LAYOUT CLUB

‘Things I don’t need nor have space for’ is a fair description of most of this Canadian distraction, rather I’d prefer to say adventure. Why then am I always chasing rabbits down deep holes? That is what a logical assessment might ask - but then my model making isn’t rational or scientific, it comes from the heart - not in a Hallmark card  sense, but from inside of me, the results then a physical manifestation of that process, and hence of  myself … So I could describe the feelings of child like wonder for these small models, or I could describe my memories of a Canadian holiday as a child - I could perhaps even mention craft and meditation… but none of these concepts really explain what is happening on my bench.  I make sense of the world - and more accurately, my feelings and my place in it through craft. My chosen ‘intense interest’ happens to be model railways but in the past I’ve painted and in my teens wrote mediocre indie music. Replacing the brush and guitar with ...

A structure is a promise, a commitment to a project that goes beyond a collection of rolling stock. A deliberate act, to be incorporated into some future plan, a grand or humble scheme - a passenger train needs a station, so one is born… North American N scale is noticeably smaller than British N. My adventures in British N have taught me a lot about what to include in a model, and where to suggest or omit details in other ways. Textures in N full stop can be awkward and I often use 3mm and 4mm scale embossed sheet in my structures and creations. Denton Road is full of this stuff! That said, sometimes there is nothing suitable - then I have two options. One, use a printed texture (such as on Paxton Road’s  office) or scratch build the surface. Adding the final window frame, carefully cut from bog standard A4 paper and secured with glue-n-glaze PVA adhesive. I had found some drawings of ‘typical’ standard Canadian station buildings and had determined what I wanted to build. The pro...

Since my first visit to Canada in 1989 I have held a desire to represent the emotions and feelings of the place and its railways in miniature. In the years that followed I visited a handful more times, different places but back home the same urge to create, to satisfy a yearning for the connection the railway offers to a nation forged on distance… I have worked on four, possibly five layouts with a Canadian theme. There have been successes, and perhaps some failure - but whilst I’ve enjoyed each and all of them I have struggled to create the wide open prairies of Saskatchewan and Alberta that I so vividly remember. Drumheller, Alberta. August 1989. James Hilton. The first, and perhaps closest encounter with success was a joint project with my late Dad, a man whose passion for Canada is, I’m certain, a large part of my fascination and connection with the place and its railways. I was working on a year in industry and spent the week in Macclesfield; I think the first I really remember of...