Liverpool Street toBethnal Green in nine years – and still counting
THE one- mile journey on the former Great Eastern main line between the Londonterminus of Liverpool Street andBethnal Greenshould takeabout four minutes, but it has so far taken Ian Lindley nine years, and he hasyet to reach his destination.
For rather than enjoying the comfort of a London Overground EMU, the 63- year- old retired town and country planning chief officer has chosen a painstaking, and at times frustrating, method of travel – anOO- gauge model layout that demands patience, skill and a financial outlay that he describes as “shedloads of cash”.
The figures behind the layout illustrate the enormity of Ian’s dream. It will measure a total length of 88ft – two sides of 32ft plus two ends of 12ft each – andawidth of up to 8ft, and therewill be 137 turnouts, 26 locomotives including B12 and B17 4- 6- 0s, D16 4- 4- 0s, and a variety of other tender and tank engines, 62 carriages, and more than 250 wagons. Therewill also be about 110 buildings built by Ian in plasticard.
Explaining the path which led to what has becomeamammoth modelling project, Ian said that as a five- year- old in the early 1960s he remembers watching summer expresses on the GWR main line south of Cheltenham Spa. “The drivers always waved,” he reminisced.
“At home, fromaHornby O- gauge clockwork tinplate, my father progressed me to electric OOgauge, and that led to successively larger layouts and experiments with buildings and scenery. I was hugely inspired by layouts featured in magazines, and built my own versions of a couple of layouts before searching for originality.”
That search, said Ian, took 36 years and resulted in his starting work in 2011 on the layout that he is still building.
Prototype
Askedwhy the Liverpool Street- Bethnal Green stretch, Ian replied:“I could have chosenasimpler andsmaller subject, butmywifeJill and I both recalled our separatevisits toLiverpool Streetbefore the office developmentsaround Broad Street andBishopsgate– memories madestrongerby the murky internal atmosphereand rather confusing platformaccess.
“We both experienced running for trains, climbing seemingly endless steps against a tide of opposing people, crossing over bridges, down and up more steps, to arrive at a platform in time to see the train depart. We wanted to capture the character of somewhere relevant to us both.”
Ian chose to set the layout in 1935, which he says allows for a range of interesting motive power and rolling stock in a setting which had adapted only slowly over time. “I also wanted to recapture the grime of a living and working city powered by coal, which reignites childhood memories of English industrial towns before the impact of the Clean Air Act.”
Research on the layout’s urban scenerywas an inspiring part of the ambitious project for Ian, due to his days as a planning officer that included economic development, landscape and open space reclamation and housing renewal, and also because of his interest in industrial and railway architecture, and the history and development of urban areas.
“For me, much of the enjoyment is hunting for old images and deciphering photos taken on a smoggy day by an indifferent camera, captured on subsequently decayed film, or printed on now yellowing magazine pages. Is it a recess, a gap between buildings, what does the Ordnance Surveymap show, how could I build it? Irrespective of the time taken in research, I normally find missing information shortly after having committed to a scheme. We call it ‘ Lindley’s luck.’
“However, connoisseurs must take warning. The model is only influenced by the real thing and is not a truly accurate depiction, although I have tried, where possible andwhen it seems worthwhile and enjoyable, towork fromoriginal imagery as closely as I can. I have limited lifespan, funds and skills, so I have had to make adaptations and shamelessly manipulated geography and history for practical reasons.”
With the layout being in the loft of his home in the Scottish borders, Ian muses:“The Great Eastern Railway never had to contend with copious roof rafters and four right- angled bends.”
Construction
Thereare, headds, hours of frustration. “Finding the bits I knowIhave, dropping andsearching vainly for the tiniest of parts, embedding splinters in sundry parts and cutting largechunks offmy fingers, and expending shedloads of cash for a space- hungrymonster that, despite being built in 2ft loft rafterlength sections for easy dismantling, will be an absolutepig to disassemble.”
And how far has he to go?“I am working steadily towards Liverpool Street, where I anticipate the train shed will be a constructional nightmare, but the estimated time of arrival is a little uncertain, and so for the moment the layout is a static display. By the time I am96, I may have finished!”