I honestly thought that my layout would be something that would keep me busy for a few weeks at most, I'd recreate the Hornby track mat, get a couple of trains and happily run them occasionally. However, two things happened shortly after I'd purchased the Tornado Express that made me think that I might want to do a bit more: 

1) The real Tornado visited the Severn Valley Railway and we went to see it. Such an impressive sight in real life! We spent some time in the museum and I started to catch the bug. 

2) I got talking to a delivery man about local history. He asked if I was aware that my house was built on a railway line. I explained that he was mistaken and that the Harborne branch line actually ran a short walk from the house. He said that he was aware of that, but our house was actually built on the Cape Hill Brewery spur that connected the Mitchells & Butlers brewery to the branch line. He was spot on! 

My interest in the Harborne branch line and local railway history grew massively from that point. That's when I thought it would be far more enjoyable to try and model that rather than just copy the Hornby plan. But this would be a much more ambitious project...