Risborough and District MRC

Layouts:

Achalraj by Malcolm Harrison - Achalraj represents a small town in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains. The DTR squeezing through the town streets making its way up past the tea pickers in the plantation, then up into the hills watching out for the elephants before making its way back down the hill to the town and its busy shops.

Astonbury Junction by Aylesbury & District MRC - Astonbury is a totally fictitious village in Worcestershire, which is the junction of two L.M.S. (ex Midland Railway.) cross country routes to Gloucester and Birmingham.

The layout is based loosely on Broom Junction on the Stratford-Upon-Avon & Midland Junction Railway (SMJ). The layout morphed as the build progressed to incorporate the locality of the A&DMRC railway room, hence the naming of Astonbury Junction. The layout also incorporates the local village names of Oving, Dunton and Crafton. Layout operation depicts the period 1955 – 1965 enabling the use of a wide range of locos and rolling stock, in particular early diesels from the ‘Green Livery with Whiskers’ period.

Much of the stock is either ready to run, repainted and renumbered with added detail, or constructed from a wide variety of commercially available kits. The track is Peco Streamline with ‘Electrofrog’ points. Control is provided by ‘Gaugemaster’ hand held controllers with the points and signals being operated by servos mounted under the baseboard. Scenery is also constructed using well-tried methods and buildings are a mixture of scratch built using card, balsawood and plasticard or suitably adapted LINKA Mouldings. Operation is by a sequence timetable with much emphasis on slow, realistic running speeds.

The operators are always happy to answer questions on the layout and its construction.

Brief Encounter by Dawn Quest - Brief Encounter is my 11 foot by 2 foot OO gauge end to end monochrome layout based on the David Lean film and designed for the exhibition circuit. The concept behind the layout was to recreate the evocative atmosphere of the black and white era of film, with a railway station and, of course, steam trains at the heart of it.

The inspiration came from watching Brief Encounter for the very first time and realising that the train station and train was as much a character of the film as the lead actors. It also presented an exciting challenge I haven’t seen in any other layout – to create a layout completely in monochrome.

The layout has four lines and is laid out in four sections. To the left of the layout is a raised area which holds the RAF base. Although the film makes no mention of the war, it was filmed during 1944 and 1945 towards the end of World War 2. This in itself presented various logistic issues for Lean, and I wanted to reflect that in this layout.

This section also holds the fiddle yard underneath. The tracks are DC shuttle controlled with SS2A BLOCK signalling controllers with a manual Gaugemaster controller override. The second section includes a street scene with shops, a cinema and a church. The cinema is an integral part of the layout – it’s where the main characters Laura and Alex met for their clandestine dates. All the structures along this section are modified kits, and I’ve had some fun recreating signage that nods to the 1940s era but also includes a little humour.

Burton Bradstock by Chris Lester - My layout is set in the late 1950's and features the fictional terminus of the line to Burton Bradstock which assumes that the Abbotsbury Branch had been extended as proposed towards (but never reaching) Bridport. It was my first EM solo effort started some years ago and uses rolling stock from the BR(W) era. Locomotives are kits or re-chassied rtr models and other rolling stock is kit built or re-wheeled proprietary models.

To give a flavour of the Abbotsbury Branch, I have tried to model several structures on the branch-line that did exist such as the goods shed at Portesham, Abbotsbury Locoshed and Water Tower. They are scratch-built mainly from styrene sheet and Wills moulded stone sheet. The station building and some of the huts are made from Ratio or Wills kits. Trackwork is hand built using plywood sleepers and C&L track components with turnouts operated electrically by slow-action motors with the controller of the EMGS or Pentroller type.

The Abbotsbury Railway in Dorset was first proposed during the 1870’s and finally came into existence during the 1880’s with hopes of making profits by extracting iron ore from a site near to Portesham and also limestone near to Abbotsbury itself, along with local produce and livestock such as cattle and sheep.

