Into

Coombe Keynes is my first proper attempt at a scale model railway, I have had layouts in the past but they have never been quite what I was after. Hopefully Coombe Keynes will be Differnt.

The Basics

I started coombe keynes in Febuary this year and I have done most of the work myslef but with help from my dad . It is a 7'6" by 6" continuous run railway built with three 4' by 2' boards and two 3'6" by 2' boards making it portable. I volenteer at Swanage Railway with thier youth section and I am hoping to take it to there Xmas Do.

The Histroy

in 1888 the Weld family proposed the building of a line From just west of Wool Station to Lulworth Mainly for tourists It was called the Wool and Lulworth Light Railway. It was hoped that Lulowrth would be a rival resort to Lyme Regis. On 19th October 1888 the first sod was cut and work started at an enthusiastic rate. However it wasn't to be, major problems with subsidance delayed construction and put the whole project wildly over budget.

Luckily in 1890 the LSWR agreed to buy out the Railway and finish the construction and later that year the railway opened for service, With two stations: Lulworth The main terminus although it was a mile from the Cove and Coombe Keynes being the passing station in the middle of nowhere. Unfourtunatly it wasn't as sucsessful as hoped and traffic never was as high as hoped. It passed through grouping and nationalisation but traffic began to dwindle by 1964 the writing was on the wall.

Stock

In the 1948-64 period a large variety of stock was tried on the line including Beattie Well tanks, Adams Radials, AlXs, M7s, T9s, 700s, Ns, Ivatts 2s, Std 3 Tanks, Std 4 Tanks and Mechant Navies on through trains(although the less said about that the better!). In the last few years push pull sets(if avalible) and 205 DEMU's were the order of the day.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about the My Railway.

Hopefully in the next update I'll have some progress to show!