Oakenshaw Introduction

Oakenshaw  is a fictitious West Yorkshire mill town set in the early 1960s, located somewhere near the real town of Keighley on the Airedale Line. Like so many Yorkshire mill towns, the layout is centred on a river crossing, with the railway serving a busy industrial community surrounded by stone-built mills, warehouses and terraced housing nestled in the valley. Following the regional boundary changes of 1957, this former Midland Railway station became part of the short-lived North Eastern Region of British Railways. Although now under new management, the station still retains its unmistakable Midland Railway character, reflected in both its architecture and operating practices. Built to 4mm scale using OO gauge finescale Code 75 track, Oakenshaw captures the final years of Britain's steam era, when new diesel traction was beginning to appear alongside traditional locomotives. Passenger, parcels and freight services all combine to create an authentic snapshot of everyday railway operation in industrial Yorkshire. Every building on the layout has been scratch-built, using thick card for the basic structure before being clad with Plastikard embossed to represent the local stone and brickwork. Careful painting and weathering recreate the distinctive appearance of West Yorkshire's soot-blackened industrial landscape. Behind the scenes, a sixteen-road fiddle yard is capable of holding up to twenty-four complete trains, allowing a varied and continuous sequence of realistic operations throughout an exhibition. The trains are carefully assembled to reflect those that would have been seen in the area during the period, with authentic coaching stock and freight formations hauled by a mixture of steam and first-generation diesel locomotives.  

Exhibition Details