One of several schemes also anticipated extending the line further westwards, eventually as far as Bridport and beyond to Axminster and thence to Exeter. The hope was that boat traffic via the port of Weymouth would enable travellers from the continent to access the south-west of England. Although this scheme never became more than an ambition, my model layout assumes the branch line was continued westwards reaching Burton Bradstock, not too far from Bridport, before finances ran out and the line terminated there.

Long Sibford by Oxfordshire narrow Gauge Modellers - Oxfordshire Narrow Gauge Modellers couldn’t meet in 2020. So we each built modules in OO9. We set standards - with the help of others - stayed at home, ordered the parts and built modules propelled by lockdown fever. Things got better. Trains ran along the assembled boards for the first time in 2021 and the (then) full Long Sibford layout was first exhibited in June 2022.

Here are just some of the modules (we have over twenty, but we've lost count and someone built another board last month). They come without end scenes – deliberate choice. Don't worry the line takes you (say) from North Devon to the Isle of Portland via North Oxfordshire and the Wye Valley. Modules can be based anywhere in the world. Enjoy a continuous run of cameos exploring what can be done nowadays in OO9 by both seasoned modellers and relative newcomers. And enjoy watching the trains go by …

It's all been a solo joint effort with much shared experience and very real benefits.

Marybridge Goods by Peter Dickson - Marybridge Goods depicts an area of London close to Liverpool St/Farringdon. It shows the type of goods traffic typical of the time. It also features Electric Loco stabling for City trains as well as a small steam yard for locos shunting the various yards around the area. There is a rail connection for for coal and ash collection, this was similar to the access near Baker Street. The layout is 24v DC third rail and is analogue control. Many of the models date back to the 1930/40s built by 3 generations of the family. The Metropolitan had a wide variety of steam locos, most are visible on the layout.

With the exception of a few kit built wagons all stock and locos are scratch built. The 4th rail is used for crossings where it helps electrical connection. .

Mothecombe by High Wycombe MRC Juniors - OO Gauge, 1960's South Devon station on the line to Plymouth. Mothecombe is a quiet through station on a rural line somewhere in south Devon, close to the coast and Plymouth, and is operated in both GWR/SR or BR periods. At either end, two fiddle yards feed trains through the layout. A bay platform is provided for the local push-pull service and a small yard serves the local community. Occasional diversions from the main line add interest during the day.

Pacific Crossing, Birkenhead by Dave Carson - A Lockdown microlayout influenced by the converted offices at the junction of Shore Road and Pacific Road, Birkenhead and the Hong Kong built trams of the Wirral Heritage Tramway.

Quarry Lane End by Mike Sumpter - Imagine a small worked out quarry set in countryside near a village (as yet unnamed). As a rule, such quarries are generally left to natural reclamation of the land and maybe some human intervention. Here, opportunity has been grabbed by both hands to provide much needed community space; craft and timber workshops has been established, farmland reclaimed and enough level area to be grassed over and provide the essential village cricket pitch. But the best bit is the resurrection of old quarry railway workings to provide not only a link to other villages but a money-spinning visitor attraction.

Roadwater by Steve Walker - Roadwater is a terminus on a “might have been” truncated branch line in the 1920’s. I have changed history and assumed the line remained open and was linked to the Taunton – Minehead branch at Washford.

Traders:

• Sunningwell Command Control for all that's best in DCC
• Quainton Railway Society Books
• Keiths Model Railways for new and secondhand models.

Demos

• This year we have 5 R&DMRC members demonstrating a range of modelling skills, do stop and talk.

Societies

• Chinnor & Princes Risborough Railway
• Princes Risborough Signal Box Preservation Group
• Great Central Railway Society. The Great Central Railway Society (GCRS) exists to promote an historical interest in the Great Central Railway (GCR) which existed until the Grouping of 1923 when it became part of the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER).

R&DMRC Secondhand Sales

• A variety of used models, kits etc.