A model railway is never finished, only abandoned

Paul Valéry made the same observation about poetry

When growing up in London SW12 in the 1960s and 70s, my parents bought me a Hornby Dublo model railway set. This grew over the years into much track, locos and rolling stock. My German grandparents bought me quite a lot of kitset housing, which led to a curious cultural mix in my layout.

When my parents moved from London to SW Scotland when I was 18 (1977), the railway set went into a box, and stayed there for 50 years. Mum and Dad lived in Portpatrick, in Wigtownshire, for many years, and then moved to Kingskerswell, Devon. My father passed away in 2009, and my mother in 2023.

In 2023, just before Mum passed away, I emptied the attic in Devon, and found several boxes of train kit. I packed most of this up and flew it back to NZ with me, as hold luggage.

Now, after another couple of years in a box, the trains are back up and running in all their former glory. It took a trip to the glorious Monk Bar Model shop in Yorkshire to kick start the train revival. I bought some Peco track and a couple of controllers to get this going, plus a small Roundtree shunter

Shown above, Barnstaple with Pullman carriages

Above, Mallard (top) and three smaller locos. The right hand shunter is the Roundtree shunter I bought in York (Roundtree is an old York family).

Above, diesel loco pulling mixed rolling stock. This was the last one I got running, and it required sourcing and buying some “traction tyres” from a UK supplier, via an obscure looking web site. Note, if you aren’t sourcing parts from obscure shops then it isn’t a real hobby, IMHO.

Above, the German model village, glued back together after the long journey from the UK. This will be placed on the new layout

Above, Peco track plans. My track plan to be built is broadly based on the sheet shown here. I will have concentric 2nd, 3rd and 4th radius track, with the shunting yard as in the diagram. The aim is to include a station, a hilly area with tunnels

So far, I have a prototype built on MDF, shown here:

Having realised that MDF isn’t that great, and also not wide enough for the 4th radius circuit, I am building a new board from plywood, shown below in the garage:

OK, that’s it for now. This may take some time.

I’d like to thank my parents for buying all this kit (quite a lot actually), my German Oma and Opa for the housing stock, and last but not least my beloved wife Chris who allows me to indulge in these activities, at the expense of our livable floorspace.

Model rail is a wonderful hobby, that encompasses many fields of human activity. More on that will follow in a subsequent post.