Fantasy Highland
Childhood memories of a holiday near the Fort William line prompted Ian Morgan to build this alternative reality layout, with a keen focus on modelling authenticity and detail.
Ian Morgan’s Highlands layout was inspired by memories of a childhood holiday.
To me, the sound of Class 37s slipping on wet gradients is like listening to Led Zeppelin!” Ian Morgan’s description of the English Electric Type 3 is particularly apt. If locomotives were musical genres, then the ‘37s’ must be heavy metal. Their noise is one of the things that makes them so popular. But it’s when that throaty growl echoes around Scotland’s vast mountains and wilderness that makes the ‘37s’ so irresistible. It’s what helped cement Ian’s love of the Highlands. That love started during a childhood visit to the 1988 Glasgow Garden Festival. Rather than stay in the city centre, Ian’s parents, who were keen walkers, opted for Ardlui. It’s under 50 miles from the city but is in the heart of the Trossachs – and a stop on the West Highland Line, which, at the time, was a regular ‘37’ haunt. “From the age of 16, in the early 1990s, I regularly went to Scotland on my own,’ Ian recalls. “That’s when I began hiking in the Highlands and got a feel for the scenery of ‘Meanach’.” Those visits have clearly paid dividends. There are some fabulous Scottish layouts out there but ‘Meanach’ is one of a small band that truly captures something that’s missing from most: the height of the mountains and the depth of the valleys.
“I used Woodland Scenics moulded rocks to create the effect of bare rocks showing through the topsoil”
The most striking element is the eye-catching range of mountains that forms the backdrop. With bare rocks and brown grass growing at awkward angles, it just feels like a Scottish mountain, barren yet beautiful. “I carved some polystyrene blocks into the rough shape that I wanted,” Ian says, “and then covered them in car bodywork mesh, moulding it to a more precise shape. Using a Games Workshop earth colour and static grass to cover the mountains in the nice brown colour, I attached Woodland Scenics moulded rocks to create the effect of bare rocks showing through the topsoil. “These moulded rocks are the same ones used on the river bed to create water breaks. The river bed is Polyfilla that I moulded while it was still wet to make the ripples. I used Humbrol enamel paint of varying shades to create depth and then poured water fluid over the top in a few coats. “With the river complete, I wasn’t happy with the bank. It was just a sheer edge and I wanted more of a gradual slope, so I used some gravel from my garden to make it.” So where exactly is ‘Meanach’? In reality, it’s a lonely bothy in the foothills of Ben Nevis, not far from Loch Trieg. But the layout was actually inspired by an account in Ian Futers’ Scottish Layout Projects that described a proposal to build a railway that would take heavy goods vehicles off the A82,
that twists and winds its way between Glasgow and Fort William. Says Ian: “That book brought this proposal to my attention. It was the perfect fit for what I wanted– I could model a credible ‘what if’ scenario but not get bogged down with trying to accurately depict a real place.”
BIG BOARD
Ian took that idea and formulated a circular 13ft by 11ft layout in his loft. Lofts are always problematic for layout construction due to the extreme fluctuating temperatures. Naturally, Ian didn’t want his baseboards to warp or bow.
“One of my friends came to have a look and joked that he thought that I was building an ‘O’ gauge layout because the baseboards were so substantial. It may be over-engineered, but it’s been up there for nearly nine years, with the huge temperature differences, and it hasn’t failed me.” Originally, Ian planned to use Peco Code 75 track, but then he saw SMP finescale track on a friend’s layout. With its fine bullhead rail and correctly spaced sleepers, Ian was converted. “The result is much better,” he says. “The layout is only single track with a passing loop around the station and a 1-in-50 gradient – it didn’t take long to lay.” ‘Meanach’ may be a ‘what might have been’ scenario, but that hasn’t stopped Ian from being strict with himself about the time period, and what is and isn’t allowed to work on the line. “Everything is between September 1987 and January 1989,” he explains. “I’ve been really good about not buying things that are out-of-period. I’ve been back up to the Highlands many times since, and have become friends with John Hynd, a driver on the Fort William line who worked there during this time. “It’s really handy because I can send him a message
and check that something was working at the time before I buy it. I was able to make sure the operating practices were prototypical, so many thanks to him! I also owe thanks to Doug Johnson and Martyn Normanton for the electrics (which I hate) and Jon Gavin for the ‘Large Logo’, weathered ‘37s’.”
REWORKED AND WEATHERED
Nothing on the layout is straight out of the box – Ian has modified everything. All of the locomotives and rolling stock have been weathered and their tension lock couplings have been replaced with three-links. Ian says: “Alongside the modifications to the locomotives and the rolling stock, I’ve done some heavy kit-bashing to create the buildings. The signal box, for instance, is based on the one at Glenfinnan and is scratchbuilt from Wills plastic card sheeting for the exterior walls, with Glue ‘N’ Glaze from Deluxe Materials for the windows, and a balsawood roof. “I like working with balsawood and have also used it on the station building, which is a heavily kit-bashed Walthers North American station. I had actually finished the station before I’d bought the house in which I was going to build the layout!” Model railways are all about escapism. Rather than sit down and put Messrs Page, Plant, Jones and Bonham on the turntable, Ian can switch on his Gaugemaster Prodigy DCC system and, with the help of some sound decoders, can instantly be transported to the Highlands as a ‘Large Logo’ Class 37/4 powers its way to Fort William with a handful of Mk 1 coaches.
“The bed of the river is Polyfilla that I moulded while it was still wet to make the ripples”