About this event

Part 1: The Prototype – traces the history of the railway station at Uppingham – in Rutland, England’s smallest county – which was opened in October 1894 as the terminus of the LNWR branch from Seaton Junction on their Rugby to Peterborough/Stamford line, and closed in 1963, having served the Town and School of Uppingham, and Uppingham’s own Iron-ore mine, over its 59 years of operation.

Part 2: The Model – tells the story of the Leicester Model Railway Group’s EM Gauge Pre-Grouping layout of ‘Uppingham’, entirely kit and scratch-built, from its inception in the 1970s, through its years of life in the care of Peter Simmerson, to its ‘retirement’ and ‘homecoming’ to Uppingham School in 2024, and its future prospects of again being on display to the public.

Andrew David is a Tutor of Classics at the City Lit and the British Museum: his hobby is railway modelling, heritage railway restoration, and researching and writing about the history of railways – which he first tried his hand at in the Rutland area in the 1970s, while a pupil of Uppingham School. He has published a number of magazine articles on for example the restoration of former Great Central Railway coaching stock, and the history of the world’s first railway branch line – to Aylesbury: ‘Aylesbury LNWR’.

His first visit to the Model Railway Club’s annual Exhibition at Central Hall Westminster was in 1963, and to Keen House in 1975: he re-activated his MRC Membership in 2005, becoming a guest speaker for the MRC’s 2016/2017 programme of talks with his lecture: ‘Victorian Coaching Stock & Britain’s Deadliest Railway Disaster: Quintinshill – 100 years down the line’.

Andrew was instrumental in the saving for posterity of the late Reverend Peter Denny’s ‘Buckingham Branch’ to the care of Tony Gee, and Geoff Williams’s ‘Aylesbury LNWR’ to the Risborough and District MRC – his latest ‘layout saving’ venture being the acquisition by Uppingham School of the Leicester Model Railway Group’s ‘Uppingham’ EM Gauge layout – hence this presentation.

This event is in person, and guests are welcome at Keen House. The bar will be open before, in the interval and after the lecture with a range of drinks and snacks. We also intend to stream it live on line, and record it for ‘on demand’ viewing later. Please use the form on this page to register for the online Zoom link (it will be available from mid September).

Non MRC members are welcome with a suggested donation of £3 either in person or on our virtual coffee page

Finally, please note there are stairs to all rooms. If you have any accessibility concerns, please contact us so we can advise and make appropriate arrangements.