Stafford Railway Circle

This little project is based loosely on a prototype which existed dose to the real Callenon. north of Newcastle upon Tyne. Employing a two piece main baseboard and using the proscenium arch style presentation with a semi permanently attached top casing with integral curved back scene, the main business end of Callaton is a skimpy 6- (76an) long baseboard with two detachable fiddle yards, one at each end. The right-hand fiddle yard takes the form de 13 inch (33an) sector plate fed from a hidden siding at the rear behind the back scene. The left-hand side has an 8-inch (20cm) fiddle yard simply to allow rail traffic on the scenic section to temporally disappear bff scene. Locomotives and stock on this small project represent the 1980s period and as such are mostly Bachmann diesels that have either had the wheels machined to 2FS standards or have had their wheels changed using drop-in replacements from the 2mm Scale Association shops. Rolling stock is a mixture of converted RTR and kit built and delayed action uncoupling using the 'Electra Coupling' designed in 1979 by fellow 2mm Scale Association member John Whitehead. This little piece has been planned so that it can be operated using up to date control with DCC but it is also capable of operation using traditional DC analogue control. Also. and probably unusually, it can operate on battery power in both DCC and DC. The intention is to show it is not necessary to have vast space or inordinate funds to model in 2FS.

Because of the lath of port facilities the mines around Ca!stock and Kit Hill found difficulty in expanding. Flatten Quay was opened up primarily so that more ore could be exported to South Wales. However, due to silting, the new port was not the success it was hoped, and the last ore was exported via the East Cornwall Minerals Railway and Halton Quay in 1908. Halton Quay does exist to this day. The railways at Halton Quay are actually pure fiction: however the model does set out to portray accurately what a small port of the period would have looked like. We have tried to show the small industries that were so important to a port, such as the boat builders. the sail makers, the rope works etc. as well as the basic railway facilities that would have existed.

Campbell's Ouany demonstrates that ifs even possible to build large scales in small spaces. The model measures 5ft 6in by 2ft bin but packs in enough operation to entertain visitors at exhibitions. Fundamental to the design is a pair of working excavators - a Ruston-Bucyrus dragline and Ruston•Bucyrus Crowd Shovel. Both work in the same way as their prototypes dating from an era before hydraulic power, they fascinate viewers with their collection or ropes and pulleys all skilfully operated to scoop sand to load the skip wagon trains. The red and cream dragline was the first excavator model built by John Campbell. Modelled with the post•1954 cab, the model is electrically powered and plugs into the baseboard with an umbilical cable. Constructed as a removable unit for both transport and maintenance inside the body is a complicated construction housing all the motors and gearing. This allows the machine to perform all the actions of the prototype apart from driving itself around the site. M those ropes and pulleys must run smoothly and reliably too. The layout operates continuously at shows scooping many scale tons of sand so temperamental machinery cannot be tolerated. With the dragline built, the design of the layout was worked out around it. If you have a working dragline, you want to dig something and tip it into skip wagons. These need to go somewhere to be unloaded and that somewhere needs to be high enough for the load to fall out into a pile. This means the design has to incorporate an incline to raise the track bed up a few inches. Loaded wagons hauled around tight curves on less than perfectly laid track work is the territory of the narrow gauge industrial diesel and in 16mm scale, there are plenty of kits available. Unfortunately. these normally only drive a single axle so don't provide enough traction for the job, so John scratch-built all his models only using kit parts where they were appropriate and made the job easier. His formula used for all the models includes worm and wheel enclosed gearboxes driven by can motors and Debin chainsets to make each model four-wheel drive. This isn't a problem: all the locos carry their own power in the form of MA rechargeable batteries. With four locos to choose from and only one required at a time for operation, the others can be on charge. As well as spreading the wear, this ensures viewers who return to the model during the day see a different engine in use. M operation is 'hands-off with points being changed by a 'wire in tube" system - actually camera shutter release cables. Before these, servo motors did the job, but their gears didn't like coming into contact with the sand. Unloading the wagon is achieved using another cable. this one designed to work the choke for an MG Metro car to for tipping. The skip body is righted by a length of wire as the train passes by. Both diggers are operated with nothing more complicated than a series of double-pole double-throw switches. Simple that is. until you realise that at least two switches need to be operated at the same time for some movements. Once you've filled the dragline bucket. it has to be raised up but if you don't let out the line used to pull the scoop towards the digger, the bucket tips forward. emptying it again. Novice drivers can spend a lot of time dumping sand where they don't want it. The experienced team makes it all look so easy.

Throughout the 1970s, vast numbers of British Railways diesel hydraulic locos anived at Swindon works for disposal, some barely 10 years old. The layout is a condensed representation of the works area known as the Con Yard. With lines of withdrawn locos and rolling stock, the large corrugated "C* shop and the two electric gantry cranes, the scene is set for a look back in time at a seldom modelled part of British Rail history.

Lisworth Bay was one of the branch lines from the London and South Western Railway. Although originally a terminus. during the Great War the line was extended to serve a nearby ordnance depot. Improvements in roads in the post-WWII years also saw a decline in its use and the extension was due to be lifted during the 1950's. However, the increased tension of the Cold War years encouraged tho government to retain it as a precautionary measure. The branch was 'rationalised' shortly after nationalisation and became a single line. the track-plan simplified and part of the original down line retained only as a storage siding. Trains are typical of those seen on the region; portions of express passenger services. split at various stations en-route. reach the terminus alongside local passenger workings, freight, parcels, newspaper and milk traffic. The whole branch to Lisworth Bay, was condemned to be closed as part of the Botching Report and trains last ran in the early autumn of 1966. The track bed has recently become a cycle route. The layout, which was Railway of the Month in Railway Modeller in July 22. is modular with the main fiddle-yard at 90' to the scenic section and a later traverser added to the opposite end representing the Ordnance Depot. The original formal featured only the station approach. terminus and main fiddle yard but has been extended by the addition of two more boards. the first featuring a farm and the second a 60' high viaduct over the River Lis.

