A number of years ago, I found that a friend of mine had a layout stored in his loft - it was an 009 layout, Leek and Manifold based fiction out and back layout. At the time, Dibble and I were both volunteers at the Churnet Valley Railway, and we arranged that one Saturday evening we would get the layout down to display in a coach. This would have been around 1997 - I had no knowledge of 009, and had only walked the L&M in my youth on DofE walks with the Air Training Corps. So we set to, got some stock, replaced some missing items, such as a church and sorted a few wiring issues. We displayed the layout a number of times on Sundays when I was around, until we had to move from the coach as it was required for restoration to go back in service. We were moved in to a spare portacabin, but this was not ideal. Thankfully, I took a few photographs. Then sadly, one day I arrived and the cabin was empty. No one would say what had happened, where it had gone etc, I suspect someone didn't want it there and decided to skip it to make room for the yard office that the portacabin later became. Thankfully, some parts had been kept safe, so I still have the original scratch built loco and coaches, which I understand were created by Colin Plant ? a local modeller to Leek. I have a copy of Model railway Constructor from 1900 and frozen to death, which has a very nice article in it about the layout. Anyway, here is Lowe Hill and Foxt. (Sorry for the quality - these were taken with old 35mm cameras, pre digital days and scanned on many years ago.)
Andy, this looks like a great, character-filled layout. A shame that it met an undignified end! cheers Geoff
I bet you were really peeved off finding out that someone had cleared the layout out with out any notification. I would not have been impressed ! Anyway, the pics of the look great. Looking forward to a few more images. Cheers, Gary.
No not really, it was most annoying as myself and a friend had spent a few hours trying to fathom a short on the return loop. Finally sorted with a point motor and a peco electrical switch. But there was nothing I could do about it by that time... it was already gone.
Nice work on the Dapol church, still finishing off mine, and it will look a bit different, but very inspirational. Certainly was a great layout. Cheers Tony
As promised, I have found the original copy of Model Railway Constructor and the original 7 page article (and front cover!!) by Peter Lowe (and Colin Plant) My photos I don't think did it justice. These (although B&W as magazines mainly were in 1983) are much better. Hopefully they display OK here and you can read the text - Disclaimer - this magazine is now defunct. I was given the magazine many years ago, so I would not foresee any issue in reproducing here. if there are, I will happily remove the post. Andy
The church was my Dapol replacement - you will notice in the article above a totally different building. That and the original station never made it to my custody. Thankfully, the L&M train and wagons survived, although by the time I had them the coaches were crimson and the loco black. In my photos you see my replacement Meridian models and worsley works coaches. The originals were scratch built. Andy
