A British Modular Layout...

To view photos of this fabulous model railroad in our Gallery - CLICK HERE
For a copy of the following British Rail Script in .DOC format - CLICK HERE

 

Concept

The exhibit is based on British railroad scenes of the mid 1930s.  We start in London and finish in Edinburgh (pronounced roughly “Eddinbruh” or “Eddinburruh” with a rolled r).  We have modeled “nodes” of scenes based on real places connected by generic scenery representing the British countryside.

The four major British railroads from 1923 until the consolidation/nationalization forming British Rail in the 1960s were the Southern Railway, Great Western Railway (GWR), London, Midlands and Scottish Railway (LMS) and the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER).  This layout is based on the LNER which operated from London's King's Cross Station north through the eastern side of England and Scotland.

The Route

The exhibit begins with “down” trains coming out of King's Cross Station.  These are called “down” trains as they are traveling away from London.  The trains run like automobiles in Britain - on the left.  On the street York Way, the Coldstream Guards march toward King's Cross.  The trains pass under Goods Way overpass into the residential neighborhoods.  It was from atop one of these tunnels that Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, and their partners in crime threw bodies off into passing railroad cars outbound from King's Cross in the 1955 film “The Ladykillers”.

Our down train travels through London suburbs into the countryside, then through the fictional small village of “Much Whingeing.”  (This is pronounced “Much WINjing” - note no “h” sound.)  Whingeing is British slang for what we call “whining.”  A number of towns in England start with the name Much - for example “Much Wenlock.”  The village is based roughly on the village of Finchingfield in Essex, famous for its duck pond, wind-powered post mill and church.  But we have added a canal and a railroad which Finchingfield does not have.

We pass further into the countryside and find ourselves along the Welsh border, near the town of Chirk, (far to the west of any route the LNER ever took.)  But it was hard to pass up modeling the Chirk railroad viaduct and parallel to it, the Chirk canal viaduct which then disappears into a tunnel.  The canal is the Langollen Canal, but it is suggested not to try to pronounce this Welsh placename (roughly hthlanGAWhthlen).  Chirk is easy!

Our train passes into the Pennines (PEN-nines) - the mountain range of northern England.  It is an area of stone walls, grazing sheep and few trees.  On the north side of the Pennines, Hadrian's Wall was built 73 miles across the north of England from Carlisle to Newcastle, by the Romans under the rule of the Emperor Hadrian in the years following 122 AD.  Its purpose was to keep the warlike “Caledonians” or Scots out.

We cross the Royal Border Bridge at Berwick-upon-Tweed where the castle ruins were dismantled to provide building stone for local buildings in the town, including the railway station.  The Tweed River flows into the North Sea here.  Next we enter Scotland.

We are traveling along the east coast line and enter Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, from the east.  On our right we pass the still extant Greek revival structure, the Royal High School.  Next is the Calton Gaol (pronounced “jail”, which was its function).  It was mostly torn down during the 1930s and replaced by St. Andrews House.  Our compressed scene is during the period when the Gaol is being torn down.  The last woman to be hanged in Edinburgh, Jessie King, was hanged here in 1889.  Only one other woman was hanged in Scotland before the death penalty was abolished in 1969.  Still standing today is the “Governor's House” (originally offices for the governor of the Gaol) atop the Calton Crags.  People often mistake these structures for Edinburgh Castle which is on the west side of Waverley station.  The train passes into (and through) Waverley Station, having traveled over 400 miles in just 100 feet!  Trains on the inner track, emerging from the station, are “up” trains - the designation of all trains headed for London.

Selective Compression

London's King's Cross Station consists of two arches 110 feet wide by 72 feet high and 800 feet long.  It was built in the 1850s.  Our model represents just the northern 146 feet in length of the eastern arch.  The station is a dead end where trains back in to a stop.  Our trains necessarily pass through.  For Harry Potter fans who want to know where platform 9¾ is, the best answer may be that it is somewhere beyond the first 146 feet!

Edinburgh's Waverley Station is 1240 feet long, 375 feet wide and 42 feet high.  It is a pass through station.  The eastern end consists of two galleries, and we have modeled the northern gallery for about 140 feet.

