Ian Morgan

I have been interested in model railways pretty much all my life, starting with a Triang train set (steeple cab and 2 goods goods wagons) when I was five years old. As I grew, this was joined by a Triang Princess and a couple of coaches. I joined the fledgling Brighton Model Railway Club, located in the London Road station building and took and interest in 009 narrow gauge, building a couple of layouts while still at school.

Following a family move, I joined The Railway Enthusiasts Club, Farnborough and dabbled with 009 and 00, and then turned my attention to N, before a period away from modelling while I was a university.

Later, I joined the model railway club at Newport, South Wales, which operated an impressive 00 layout, 'Over Welmyn', which I built a couple of LMS trains for. Another move back to Farnborough rekindled interest in N gauge, then a move to Munchen Gladbach saw me building a British N gauge layout there.

When I returned to the UK, I joined the Basingstoke Model Railway Society and joined the two other N gaugers there, running their layout, Stacton Trestle. They introduced me to 2mm finescale, and the 2mm Scale Association, and we built 'Alresford' as an experiment, picking up a couple of new members along the way. This popular layout made a large number of exhibition appearances, and we embarked on a more ambitious model of Bognor Regis. After a promising start, the loss of some members, and problems with warping timberwork saw progress stall. A small layout was planned and built quickly to give us something to exhibit, and so 70K Coley Park was born.

Work then took me to Munich and Luxembourg, and lack of facilities to make models coincided with news of a new Microsoft project, Train Simulator. I learned how to build 3D computer models of trains and buildings and created them in large numbers, and made them available for free download over the next 6 years. There have now been many thousands of downloads by people around the world.

Returning to the UK, I was too busy for any modelling for a couple of years, but gradually got back into 2mm finecale again. When the 50th anniversary layout challenge was announced, I picked up the challenge and started building Freshwater. Although the track was all built, laid and operating in time for the anniversay Expo, there was no scenery. I set up on RMweb in order to chronicle the development of the layout (something I started on another blog which did not get very much readership).