Members' Model Railways
26th September 2025
In: News, Members' Articles
We've posted many of Keith Walker's wonderful photographs of steam on the railways and he has told us about his life long interest in railways.
Some time ago Keith contacted the webmaster to suggest that we could post photographs of members' other hobbies and past times.
Keith has a model railway and the webmaster has one that has been built over the last 40 years.
We thought we would indulge ourselves by sharing photos of these models.
The webmaster's model is based on a London Midland Region motive power depot (MPD) in the late 1950s to early 1960s in the North West of England. This is the time when he went to engine sheds and stood by the West Coast mainline trainspotting; an activity that is largely extinct now.
I was thinking of apologising to all those members who have not got the slightest interest in railways but then thought you'd like to see what other things members pass their time doing.
Keith Walker's Model Railway
Keith Walker's Model Railway
Keith Walker's Model Railway
Ken Davis - Gillibrand Park MPD
Ken Davis - Gillibrand Park MPD
Ken Davis - Gillibrand Park MPD
Ken Davis - Gillibrand Park MPD
Ken Davis - Gillibrand Park MPD
Some time ago Keith contacted the webmaster to suggest that we could post photographs of members' other hobbies and past times.
Keith has a model railway and the webmaster has one that has been built over the last 40 years.
We thought we would indulge ourselves by sharing photos of these models.
The webmaster's model is based on a London Midland Region motive power depot (MPD) in the late 1950s to early 1960s in the North West of England. This is the time when he went to engine sheds and stood by the West Coast mainline trainspotting; an activity that is largely extinct now.
I was thinking of apologising to all those members who have not got the slightest interest in railways but then thought you'd like to see what other things members pass their time doing.
Keith Walker's Model Railway
Keith Walker's Model Railway
Keith Walker's Model Railway
Ken Davis - Gillibrand Park MPD
Ken Davis - Gillibrand Park MPD
Ken Davis - Gillibrand Park MPD
Ken Davis - Gillibrand Park MPD
Ken Davis - Gillibrand Park MPD
Comments
By Nick Richardson: I’m delighted to see your photos! Your hobby dovetails into mine of creating dioramas using model cars!
Your scenes are longer-lasting than mine though. I like the old black & white photos too. We used to do train spotting as there is an experimental Railway test track at Edwalton, Nottingham and many Saturday’s were spent hanging out there! Keep the memories flowing! By David Askham: My late brother John built a wonderful working steam-powered garden railway, radio-controlled, in the 1970's and later. He was also a keen photographer and illustrated his own articles in model engineering magazines. As I was a published photographer, he asked me not to photograph it, which I respected. Occupying most of his back garden, it featured a long curving tunnel. One spring, while reactivating his imaginary Lune Valley Railway, a steam engine got stuck in the tunnel. After much excavation, he found it was blocked by a hibernating hedgehog! By Ken Davis: Thank you Nick. These models do bring back the innocence of being 11 or 12! If you send me some of your model cars dioramas I could feature those some time.
Best Wishes
Ken By Ken Davis: Thank you David,
your late brother's creation sounded very, very special. I hope you have some of his photographs of what must've been a wonderful model.
Best Wishes
Ken By Keith Walker: Compared to Ken's wonderfully detailed layout replicating somewhere real mine is a mere 'train set' built in Covid lockdown as a time filler.
It would be great to see some of Nick's dioramas on the Website. By Ken Davis: Thank you for the compliment Keith. Yours may have started as a 'train set' but the angles you photographed it from give a sense of scale and spaciousness.
My layout hopefully looks the part but it is an imaginary location. I had to make the MPD turn through 90 degrees so the shed is at right angles to the servicing roads with the turntable in the corner! There was only one LMR shed that did this, I can't quite remember, it may have been Bedford. But the buildings and structures are hopefully good representations of the prototype. The shed is similar to Rose Grove, the coaling stage and ash plant were standard designs and I remember them at Stoke and took lots of photos in later years of Carnforth.