Author

Mike Lloyd

Date

20th July 2016

Reading Time

4 minutes

Our next open Sunday is on 20th November 2016, a joint special event with the S Scale Model Railway Society to celebrate its 70th anniversary – with six working layouts on display:

MRC Layouts: Copenhagen Fields (2mm FS), Empire Mills (EM),

MRC Members’ layouts: Koindu and Moa Crossing (S), Blacklade (OO) and Grape Steet Bridge (S)

Visiting Layout: Trevor Nunn’s Trowland (S) 

Full details of the S scale layouts are below, information on the others through the links – Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for updates – and check back for more details.

Plus we will have a good selection of pre-owned models available from our shop, and of course refreshments (including a selection of freshly made rolls and Greene King beers) will be available.

Open from 11am to 4pm. 

Admission: Adults £3, accompanied children: Free

Entry for MRC and S Scale society members is free upon presentation of a current membership card.    

 

Membership Special Offer

Anyone joining the MRC on the day will receive the equivalent of their entry back – ie normal annual rate of £60 becomes £57, and runs to the end of 2017, making membership just £1 a week. There are lower rates for student and ‘country’ members. Please ask on the day.

 

Please note – access to most rooms is by stairs. If you have any concerns about accessibility, please contact us in advance.

Parking is free on the local side streets, but we are very well positioned for public transport, including a cycle hire station opposite us, minutes from King’s Cross and St Pancras stations and many bus routes pass close by.

 

The S-Scale Layouts

Trowland – Built by Trevor Nunn

The M&GN never had a small branch terminus, but this is what it might have looked like had they done so. Trowland is set somewhere on the North Norfolk coast, close to the salt marshes and the sea. The line could have been built in the 1880s for the Eastern & Midland Railway, and was perhaps intended to continue, but the money ran out. The E&M became part of the Midland & Great Northern Railway in 1893, and we see it, as it might have been, a year or so later. Train services are run mainly using ex-E&M locos and stock, with just a few other vehicles.

The railway buildings are all based on standard E&M structures, while other buildings are typical of the area using some brick with flint and stone infill. S Scale uses a ratio of 1:64 (3/16in to 1ft). All these models have been hand made, as there are no commercial models in this scale available in Britain.

 

Koindu and Moa Crossing – Sierra Leone Railway – Built by MRC member Barry Witham

In some respects this is a work of fiction, but…….

There is a town called Koindu in the north-east corner of Sierra Leone, but it never had a railway station. Back in 1949, at an African Transport Conference, the Sierra Leone Railway was asked if it would consider extending the line from its current terminus at Pendembu to the major town of Gueckedou in the south-eastern part of what was then French Guinea. This didn’t ever happen, but had the line been built it would almost certainly have passed through the town of Koindu, close to the border.

Nor does the prototype of my viaduct cross the Moa River, although that mighty river would be just a fairly narrow thing up in this part of the country. In fact the viaduct is a fairly close representation of the Orugu River Bridge, not far from Hastings, just a few miles from the capital, Freetown. Furthermore the fictitious station is a close approximation of the wayside stations once to be found all along the Sierra Leone Railways 200-mile main line.

Sierra Leone Railway was built to 2’6″ gauge, and in S scale 12mm track is just 0.1mm shy of dead scale, so ready-made track was too much of a temptation to ignore! The railway’s motive power comprised two sizes of Beyer Garratt, a 4-8-0 tender type, and a
2-6-2T, one of which now runs on the Welshpool and Llanfair Railway. Two types of diesel were also used.

At the moment my only SLR prototype locomotive is one of the small Garratts, naturally scratch-built. Other motive power belongs to the fictitious “United Palm Products” although both of its locomotives depict real types. The larger diesel is an American EMD GA-8, based on the ones use on the Mexican narrow gauge, although with low-height cabs as per those used in Taiwan. All of these GA-8 locomotives were supplied to the export market. The smaller diesel is also one intended for export, in this case a Russian TU-7E. For both of these locomotives I have been able to use commercial TT gauge Piko chassis, and they make a very useful addition in this early period of the layout’s life.

For those interested in such things, the track is Shinohara, and the operation is DCC, run with a simple Bachmann E-Z Command, ideally suited to this kind of model, where the motive power stock will never exceed ten locomotives.

 

Grape Street Bridge – built by MRC members Leslie and Carole Bevis-Smith

This is a small section of the gently evolving Acton Priors layout, which features Metropolitan and GW on the lower level, and a working tramway at street level.