Risborough and District Model Railway Club

Risex is our smaller family exhibition, where we offer a fun day out for the family with a good selection of interesting layouts with a few traders offering ready to run models, books and specialist components. We also have a great second hand stall.

The exhibition is held at the Community Centre in Princes Risborough, now called the Wades Centre.

Layouts in 2027 include:

Carterton
Exhibitor: Chris Chewter. The layout portrays Carterton as it existed in the late 1950s and early 1960s: a reminder that the Great Western Railway and later the Western Region of British Railways was about moving people, and wasn’t all chocolate box scenes; and an echo of its wartime past, when troops disembarked for RAF Brize Norton and RAF Broadwell.

Crystal Springs
Exhibitor: Dave Fryer, a member of the High Wycombe & District MRS. This layout came about when Dave was looking in the railway workshop and found two sheets of 4'x2' plywood: at that point he had several trams in his collection and that was the start of the layout. It is loosely based on the out-skirts of San Francisco where the city of Crystal Springs was looking for a connection into San Francisco via the inter-urban track from the nearby city of Greenfield.

Didcot A
Exhibitor: Mark Gregory and Abingdon & District MRC. This layout has been built to represent the famous Oxfordshire landmark of Didcot ‘A’ coal-fired power station, and its near-continuous supply of rail-delivered coal. It shows the merry-go-round tracks for the coal trains and the nearby Great Western main line. For more information about Didcot A visit the Abingdon & District MRC website.

East Anstey
Exhibitor: Wayne Webb. This layout is based on East Anstey Station and Yeo Mill Halt on the North Devon line, otherwise known as the D&S (Devon & Somerset). The line ran between Taunton and Barnstaple, with East Anstey station being opened in November 1873, and closed to passengers in October 1966, although the goods yard had closed in September 1963. The layout is set in the period between 1954 and 1966.

Freedles
Exhibitor: Ric Lee, a Risborough and District MRC member. Freedles is a freelance fun layout in N gauge, which is set in ‘anytime’ and does not reflect any particular era. It is a small, portable layout built from the creator’s own imagination, allowing the running of both steam and diesel traction – since Ric is a collector of a diverse range of locomotives and rolling-stock. Freedles is a popular layout with the younger visitors

Jubilee Works
Exhibitor: Duncan Croser. The layout portrays a fictional industrial site, which boasts an extensive internal narrow gauge rail system, and to save space it is modelled as dual gauge in the scenic section. While this system is highly unusual on UK prototypes, the layout is inspired by such systems on Continental prototype lines. Information on the layout may be viewed at The Jubillee Works website.

Okement Quarry
Exhibitor: Risborough and District MRC. This is a ‘work-in-progress’ layout and has been designed in line with the recently conceived Gauge O Guild modular layout concept, being 12 feet long with double track entering at one end and leaving at the other, while between these tracks we conceived a small layout consisting of a quarry yard, with hopper wagons being loaded from a hopper building, and a small engine-shed with associated coal stage and water tower.

Ordsall Wharf Sidings
Exhibitor: Tony Bucknell, a Risborough and District MRC member. This is a small siding complex fed from a local freight yard, that is situated close to the Manchester Ship Canal, and serves a steel stock-holder, a scrap yard, and miscellaneous industrial sidings. The period portrayed is the late 1960s and 1970s.

Shadwell East
Exhibitor: High Wycombe and District MRS. This is the latest layout developed by the Junior section of the HWDMRS, and represents a fictional small terminal station in the East End of London, set in the late 1950s and early 1960s, allowing the portrayal of the transition from steam to early diesel traction. Such a terminus would have served the then still thriving docks, industries and commercial businesses in that busy area: suburban passenger services connect with north and east London, and a freight siding links to the adjacent riverside wharfs. For more information about the Club’s work with young people ask the layout operators, or email our Club Secretary on secretary@hwdmrs.org.uk.

Tetbury
Exhibitor: David Beighton. The layout is inspired by prototype material found in books on Great Western branch lines by Paul Karau and Stephen Randolph, which, combined with the wide availability of 0 Gauge ready-to-run models and kits for such a prototype, drew the creator of the layout away from many years of Continental modelling. The period modelled is 1950 up until closure in 1964, with an operational day following the transition from steam to diesel traction.

Please find below a link to our promotional YouTube video for our 2026 show: RISEX 2026