How did I get to where I am today?

Hector Lawn · January 24, 2013

Hello! Like probably many of us on here, my interest in model railways started with train sets as a child, in fact I may have been one of the few children in the late 1960’s to have been given an N gauge layout as a first train set. There were a couple of layouts where I decided to swap between ‘N’ and ‘OO’, steam and diesel, and finally from ‘OO’ back to ‘N’. But then I reached the age where I my attention was being drawn to other distractions (cars, the not always successful pursuit of women, and generally having good time with my mates) the layout was left to my younger brother to play with and when he followed similar distractions, the layout was ripped up, the loco’s, rolling stock and any salvageable track was packed up in a shoe box and given to my young nephew who was now approaching an appropriate age to ‘play trains’. And that’s how it stayed for many years...

...until about the late 1990’s when, even though I still had no interest in railway modelling, an article caught my eye regarding the fact that Graham Farish was shutting its factory in Poole and, unless a buyer could be found, Farish would close for good. “Hmm, what if I should ever want to build another N gauge layout and there is no British outline available? Maybe I should purchase some N gauge stock ‘just in case’”. And so, after a short peruse of online retailers in Railway Modeller, I went online and ordered a 101 DMU, a 31 and a 47, all in BR blue. The 31 and 47 duly arrived but, alas, the 101 was now out of stock and it would be some 13 years before I would be able to order its retooled replacement!

My interest in model railways had now been re-awakened and I started reading the BRM forum. This was a text-based forum so there were no pictures for inspiration but there was plenty of good advice available. And then Andy Y created RMweb, the most comprehensive collection of layouts, advice, opinions, reviews and more, that you will probably find anywhere (thanks Andy!), and it is at this point that I lay claim to be RMweb’s longest lurker, having been here right from day one! It wasn’t that I didn’t want to join, I just felt, as a mere collector and someone of little recent practical experience, that I didn’t have anything worthy to contribute and I didn’t want to register only to add to the ‘me too’ type posts. And so I just stayed as an avid reader.

Keen to add to my initial purchases, I paid a visit to my local model shop. There was no BR blue left on the shelves there either but with my money burning hole in my pocket and the feeling that the model shop stock situation was not about to improve, I felt I should buy something and the nearest thing to my favourite classes was a 56 in coal sector livery, so I purchased it. I also tried visiting the local shop from my boyhood for more stock. There was still no BR blue loco’s available but I did manage to pick up some second hand mk3 coaches in BR blue/grey which was all I could find available to go with my blue 31 and 47.

When Bachmann came to the rescue, all tooling had arrived in China and production had resumed, and after a family move from South Northamptonshire to country NSW Australia, I started purchasing again. Although I sought to buy more BR blue 31/37/47’s and the odd 55, I also bought anything else I liked the look of... a rake of mk2’s and 47 in Virgin livery, a rake of mk2’s and 47 in FGW ‘fag packet’ livery, and a short rake of mk1’s with 31 and 37 in Regional Railways livery, while on the freight side I took a fancy to 31/37/66’s in EWS and 57/66’s in Freightliner liveries and Fragonset 31 and 47’s to cover the ‘spot hire’ work.

As my collection grew, I began looking for inspiration for a layout on which to run it all. I started by looking at fictional layouts, not being particularly inclined to follow any prototypical layouts myself and having been amused by some people’s pursuit of the prototype by travelling half way up the country to visit some derelict old site to capture photos of the ‘real thing’ and resorting to measuring actual site distances or even counting bricks!

Chiddlington (Railway Modeller, June 2003) was the first layout that particularly caught my attention. A OO freelance layout of 20’ x 10’ that could be run as a roundy-roundy or as an end-to-end. The single main line was built around a central operating well but the junctions for the branches were cleverly designed so that when operating as an end-to-end the trains had to make at least one lap of the main line and pass the main junction station twice before arriving at their destination. Also very inspiring was Mike Freidman’s ‘Kingdom of Drum’ which was featured here on one of the earlier incarnations of RMweb. I thought this was a well thought out design, a home based loft layout which this time consisted of a double track main line with a spur off the main line which led to a terminus and from which a branch line was also served with several stations en route to a reverse loop and so trains had somewhere to go to and return from (whatever happened to this layout? I haven’t seen any updates on it for a very long time).

With grand thoughts of my own, I designed a layout which had a bit of everything. A terminus-to-storage yard layout with a ‘somewhere in middle England’ junction station that had to be passed twice, a branch to a small North Wales terminus with intermediate station on which to run my Regional Railways stock, plus another branch to a freight terminal along the lines of the international terminal at Daventry. The ‘somewhere near the Scottish borders’ terminus would feature an engine shed with refuelling facilities, a carriage shed plus a ‘preserved railway’ shed for the steam loco’s that had since been returned from my now grown up Nephew. However, when I looked at the space required for such a layout, it would have needed a space of about 16’ x 10’ minimum! An appropriate and available space of this size was not available and so I started looking at smaller layouts for inspiration instead.

