Burghclere - 00 Gauge Exhibition Layout Under Construction
The Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway opened in two stages in 1882 and 1885, serving communities in rural Berkshire and Hampshire. The line was envisaged to serve the local communities between the main hubs of Didcot, Newbury and Winchester, as well as to provide a route for heavy through traffic onwards towards Southampton. The latter was never fully realised due to a lack of funding until much later on.
The line soldiered on under various owners, including the Great Western Railway and the Western Region of British Railways until passenger traffic ceased in 1960, and the line closing completely in 1967. Prior to this, the line served many useful purposes, such as a regular, if lightly used, passenger service for all stations along the line, and an array of freight traffic. The line came into its own during the Second World War when many troop and artillery trains traversed the line, resulting in improvements to the railway infrastructure to accommodate these long and heavy trains.
One of the communities provided for was the village of Old Burghclere, resulting in Burghclere being built during the second stage of the line's construction. (Interestingly, the village of Burghclere was better served by the next station on the line, Highclere.) The station consisted of two platforms, several sidings, goods shed and freight loading/unloading area, cattle dock and private sidings that lead to the nearby lime kilns.
It is this station that we are currently in the process of building a 4mm/foot scale model of. The layout consists of the station and goods yard area in the main scenic section, running off at either end to a multi-track fiddle yard to the rear of the layout, creating a continuous run. We are recreating the appearance of the station as it would have been in the mid to late 1940s, before some of the sidings were removed. However the intention is to run appropriate rolling stock in periods from the 1930s until just prior to closure in the mid 1960s to allow a diverse array of train movements.
All of the builds have been/will be scratch built to match the prototypes, as will the landscaping of the areas surrounding the track. Rolling stock will also be appropriate for the route, with care being taken to match the correct types of locomotives and stock. This has all been aided by the strenuous research undertaken prior to the layouts construction, which included poring over many books, photographs and articles on the subject, as well as a site visit to the real life location to take measurements and reference photographs of the existing buildings and structures.
As well as recreating the usual passenger and goods trains as were common on the line throughout its history, a feature of the layout will be the ability to operate freight movements down the lime kiln branch line to be loaded with dried lime and attached to pick-up goods trains.
More information on the progress of the layout will be posted here in due course.
The line soldiered on under various owners, including the Great Western Railway and the Western Region of British Railways until passenger traffic ceased in 1960, and the line closing completely in 1967. Prior to this, the line served many useful purposes, such as a regular, if lightly used, passenger service for all stations along the line, and an array of freight traffic. The line came into its own during the Second World War when many troop and artillery trains traversed the line, resulting in improvements to the railway infrastructure to accommodate these long and heavy trains.
One of the communities provided for was the village of Old Burghclere, resulting in Burghclere being built during the second stage of the line's construction. (Interestingly, the village of Burghclere was better served by the next station on the line, Highclere.) The station consisted of two platforms, several sidings, goods shed and freight loading/unloading area, cattle dock and private sidings that lead to the nearby lime kilns.
It is this station that we are currently in the process of building a 4mm/foot scale model of. The layout consists of the station and goods yard area in the main scenic section, running off at either end to a multi-track fiddle yard to the rear of the layout, creating a continuous run. We are recreating the appearance of the station as it would have been in the mid to late 1940s, before some of the sidings were removed. However the intention is to run appropriate rolling stock in periods from the 1930s until just prior to closure in the mid 1960s to allow a diverse array of train movements.
All of the builds have been/will be scratch built to match the prototypes, as will the landscaping of the areas surrounding the track. Rolling stock will also be appropriate for the route, with care being taken to match the correct types of locomotives and stock. This has all been aided by the strenuous research undertaken prior to the layouts construction, which included poring over many books, photographs and articles on the subject, as well as a site visit to the real life location to take measurements and reference photographs of the existing buildings and structures.
As well as recreating the usual passenger and goods trains as were common on the line throughout its history, a feature of the layout will be the ability to operate freight movements down the lime kiln branch line to be loaded with dried lime and attached to pick-up goods trains.
More information on the progress of the layout will be posted here in due course.
