Model Railways

When I am not travelling ...

I have had a model railway for as long as I can remember, as a small child a Hornby tinplate O gauge train set with multiple points and junctions that Dad would set up for me on the floor, and then from the age of about six years my Tri-ang OO gauge electric train set which soon became, with the addition of a few Airfix kits, my first real model railway layout. I wasn't much of a modeller in those days, and even less of a photographer, so pictures of early layouts are hard to come by, but if I find some I'll see if one or two are worth posting.

Spalding and District Model Railway Society layout "Littleworth" in the mid-seventies >

Whatever else I have done in life, whatever has earned my income and occupied my time, railway modelling has always been "what I do", it's what I live for. I suppose I have done it because I cannot always be travelling, and travel by train has always been my passion, ever since I first went to Margate with my parents for the summer holiday as a baby! At those times in life when I was least able to travel I have been most enthusiastic about modelling. Until now ... in retirement I have time for both, and it was a tour of the Swiss Alps five years before retirement that made it absolutely essential to build a Swiss Alpine layout!

Looking back I think my first attempt to build a realistic layout, imaginary but credible, was in my teens in my parents' garage, inspired by helping a friend with his layout and using a similar but augmented plan. When I had barely begun construction, my friend decided to dispose of the layout and so I abandoned my own and took over his, developing it further and using my own locomotives and rolling stock (sone of which had been loaned to him for exhibition use anyway) and acquiring more to provide a realistic timetable. I still have the layout, Kingsgate, but it needs a lot of work to renovate it for use, but I have an Alpine layout to build! See the video for details:

In my last post before retirement I built a simple "train set" type of layout which was a showpiece for art deco and moderne style as much as anything, with streamlined trains, Pullman trains and architecture to suit. It was a quick-build layout for home use only and I had every intention of dismantling it when I left the house it had been built to fit - but it was hard to bring myself to do this to something I had put so much effort into creating. Its story is in this video:

Once I had been to the Alps I set about acquiring the equipment I would need to build the Alpine layout, well outside my comfort zone! I had never worked in narrow gauge before, nor with overhead electric system, nor anything but British outline. Swiss HOm overhead electrified was all new. I knew nothing about Swiss signalling nor who made suitable locomotives and rolling stock. Ebay was the source of most of my equipment, partly financed by selling on the same site a large collection of Minic Motorway components I had decided I was unlikely ever to need. You can follow the construction of the layout, named Innsdorf Modellbahn, on my other weblog, innsdorf.com.

Railway modelling has to be one of the most relaxing hobbies available. Once you reach a certain stage of construction and can actually spend time just running trains it is a calming and peaceful refuge from a busy real world, a fantasy in which everything is just as you want it. I was able to spend about ten minutes a day on the Kingsgate layout when I was working in a busy parish and had your children, just enjoying driving trains, and on the art deco layout, Burghley Junction, I could just run one train and watch it rush through the station, or stop and pick up travellers, when I could spare a minute or two between jobs. I have not reached that stage yet with Innsdorf, although I can run some things from time to time, but there is a wide variety of construction jobs to do. 

Building and maintaining a model railway involves a huge range of skills, carpentry and electrical as well as model-making in whatever material you think best for what ever you are building, and painting. Design skills are also useful from both practical point and aesthetic perspectives. I love it, and so does my wife because those skills are transferable to household maintenance!

So when I am not travelling I am living a travel fantasy in my own dedicated workshop and railway room in my retirement home. It's what I do when I am not travelling!