Here is a modern image layout set in the final years of British Rail (1990s) somewhere in West Yorkshire. The name is a play on words having a dig at the operator with little hair! The layout was designed to show off some kit built Electric Multiple Units (308 and 321). The passenger lines at the rear of the layout run on regular DC operation. There is also a selection of regular Diese! Multiple Units (150, 153, 155, 156 and 158) under the wires. The catenary is a hybrid of Dapol and Hornby International products. At the front of the layout there is a small maintenance depot with fuelling point and at the other end there is a small wagon repair depot. These are controlled by DCC (NCE Powercab) which allows light and sound to be used. The layout was built by Harrogate Model Railway Club and measures approximately 22ft x 2ft. The track is Peco code 100. There are a mixture of buildings from Hornby Skaledale and Bachmann Scenecraft. Locos and rolling stock are in the process of being finely detailed.

Llanfair Caereinion is a model of the terminus of the Welshpool and Lianfair Light Railway. Built to 2ft 6in gauge in 1903, it was subsequently taken over by the Cambrian Railway and then the Great Western. It ran until 1956, The majority of theline is preserved and still can be enjoyed today. The model is built to full scale size in OO9 using scratch-built buildings and kit-built rolling stock.

Hibel Road was the main station in Macclesfield. It opened in 1849, when the LNWR and NSR made an end-on connection giving the Knotty access to Manchester and the LNWR an alternative route to London via Stoke. Hibel Roadbridge was the boundary between the two companies, the Down platform (to Manchester) being entirely LNWR and offering more facilities than the Up platform (to Stoke) which was LNWR north of the road bridge and NSR to the south. The LNWR refused to allow the later NSR/MS&L (subsequently NSR/GCR) joint line from Marple and Bollington to access the station so that line terminated at a new station on the main line just a few yards south at Waters Green called Central Station (opened April 1871). The two stations were so close that it was possible for the front of a train to enter one station before the rear had left the other one. The new line ran along the course of the River Bollin and bisected gasworks, joining the main line just south of Hibel Road. For a brief period (less than a year) until the junction was completed and Central Station opened, trains on this line terminated at a station on land between Hibel Road station and the river; this station was subsequently used as stables, and the land as the joint NSR/GCR goods yard. The front of this layout contains a small part of this joint yard, including the station/stables (although these were demolished in 1947). Hibel Road station closed to passengers in 1960 when Macclesfield Central Station was extended and became the town’s single station. (In fact, the LMS prepared plans to do this in 1933, but nothing came of that except major resignalling work in 1934.) The engine shed closed in 1961, and the goods yard in 1962.

New Dalby is a fictitious replacement for the current, existing Railway Technical Centre at Derby. Due to the RTC occupying prime land near the centre of Derby. the outfit has been uprooted and relocated to the former Asfordby Super-pit, and Holwell Steel Works sites. at the foot of the Old Dalby Test Track, near Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, with the former site being sold off for student accommodation. The layout represents a slice of a much larger complex which, all together, forms Network Rail's new Rail Research and Testing Facility. The centre operates and maintains Network Rail's fleet of measurement vehicles and also provides a certain degree of workforce development from this central location which also boasts its very own dedicated, 13.5 mile-long test track, allowing measurement vehicle calibration and testing to be carried out off-network and out of the way of revenue-earning flows.

Scarlington, or North of England Line 2 as it is also known. was built as a club layout but is now privately owned by the group of friends who built it after leaving our local club. It is set in the 1970/80s and has a flavour of various North Eastern landmarks. The two main bridges are similar to two of the bridges in Newcastle, the station roof was inspired by Darlington and various buildings (e.g. Woolworths and the Odeon Cinema) and the cliff lift are based on buildings in our home town of Scarborough. The stock we run on the layout is firmly set in the B.R. Blue diesel era, with the occasional steam special. There are various cameo scenes to keep the viewer occupied. There is also a game to play, which is listed on 2 of our noticeboards. where visitors can look for various items.

Set in the late 1980s, SPLOTT is a fictional representation of a small transfer yard (named after the local suburb of Cardiff) located next to Cardiff Tidal Sidings and Tremorfa Steelworks. The model aims to showcase the variety of freight stock and locomotives seen in the south wales area around that time. The track work is built to 18.83mm (P4) track gauge and utilises DCC to control the locomotives. The points are controlled by conventional switching. The layout utilises the Dingham automatic uncoupling system together with electromagnets below the track. Most of the structures on the layout have been handmade using plastic sheet, styrene profiled sections or specially designed etched brass components. Detailing parts come from a variety of sources including Europe and the USA. Locomotives have been detailed using Extreme Etchings detailing parts and much of the stock is either scratch built or heavily modified. All stock on the layout has been weathered to varying degrees.

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.

Tan-y-coed is basically a station with incoming trains from either direction with a hidden fiddle yard. Recently purchase by Bernard and Peter to expand their exhibition possibilities. The layout is completely WiFi Z21 running off our phone: with sound on each engine, which are mostly Ffestiniog outline. It has a new lease of life with some modifications.