Chirk Viaducts - The Chirk aqueduct straddles the English - Welsh border, and is 400 feet long and 70 feet high.  It was designed by Thomas Telford and construction was completed in 1801.  Built to scale it would be about 63 inches long.  Our compressed version is about 48 inches long.  The parallel Chirk railroad viaduct was built in 1848.  In reality it is about 30 feet higher than the aqueduct, but in our model, construction and operation required that it be lower.

Royal Border Bridge - The Bridge was built between 1847 and 1850.  It was designed by Robert Stephenson, son of George Stephenson, who built one of the first steam locomotives.  The real thing is 2162 feet long and made up of 28 masonry arches.  It is still a sight to behold!  In OO scale this would be over 28 feet long!  We chose to model just 4 feet.  The height was 125 feet above the River Tweed, or about 1’-8”.  Ours is a bit shorter than that.

The Trains

The Flying Scotsman - This Pacific (4-6-2) was the first locomotive to exceed 100 mph, in 1925.  In 1928 it made the first non-stop London to Edinburgh run.  It had a “corridor tender” which allowed the train crews to pass between the locomotive and the “brake coach”.  This facilitated the change of crews “on the fly”.  These pacific engines were designated Class A3 by the LNER.

The Flying Scotsman also was the name for the London to Edinburgh passenger service from 1925 through 1963, regardless of what locomotive was heading the train.  The passage took about 6 hours.

The Mallard - In 1935 the LNER began producing streamlined Pacific locomotives.  These were designated “A4s” by the LNER, and were more powerful and faster than the “A3s” like the Flying Scotsman.  Streamlined trains became popular worldwide.  In July 1938 the brand new A4 “Mallard” set a world speed record of 126 mph which is still the fastest speed reached by a steam locomotive.

Our “steamers” - We have two live steam locomotives, models of the Flying Scotsman and the Mallard.  They are produced by Hornby, a British company.  Water is carried in the tender and is heated to steam by a heating element in the boiler, powered by track voltage.  Steam is carried from the tender to the cylinders, where it drives the pistons which then drive the wheels like full size steam locomotives.

Goods Trains - In addition to passenger trains, we also operate “goods trains” - what Americans call “freight trains.”  The appearance is quite different with short 4-wheel cars, compared to our larger freight cars with pivoted “trucks” of 4 wheels at each end.

Some Terminology:

Up train - a train going toward London - counter clockwise or left to right on our layout.
Down train - a train headed away from London - clockwise or right to left on our layout.
Driver or engine driver - engineer
Goods trains - freight trains
Vans - box cars
Brake van - caboose
Coaches - busses and also railroad passenger cars
Brake - passenger coach including a crew compartment for Guards (conductors, brakemen)
Sleepers - ties (or cross ties)
Bogies - the pivoted wheel sets that we call “trucks”
British - anything pertaining to Great Britain - “Brits” is the equivalent of “Yanks”
Great Britain (GB) - England, Wales and Scotland
United Kingdom (UK) - England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
England - a more than equal country within Great Britain and the UK
Scotland - definitely not to be confused with England - independent (more or less) in 1999
Wales - a less independent country in GB.  Welsh language can only be pronounced by natives.
Pavement - sidewalk
Lorries - trucks
Tea - tea - (also certain afternoon and evening meals)
Modelling - British spelling of modeling

Design and Construction

The layout is 26' x 20’.  It consists of fourteen modules - 8 straight modules about 2' x 6' and 6 corner modules approximately 4' x 4'.  These include one “inside curve”.  It has about 200 feet of track.  There are two loops of parallel track and two sidings.  It took more than two years to build and is not yet (and may never be) finished.  Most of the work you see was done by 7 people, but several others have contributed to the effort.

The scale is Double Oh (OO) the most common British model railroad scale, 1:76.  This compares to HO which is 1:87.  However, British OO trains run on HO track.  (There are historical reasons which relate primarily to manufacturing in the 30s.)  Our rails are “code 100”.  About half the structures are scratch-built - the rest are from kits.