Syston Model Railway Society Thorpe 2024
Featuring layouts.
Bottom of the Barrel, Bregstadt, Eyemouth, Glenmore Parva, Jones of Taunton, North Road, Pheonix Junction, St Johns, The Hot Track, Victoria, Upton Whent, Willevie
Burton on Trent was famous for two things Beer and Railways, at its peak there were over 30 Breweries in the town. Many brewers from across the country built their breweries here to access the waters of the Trent, at this point the gypsum content in the water allows for successful use of a greater amounts of hops. Hops, as well as flavoring beer, are a natural pre-servative, allowing beer to travel further, meaning beers from burton could survive the long journey across the British Empire to places as far as India. This Model shows the Trent Brewery, which was built by Thomas Sykes in 1881, its 50 em-ployees could produce around 20,000 barrels annually. In 1893, the brewery was re-named the Trent Brewery. This 00 Gauge Model shows the whole brewing operation from around 1950, from the malt intake to the cask racking and bottle Line, along with the daily movements of wagons across the brewery railway system.
Bregstadt is a passing station on a private railway in the Black Forest area of Baden-Wurttemberg, West Germany in the late seventies. The railway sees a passenger service mostly of railbuses while small diesels and an occasional steam loco handle the freight. There is also a heritage “plandampf” steam service
This working model depicts the station area as it was in the years after WWII. The project was begun during the lockdown period in March 2020 and took almost a year to complete, each element taking many hours to create, inspiration stemming from an article in Steam Days magazine (Feb. '99). I had read this some years before and had thought that it would make an interesting project at some point. The confinement that came about in spring 2020 was the ideal opportunity to begin to turn it into a reality. The railway facilities provided at the station being fairly simple, just an entry road with run-round loop and two sidings, it was the handsome row of houses along Victoria Road that was the main attraction for me. In addition, the land levels from the river to the houses provide another interesting dimension. The buildings were all "scratch built", that is individually crafted from plain plastic sheet, laminated with stone, brick or tile sheets in the same material. Dimensions were gained by using a measurement tool on a mapping website. Traffic was limited to a return passenger service from Burnmouth, on the main line north of Berwick-upon-Tweed, freight being largely concerned with the fishing industry. The line closed in 1962 and there is little trace of it left.
It is a fictional location and with no allegiance to any particular region or company and a time around the change from steam to diesel operation. This is to suit members' stock and interests and is an end to end layout which is double tracked into a ten lane fiddle yard. This gives the opportunity to have passing trains, not always seen on an end to end layout. The terminus station "Glenmore Parva" has two main platforms with a central loco release line and a bay platform for local service to "Shepshed". The station also has a small goods yard and private line to local industry area, which runs down under the main lines to the rear of the layout. There is an operational turntable to enable locos to be turned and make the return journey from the station to the fiddle yard.
North Road, no relation to Darlington. A twin track DCC layout incorporating a repair & fuel depot, carriage and wagon repair facilities. Totally fictitious, can be located anywhere you choose. All tracks are code 55 finescale Peco nickel silver streamline with unifrog points. Set in a busy market town in a low-level position providing all manner of running and shunting possibilities. 55+ Metcalfe kits, some detailed with guttering and down pipes, low relief and full size to create the town effect on the upper level where Faller 'N' gauge vehicles can be seen running. Railway buildings are a mixture of Peco Manyways kits, Graham Farish and Hornby Lyddle End. The bridge is scratch built using various Peco girder bridge sides and trestle kits. Modern street and yard lighting, including strip led's, the pedestrian crossings and operating traffic lights and colour light signals / modules are all supplied by Layouts4U, CR Signals and ModelEx.
The layout is set in the west midlands around the the Dudley area it represents a mainly goods lines that cris cross the old GWR and LNWR, the time is around the mid sixties it's cold and been snowing.
St Johns is a South Devon branch line set in 1931 with Great Western steam locomotives hauling local and holiday passenger traffic, freight and milk trains along the fictitious line which is an imaginary extension of the Brixham branch line in the Torbay area. The layout is 00 gauge and measures 16 feet by 2 foot 6 on 4 base boards 4 feet long and was built as a memory of my late father John who was born in 1931 hence the layouts name and year modelled. The locos are all ready to run models and feature DCC sound adding to the experience when viewing the layout which also has background sounds of the sea waves. There are many things to look for on the layout which has been built to capture the area and is not just about the trains. We hope you enjoy your visit to the seaside and welcome any questions you have.
The four mile long, two track railway known as 'The Hot Metal Track' opened in 1979 to transport molten iron from the new Redcar Blast Furnace on Teesside directly to the BOC plant at the Lackenby Steelworks to become world renowned Teesside steel. The line was substantially constructed for the traffic was heavy and continuous; each wagon carrying 320 tonnes of molten iron in this around the clock operation. This layout gives a small glimpse of some of the rail operations in a UK steel works. Most obviously there is the constant flow of molten iron from the blast furnaces to the steel plant using the iconic 'Torpedo' wagons. These travel on the Hot Metal Track which crosses the works entrance on a high level girder bridge proudly 'Passionate About Steel'. The yard behind sees internal user wagons and vehicles from the national network being moved around the works. Variety is the spice of life on an industrial railway and the colourful locomotive fleet includes ex-BR Class 20s, the former Norwegian Railways (NSB) Di8 Class imported spe-cially for this line, Yorkshire Engine Company 'Janus' 0-6-0 diesel electric locos, the Scunthorpe Bo-Bo Hunslets and Port Talbot Brush Bagnall locomotives to name but a few. The Appleby Frodingham Railway Preservation Society operate brake van tours at the Scun-thorpe Steelworks.
Parcels platforms based on Victoria Station in Central London handling mainly par-cels and sundries traffic, though the occasional passenger train diverted from a main platform. EM gauge is the same 1:76 as OO but is 1.5mm wider between the rails at 18mm
