Following a house move, BEN CHURCH starts afresh with a new ‘OO’ gauge layout to cater for his and his grandfather’s interests.
When my Grandad built my first model railway, I was six and had a superbly constructed 8ft x 4ft layout using Hornby’s TrakMat plan with all the add-on packs. I was a lucky six-year-old. Fast forward 18 years and my love of railways has only grown, but what I want to achieve with my layouts has changed.
As I needed to move house to join the team at Hornby Magazine, the layout I had previously built was no longer immediately available to me, so I then had what I dreaded most – models sat in their boxes! Over Christmas whilst back home with family, I decided to team up with my Grandad and build a new layout to create space for the fleet.
Above: The shape of things to come? BR ‘Britannia’ 70015 Apollo passes GWR ‘Hall’ 4962 Ragley Hall piloting Class 41 Warship D601 Ark Royal. This will be the main scenic side of the layout featuring a long sweep across what will be unspoilt green countryside.
There were some challenges and changes from what I had done before, however. The layout needs to be portable, able to fit through and up a very narrow stairwell and big enough to give my trains a decent run. Using …
