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Smallwood Introduction

Exhibition Manager Details 

 

This new exhibition layout is currently under construction. It is 1976 which is best remembered for the long hot summer and the Montreal Olympic Games. On television we had the delights of When the Boat Comes in, George and Mildred and Noel Edmund's Multi Coloured Swap Shop. Steam traction ended nearly 10 years previously and the railways had yet to change significantly other than the total  use of diesel and electric power. This was because of continued under investment and the industrial unrest that went with the 1970s. This in itself creates an interesting period in railway history to model. We are in the railway backwater of Smallwood, a town somewhere in England with a terminal  station that has seen better days and the provision of four platforms are from an era of far more affluent times than the current general run down appearance. The station still boasts a parcel depot as well as a small stabling point for DMU's. The future will see further rationalization as the Sprinter trains are introduced in the 1980's and the parcel depot is closed. At a slightly lower level below the station are the remains of another station that now serve as exchange sidings for a number of local industrial concerns. These sidings would only just see out the 1970's becoming part of the town's bypass road   The layout is being been built as a test bed for a much larger layout based in the same blue diesel era. The layout will be fully operated using DCC and features buildings. Locomotives and rolling stock are a mixture of kit built and ready run items all suitably weathered and detailed for the era portrayed. The layout has been designed to create an interesting variety of prototypical train movements in a relatively small area.  

Exhibition Details

 Exhibition Details Layout Owner : The Redditch Model Railway Club

Number of operators required : two to three 

Layout size : 15ft x 1.5ft – The layout is operated mainly from behind and is a terminus to fiddle yard arrangement

Expenses :  We would expect reimbursement for out of pocket expenses for members and or The Club following the exhibition of this layout.

Magazine Features : featured in the January 2020 edition of Hornby Magazine