NorthHighlander

I was born in 1950. My Father built our first model railway in 1953, a 6'x4' tail chaser with a TriAng 'Princess Elizabeth' and a Jinty and hours of fun! Being a committed train spotter in Brighton, railways have been in the blood ever since. Pocket money purchased my first Railway Modeller in January 1961 and the cover picture of John Charman's 'Charford' layout was the inspiration for my first P4 layout started in 1978 and still not finished.

My model railway interests cover 2mm (a 12' x 4' model built in the 1980s for my two sons), HO Continental (inspired by my TA service in Germany, a Dutch girlfriend in my teens and an Italian wife!), P4, now O gauge (another story), G scale (LGB's Harz models, inspired by annual visits to the Harz mountains) and 7.25" live steam - well who wouldn't? Oh, and by the way, my Father bought me a TT3 train set for Christmas 1958 which I still have and cherish, but it's boxed away in mothballs.

Thinking back in 1978 (when I took over the chairmanship of the P4 Society), that there must be a better way of controlling model railways than through miles of wire and dirty track, I devised a system based on an understanding of computer technology that I acquired through training in IBM. I realised that wireless would be the way to go but at that time the batteries were too big and not powerful enough and the circuitry in order to fit into my P4 locos would be hugely expensive.

Move forward to 2007, dust off the plans, review the existing technology and what was coming down the line and voila! Protocab was born.... it's taken around four years to develop the hardware and software to the point when I was able to create a commercial company, Acc+Ess Limited, to bring it to market sometime in 2013, with my sons at the helm of development and commercial aspects.

Now, all I need is another 100 years to build and enjoy all my models... wirelessly of course!