With my elderly mother-in-law having to move into a nursing home, her house (which is on the same block as our 7-acre hobby farm) was now empty and I started eyeing up the spare room of 14’ by 5’ in which to build a layout. Inspiration came in the form of RMweb member Blueeighties’ layout ‘Howe Gill’ which seemed a good size at 14’ x 2.5’ (or was it 3’?) and offered prototypical train lengths in great scenery (what happened to this layout too?), while more recently 60091’s ‘Settle-Carlisle N Gauge 1979-1983’ at a similar size offered more inspiration. However, both of these layouts were based on the Settle & Carlisle route, and having never been anywhere near the line, I didn’t feel any connection to it.

It was one day while waiting for the next train to arrive on the preserved GCR that I found myself admiring the architecture of Rothley station and it suddenly struck me that I would like to model a GCR station. I looked at historic track plans of both Rothley and Quorn stations to start with but these didn’t seem to have enough operationally to keep me interested and so I looked at other stations further along the line. Many of the stations along the London Extension were built to a standard design, so even if I chose to build a station that had since been demolished, I could still use the current GCR buildings for reference! I came across Charwelton station and the name rang a bell in my head and I recalled that a layout of this station was some time ago featured in the Model Railway Journal. A quick Google brought up several references to the station along with images of Wolverhampton Model Railway Club’s own 00 layout. With an island platform of the standard GCR design, a freight holding loop on the up side, goods yard, exchange sidings and small iron ore branch, this station seemed to meet my requirements. The fact that it happened to be in the south west corner of Northamptonshire sealed it for me, Charwelton it would be.

It was on one of my annual visits back to the UK that I decided to make a site visit to get more of a feel for the line and location. I cycled (another passion of mine) the 27 miles from my old village in South Northants , where, after a lovely pub lunch at the Fox and Hounds in Charwelton, I walked the footpath alongside the line from the south portal of Catesby Tunnel up to bridge 491 at what would have been the north end of the station. I stood there trying to imagine what it would have been like as a schoolboy in the 50’/60’s watching the Annesley-Woodford freights hauled by 9F’s. It is such a shame that this line was closed. It was here that I found myself armed with my camera taking pictures of the bridges and abutments and counting bricks to ensure that I could replicate the infrastructure correctly on my own layout! And on subsequent trips to the GCR and while waiting for the next train to arrive, I found myself (discreetly, not wanting to look like a complete nutter) pacing the distances between platform buildings and the dimensions of the platform itself! Who’s pursuing the prototype now!

Having read as much as I could online about the GCR and Charwelton station, my wonderful sister sent me a couple of books for my birthday, ‘The last Main Line’ by Robert Rowbotham and ‘The Great Central: Then and Now’ by Mac Hawkins. Both books gave me more valuable insight into the line and the timing of services that ran on it. I was surprised by the variety of loco’s that ran on the line - A3’s, B1’s, Black Fives, Britannias, K3’s, Jubilee’s, Royal Scot’s, 5MT’s, 8F’, 9F’s, V2’s, WD-2-8-0’s, many of which were already available or soon to be available from Farish and Dapol. I was slowly being drawn in to the world of steam and it was while perusing the books for the umpteenth time that I decided that if I was to do the layout justice, I should run it as a steam layout. And so having amassed a diesel collection of some 30-odd locos, I decided to start acquiring the loco’s to run Charwelton on steam instead.

I wanted the trains running on my layout to have sense of purpose, rather than just running trains at random and at any old time, and so I created a timetable of typical services, the evidence being acquired from some passenger timetables spanning from 1957 to 1966 that I found online and also from references of timed services from the books mentioned above. On my next visit to the UK, I hope to find time to visit the National Archives in Richmond to research the Working Timetables so that I can fill in the gaps of my compiled timetable, which to date stands at some 655 movements!

If anyone is looking to build a new layout, I would highly recommend looking for a prototype on which to base your model. I have found my own research thoroughly absorbing and a past-time all of its own and I really can’t see myself ever building a fictional layout again.

Construction of Charwelton in N has already started, the plans of which I will post in the layout planning section, with a post in the layouts section to show the progress so far.

Apologies for the long initial post, but I hope it has made for an interesting read.

Hector

Allegheny1600 · January 24, 2013

Hello Hector,

A very warm welcome to active posting on here, what a great introduction!

Sounds like you have found a great prototype to model, I'm sure you'll have a great time building up your collection and making a start on your layout, hope you continue to post in such an eloquent manner.

Cheers,

John E.

jcm@gwr · January 24, 2013

Hello Hector,

Welcome to the forum.

Jeff

Look forward to following your progress.

Hector Lawn · January 27, 2013

Thanks for the warm welcome!

I have now posted the details of the layout plans and construction in the relevant sections. You can click on the links in my signature to go straight to the posts.

Hector

Mikkel · February 7, 2013

Hello Hector. Not sure if I should say welcome as it seems you have been here longer than me :-) But thankyou for providing an interesting and humorous introduction which made my commute a good deal more enjoyable. I look forward to following the layout.

The Lurker · February 7, 2013

Hi Hector

i take my hat off to your lurking abilities. My urge to contribute - or just be heard - became too strong much quicker. And what an interesting post to start with too