INTRODUCTION

King George II

Two railway models with common themes – each is set in South Devon in the heyday of steam on the Great Western Railway. Both use N-gauge track and share a collection of locomotives and rolling stock. Ashburton is a small working diorama of a well-known branch line terminus while Totnes is a larger continuous circuit.

Ashburton was first exhibited at Bletchley in 1997 and appeared in Model Railway Journal issue 94 back in 1997 and more recently in the Railway Modeller of January 2011 and British Railway Modelling of July 2012. Its next outing will be at Bournemouth on 16 and 17 February 2013.

Totnes made its exhibition debut at Railwells in August 2008 and was featured in the January 2009 issue of British Railway Modelling magazine and issue No 205 of the Model Railway Journal. Recent outings were at Doncaster on 13-14 February 2010, when it received the British Railway Modelling "Layout of the Year" award, Aylesbury on 29-30 May 2010, St Albans on 15-16 January 2011, were it was awarded the Denis Moore cup for the best scenic layout and Uckfield on 20 and 21 October 2012.

Totnes - Dean goods 2568 approaches Dainton Tunnel with an up milk train

ASHBURTON

Yet another Ashburton layout! This one began life in the late 1970s as the branch line appendix on a much larger fixed layout comprising Totnes main line station and the Quay branch with the River Dart and Dainton Bank. The whole formed an L-shape, about 4m x 4.5m, occupying a large room in our flat in London. However, when we moved to Somerset in 1987 the intended railway room - the loft - was only about 3.0m wide so something had to go. The appendix was removed.

A general view of the approaches to Ashburton station

A livestock train approaching Ashburton station

There it stayed, preserved in a plastic bag for six or seven years with the vague idea that one day it may come in useful. Perhaps it would form the basis of a small portable - even exhibitable - independent layout. And thus it was reborn. Of course, little of the original baseboard remains but at least the need to construct buildings and rolling stock was minimised.

Lever's Seeds store in the goods yard with a milk train beyond

The branch 'small prairie' waits on shed

The layout is set in the late 1920s and takes the form of a simple diorama. From the familiar Ashburton track plan the single line runs across a small stream and enters a (mythical) steep rock cutting, hiding a sector plate which connects to storage roads and a run-round loop buried under the rolling hills of south Devon.

A livestock train waiting at the home signal

Weighing and bagging house-coal

The buildings and scratch-built or modified locomotives are to 2mm/1ft scale, running on N-gauge track. For normal operations, stock includes a 517 with a rake of four-wheeled coaches, a 14xx and autocoach, small and large prairies, panniers and a saddle tank with passenger, cattle and goods rakes. However, don’t be surprised to find the odd more exotic visitor!

Ashburton station with the Railway Hotel and the gasworks beyond


'Pannier' 8731 waiting at the home signal

An article about the layout appeared in the January 2011 edition of the Railway Modeller.