So was this Portuguese interlude to be the death of all pretence at being a modeller? I had few hopes, it seemed like a modelling desert for one weaned on diesel hydraulics.
The Small Prairie and I arrived in Lisbon in 1984, in a world without internet or video, where we listened to the BBC World Service through the crackles if we wanted to catch up on events. The Prairie went on the shelf and stayed there.

The Portuguese Railway scene was reasonably interesting. I would daily take the Cascais Line EMU with its Budd stainless coaches, a gorgeous little route along the sea. At Lisbon, once a week, I would take the ‘Rapido’ to Oporto, and transfer there to an English Electric Class 1400 with 3 coaches for the rambling journey to Viana do Castelo. This was all very pleasant, but not the sort of stuff to be modelled by me.

A CP (Comboios de Portugal) Class 1400, from English Electric and based upon the Class 20

Not far from the office, however, was a tiny little cigarette shop called the ‘Tabacaria Britannica’. It sold Embassy Regals and the like, but down there on a tiny magazine rack in the corner was to be found ‘Railway Modeller’, and occasionally ‘Continental Modeller’! Progress! I would grab the former and often grab the latter too, and with plenty of down time on trains I would devour them from cover to cover. I remember one LNWR layout had me truly salivating.

You would never have imagined that this unassuming little tobacco shop harboured a stash of Railway Modellers

It was from these pages that I also discovered ‘Hatton’s’ and ‘The Engine Shed’ and eventually their mail ordering skills.

More was to come in a small shop around the corner, where I discovered Lima Mk 1 Coaches in Chocolate/Cream and Green, and with a sudden rush of blood I bought all four in the shop. I am not sure what sort of Portuguese people had an interest in BR Mk 1 coaches but I was glad that they did, my Small Prairie had a train, but sadly no track.
It was then that I realised colleague Ken (real name Ken, no relation to Barbie) had an interest in model railways, and had constructed a double track oval in his garage, on the pretence that his kids would enjoy it. Ken liked Spanish trains for some obscure reason, and had a selection of very varied Spanish stock from Electrotren and Ibertren. It wasn’t quite my scene, but he would let me drive his trains!

And so we formed the Cascais Model Railway Club, membership two. There may well have been other Cascais Model Railway Clubs, but I only joined this one. Ken also happened to have a Tri-ang Hornby Class 21/29 No. D6103 in BR Green with small yellow panels which was purchased for a couple of beers. The Class 21/29 was about as far from the Prairie as one could get but frankly I didn’t care. I had the makings of a train set model railway. And a childhood which included Bristol Temple Meads and Glasgow Queen Street could get away with such things.

Well worth a couple of beers. It had a lop-sided look and couldn't handle the check rail on points, but it served me well

My sad lack of permanent way was soon remedied with a trial order to Hatton’s. It was not the click-click ordering of today, more the pen to paper/envelope/stamp and wait a couple of weeks, but in due course my first consignment arrived. Both Hatton’s and The Engine Shed were to be commended for a superb service, no order ever failed.

My orders mushroomed. Being a bachelor with a bit of disposable income I made my own order form and photocopied it, and would often have 2 or 3 orders in hand at any one time.

At this time Airfix and GMR had mostly come and gone and Mainline were at their peak. The models were fabulous in comparison with my older stock lurking in mum and dad’s roof, but the mechanisms were about as weedy as you could get, tiny little pancake motors that would disgrace a Christmas Cracker. These poor motors were subjected to the heaviest freights until one by one, they died.

Portugal was indeed a place of modelling renaissance.