All about the intricacies
A family connection and an obsession for detail led Geoff Thompson to continue developing this heirloom layout begun by his father.
A family connection led Geoff Thompson to model this historic Oxfordshire station.
January 30 1965. Just over 53 years ago to the day, the small Oxfordshire station of Handborough, on the old Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway, became one of the most famous places on the planet. The world’s attention focused on the arrival of Bulleid 4-6-2 No. 34051 Winston Churchill and a featherweight train comprising five Pullman cars and a bogie luggage van. Inside luggage van S2464S were the mortal remains of Britain’s wartime leader, Sir Winston Churchill. Born in nearby Blenheim Palace, Churchill’s body was laid to rest in the churchyard at Bladon; Handborough just happened to be the nearest railhead. Preparation for the funeral procession was lengthy and it was carried out with military precision. Mourners flocked to pay their last respects. Handborough station, therefore, has a small but significant place in British history. For Geoff Thompson, however, Handborough plays another significant role.
His great-grandfather and uncle both worked at the station, and his father lived just 300 yards away from the platforms. It was Geoff’s father who began the layout in 1985, modelling the 1930s and 1940s. It passed to Geoff, who moved it forward in time to depict the 1960s (prior to a change in spelling – Handborough became ‘Hanborough’). Geoff also turned what was an end-to-end arrangement into a continuous run loop. “When I came into possession of the layout,” he explains, “I wanted a full loop, rather than
the end-to-end that it had been, but I also needed to save as much space as possible because I use the garage a lot for other activities. I decided to put a loop on both ends and two lines behind the backscene to allow me to run the trains continuously. “This brought the layout size to 13ft 2in by 2ft at the widest point of the loop, narrowing to 16in in the middle, including the back lines. The loops are built on 7mm MDF, mounted on softwood frames, with the middle baseboard made from 11mm Sundeala board.” With the ever-growing presence of DCC, many layouts have been converted to digital. But Geoff doesn’t feel the need to do this. “I use my Gaugemaster analogue controller and isolate the sidings and the main line without difficulty. The railway wasn’t very busy so I don’t like to have trains constantly passing through the station and didn’t consider DCC necessary.”
SCALE SOLUTIONS
The range of proprietary products available in ‘N’ is much smaller than in ‘OO’, but Geoff has devised some rather interesting solutions to problems that he couldn’t solve with off-the-shelf products. “I had difficulty finding coal in ‘N’ gauge and was advised to buy ‘OO’ gauge coal, put it in a bag and break it with a hammer. This was a complete disaster and it just went everywhere, so I decided to put the coal into an electric coffee grinder. It worked perfectly, but the grinder is now useless for making coffee! “I also struggled to find materials thin enough for some of the other scenic elements, such as the washing lines at the cottage and the stationmaster’s house. My wife provided me with the perfect solution though – one of the hairs from her head! The thickness is perfect for the scale and supports the clothes with ease; there is a solution for every problem if you’re willing to be a bit creative.” With the layout having been moved so many times, lightness was essential. Geoff has used a cardboard structure as the base for the hills at each end of the layout, to which he then glued brown wrapping paper. “Once the wrapping paper was laid down, I could add earth colour materials and paint it green before adding static grass and Woodland Scenics earth material at random intervals to provide some variation.”
“I wanted a full loop, rather than the end-to-end that it had been, but I also needed to save as much space as possible”
“The layout is accurate to the millimetre wherever possible”
Modelling from MEMORY
The cottage on the hill is a model of his grandparents’ house, complete with greenhouse and vegetable patch. Finding the materials to build such delicate buildings is always difficult, but once again Geoff found a solution using items he had about the house. “The glass for the greenhouse is made from old model packaging that I glued together, to which I added 0.5mm2 point rodding to replicate the edge of each panel before surrounding the base with brick paper. The cottage itself is made from corrugated cardboard which I then covered in decorator’s caulk before hand-carving the bricks into it and painting it.”
The tunnel portal brickwork was modelled with a high level of accuracy. Geoff hand-carved it while looking at pictures of the brickwork on his computer. The result is that every brick on the layout is the exact relative size and shape of the real thing. “The layout is accurate to the millimetre wherever possible. My dad and brother went down to the station with a tape measure when he was starting the layout so that they could measure the buildings and platform to ensure that the layout was a perfect scale model. We have since had to shorten the station building by 5mm as it was slightly too long.” “I’ve always got alterations to make and, as everyone knows, a layout is never truly complete; while I look forward to my subscription copy of Model Rail landing on my doormat every month, I’m always left with many more improvements to make after reading it!” Geoff’s next tasks are to add some sidings on the left of the layout for storage and remodel the backscene. “I want to change the backscene away from being just a blue sky backdrop, but this is going to involve a lot more research as I’ll need to get the positioning of the buildings exactly correct.” Patience is key when it comes to modelling in ‘N’ gauge, and for Geoff and his father this has certainly been the case. Over a span of 33 years and numerous relocations, ‘Handborough’ is now a credit to Geoff and his family who have worked around the station for generations. We look forward to seeing what, no doubt, will be superb additions soon!