbers 3, 4 and 5 have also been built using Worsley Works brass etches, each of these run on a Kato N gauge bogie chassis. Wantage Tramway Manning locomotive number 7 is represented by an RT Models standard gauge kit running on an adapted Graham Farish 08 diesel N gauge chassis built by the late Pete Wallace. There are two back-up tram locomotives which can be used at exhibitions, One was built by Paul Windle and Richard built the other using a 3D printed body from Chris Ward.
Other rolling stock has been constructed from plastic kits of various prototypes from Great Britain and Ireland. Some have been built as the manufacturers intended, other have been modified considerably by mixing various kit parts and altering width and length of vehicles.
