Yes Folks, Like everyone else, I started from scratch. Not knowing much, not having any modelling skills, not having much in the way of railway items, but I had my train set from when I was a child. That is where it all started. We are in the process of renovations at Gormo`s joint at the moment, and as such ,rooms are being turned upside down and cupboards are being emptied, sometimes for the first time in years. One of those cupboard emptying`s revealed some old forgotten photographs and memories from days gone by. Of main interest to me were some old photographs of my first attempt at a model railway. As I stated at the beginning, I knew nothing then, but I had a desire to kick start this hobby. That was in the 1980`s and developed on into the 1990`s. By the end of the 1990`s my, by then second railway, was dismantled and stored, as I needed my garage for my business. Anyway, back to the 1980`s. I resurrected my Triang train set from my childhood. It was given to me in 1958 and some of it still survives today. I decided to create a 6 x 4 layout using the track I had. Please excuse the photo quality ,as these are scans of old photographs taken with a pretty ordinary camera. Formers for the hill were made from particle board, which was covered with chicken wire and paper mache. Power supplied by an old Triang transformer and rheostat controller plus switches for isolated sections. The whole layout was hinged to the garage wall and could fold down out of the way for when the car was needed to be brought in. I also had a small station platform and buildings and other bits and pieces. Finally the hill was covered And a crude attempt at other landscaping was tried Now it did not get too much further on than this as I was already becoming disenchanted with this small railway. I was buying modelling magazines and seeing what was possible and was quickly forming the opinion that I needed a vast empire to satisfy my appetite for model railways. So in the end, the hill received a grass top and everything looked very nice but I needed something more realistic. So the little railway was taken down and consigned to experience. I then embarked on my first really serious attempt at a model railway. I called it Broadgreen Junction. It consisted of two 8 foot long boards x 2 foot and one ten foot x two foot board as the main scenic section. At each end there were 5 foot diameter return loops / fiddle yards which gave an overall length of thirty six feet. I was still a mug when I was building this and no real planning went into it, although it was good fun to run it. We`re into Polaroid photos now unfortunately. At this stage I was also building my own controllers and I was also collecting rolling stock. All of which I still have today. As I mentioned at first, this railway was taken down and stored for years because the space was needed for a business. However when retirement plonked down in my lap, my thoughts once again returned to that railway empire. I had never stopped buying railway magazines. For years I had been absorbing methods and systems and techniques to do with building a model railway. Over that time the home PC had arrived and access to any information was almost unlimited. I had also never stopped collecting railway items for that railway I was going to build one day. Now if you look at the picture below of Broadgreen Junction. That same board has been re-used and modified into Great Chesterford Junction, in pretty much exactly the same position as it was originally.......shown below. So folks, I eventually got my empire, although it`s still a work in progress. But as the heading says " You Gotta Start Somewhere "........meaning that nobody comes into this hobby as a fully fledged genius model railway builder. It takes time, lots of mistakes, lots of research and lots of help from lots of nice people and I am still in awe of people like the Rev. Peter Denny who was so far ahead of the game that it`s not funny. Gormo
What a good thread Gormo (his excellence the ex-goat of under-land) maybe others have similar memorabilia they could share Ian vt
And a superhero was born ...... I always recommend folks start with something small(ish) but achievable, going for "the layout" straight out of the blocks, is prone to failure due to lack of skills / knowledge / time and the long period before something is usable, doing as you did got a good first attempt, with a bit of everything, but more importantly, let you know what you really want. Impressive first layout tho' Gormo, the potential was there from the off. Paul
Totally agree with all the comments made Gormo. It has taken me back to my first layout on an 8x4 board in the spare bedroom. Very amateur-ish but fun to play with. At the time I was building Superquick card buildings, very similar to Metcalfe, and even back then started scratch building, my first over bridge, clad with Superquick brick paper (some of which I still have!!) It had a twin track with 4 road fiddle yard at the rear. That lasted about a year before I got the bug for something bigger after reading copies of Railway Modeller and their layout features. That was about 11ft x 7ft6". A figure of 8 folded on itself. The lower part was a 6 road storage yard with room for 2 short trains on 3 roads so one was driven in and the next driven out from the same siding. I wish I had taken more photos of it at the time before my ex ripped it all up while I was at work one day . Pete.
In my early teens, my first was a 6ft x 4ft x 3/4in chipboard base with chicken wire papermache hills balanced on a chest of draws in an outside shed with no door! (I will not count the 12ft x 12ft one my dad started and never finished) In my late teens, next was a 'L' shaped end to end over 12ft long in my mates attic, his little bruvver nicked all my rolling stock! This was eventually transplanted to my sisters spare room for a few years (an 8 mile bike ride to attend it at weekends) Both featured Superquick buildings and paper brick covered scenery. (and lots of Airfix kits) Next came a 16ft x 3ft (3 x bed frames), that never got past a coat of green and some track although a lot of time was spent making a sloped viaduct! Last came a fully contoured plastered (but only body in white) and tracked phase 1 (10.5ft x 4ft) that has recently been destroyed in anticipation of a rejuvenated plan, that is transportable, consisting initially of 12ft x 2ft, as the alternate phase 1. Below are the pics of the now scrapped phase 1 in 2006 So many lessons learned and 10 years of internet searching has lead to a vastly superior basis for the next incarnation!
Thanks Paul, Maybe the pics make it look better than it actually was.???......anyway it`s history now. Gormo
Yes Pete.......I remember hearing about the demise of your layout when we were on Skype......very sad. Oh well that`s life.......chalk it up to experience and move forward as you have done so well. Gormo
