Dunston Green was my first ever Exhibition Layout. It was made for my sons to play with. John was interested and maintains his interest in Railway Modelling to this day, Paul, my younger son was not really interested and was a reluctant Exhibition attendee. When built I had no intention of Exhibiting this or any other layout. I was a visitor only at all the local exhibitions. Around this time I met Keith Wright and his brother Paul at a local Model Shop. Keith saw the layout and an invitation to the Stowmarket Exhibition followed. The Exhibition came and I received  four more invites – it all started from there.

I have to say none of this would have happened without Keith. Sadly he died at the early age of 40 years,  5 years ago. Still missed very much – thanks for your help mate.

I sold the layout to a very good home and as far as I know it still exists in private hands.

This Layout has appeared in MODEL RAIL No 15  JANUARY 2000

Also on a MODEL RAIL DVD/VIDEO

I was given this commission by a local model shop, the baseboards were already made and installed. Mike Allen, who was the person that wanted the layout already had scale drawings available for the proposed layout. Mike had decided that he wanted to go DCC, and this was entrusted to another person. My part was track laying and all the scenic work, although I reluctantly had to help with some basic wiring.

As the baseboards were already made, when I put on the track some hefty changes had to be made. I tried to engineer the points  away from baseboard joins and cross members, but this was not always possible  and some sawing had to be done. Moral of the story, when you have a scale drawings,  make the baseboards and cross members to fit the drawing! To increase interest I suggested a branch line with a terminus station – Mike agreed.

This was a big commission for me and Mike had done meticulous  research, not just on the area of Lincolnshire railways to be portrayed, but the surrounding  area, its buildings and terrain.One nice touch was that some shops etc were to named after his relations.

This layout has appeared in MODEL RAIL. No. 106  JULY 2007

.

This is one of my newer layouts. Over the last few years I had purchased several third rail units, mainly in Network South East livery. It was always my intention to make a third rail layout, but I was in no rush. During the winter of 2015/6 I was at a loose end due to repeated bad weather, so an old retrieved (used before)  baseboard was found from the depths of my shed. A plan was drawn up and track laying commenced. As I have said before, Electrics are my weak point, I consider reliabity is more important than complexity, and to this end I used code 100 3 way points and track in the fiddle yard, this is linked to code 75 track on the actual layout using converter joiners. The fiddle yard is a bit different to the norm being transported seperately and then bolted to the layout in a prepared trough. The fiddle yard has ints own one legged stand with an adjustable foot. As well as being a terminus station with two platforms the ex goods yard is now a small engineers yard.  Having made a third rail layout as a commission many years ago, and had drawings from a southern region engineer, a friend of the chap that commissioned me.  This gave me  a good idea where the third rail was supposed to go. I think I got this one right, but I stand to be corrected .

More photographs to follow, when stock and layout fully weathered

Middlewood was a bit of experiment. A friend at the time suggested an advanced electrical fiddle yard. after much work, it did work, but was very marginal at Exhibitions. It was withdrawn from the Exhibition circuit after only two years and sold.  All locomotives on Middlewood  photographs are detailed LIMA  – years ago if you wanted a decent loco you had to detail and repaint it yourself. Maybe we are spoilt with the new breed of models!

This layout is now owned by Les Williams, a good friend and quite an influence on my modelling. Thanks Les.