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I have my father to thank for building me a train set when I was very young and for indulging my ever-growing hobby at birthdays and Christmas. I have always had a train set as long as I can remember. Like so many other kids I would add to it, change it or re-build it from time to time. They were always 'OO' gauge trainsets. 'N' gauge had not really been 'invented' as a commercial reality when I was young and I would probably have been too hamfisted to do anything with it in any case. 'O' gauge in the form of the old Hornby tinplate was definitely on the wane in the 1960s and it was 'OO' gauge that most parents were buying for their children at the time. All this kept me happy for years, either having the train set up in my bedroom and then, following a move of house, in the cellar. I started building my first 'serious' end-to-end layout in the cellar of my parent's house when I was about 15, using Peco track and making crude scratchbuilt buildings. A year or so earlier I had joined the school model railway club and helped build a club layout in our very cramped premises next to the main hall. While the club layout was in an unfinished state the headmaster asked us to move elsewhere on the site. We traded a small but well-lit room for a larger space under the gym with no natural light! It was all good, clean fun, though, and definitely better than football or cross country running. When we joined the Sixth Form, a few of us got together to form the '005 Society' (click on 'Other Items' for more information on 005). I eventually moved on to 16.5mm finescale and with the help and encouragement of friends, set about aiming for higher standards of modelling. I started a new layout based on a fictitious GWR branch line in Herefordshire, but this didn't advance much due to my going to University and then getting a job with British Rail.
My railway career started at Taunton in the 1980s In the university holidays I had started to build loco kits for a local model shop as a way of earning a bit of spare cash, and this activity took up most of my available modelling time for several years. In the 1990s, having got married and moved house a few times, I built my first exhibition layout 'Engine Wood', followed a few years later by 'Bleakhouse Road'. I am planning to build an extension to Bleakhouse Road - 'Burrowbridge' - which will also be capable of standing alone as an exhibition layout in it's own right (click on 'New Projects' for more information). More recently I have started to model in P4, although I intend to stay with OO finescale as well. One of the pleasures of exhibiting is the variety of people you meet and the chance to exchange ideas and gossip. I also help friends out with their own layouts from time to time, which can be quite relaxing when you know that you're not responsible for packing everything away at the end of the show! My modelling philosophy is to aim to get it all 'looking right' (whatever that really means when you are dealing with a hobby that involves a fair degree of artistic interpretation) and putting as much detail into each model or scene as I reasonably can. A good maxim on exhibition layouts is to say that 'if you cannot see it from normal viewing distance, why bother putting it in?' Fair enough and I do sometimes do this, but I generally try to put as much detail in as possible, because it's not just the exhibition visitor who always stays at 'normal viewing distance' that I am catering for. Lots of people crane forward and squint right up close....and so do I! The signalbox on Bleakhouse Road, for example, has full interior detail, right down to the open Train Register on a typical high wooden desk, but until I connected up the lighting in the box recently, no one could look in to see it (but mainly because I glued the roof on!). I also like to weather the locos and stock (and the layout itself) to reflect the condition that the prototype tended to be in in the my models are set (1959 - 1964......ish). The availability of so many books with colour photographs from the B.R. steam era on the market nowadays is a real help in this respect. The techniques for weathering models cannot be explained better than by Martin Welch in his book 'The Art of Weathering' (published by Wild Swan), but it is so much easier if you have a good colour photo or two to work from. Then there's always the debate between OO, EM and P4.......there has been much correspondence on this subject in various model railway periodicals over the years and more recently on the internet. Some people seem to think that manufacturers will suddenly want to start mass producing EM or even P4 R-T-R models. There has been an alternative viewpoint expressed to the effect that modellers of the UK scene should all convert to HO (at the same time as adopting the Euro, no doubt). This is all very well but I can't get too excited about it, I'm afraid. I think that OO is here for a long time yet, as the majority of customers who buy model railways/train sets don't really worry about the inaccurate scale/gauge ratio. It would be nice to be able to buy R-T-R EM or P4 models, but I just don't think that Bachmann et al will go there..... In the past, a number of people asked me why I hadn't converted to EM or P4. Some were even kind enough to suggest that the trackwork on Engine Wood or Bleakhouse Road looks EM (one guy, who I know models in P4, actually thought it was P4!). Well, there are several reasons, and the mere fact that I am saying all this must mean that I acknowledge that 16.5mm gauge is not right. I have always liked the idea of being able to run R-T-R stock on the layouts straight away if I want to, even though I would not normally exhibit anything until it has had the weathering and detailing 'treatment'. It is helpful that Bachmann wheel standards will run through my finescale pointwork with no modification (except for the bogie and tender wheels on my Austerity, which used to clatter over the C&L chairs until I changed them for Markits RP25 wheels). The new Heljan 47 and Hymek are the same and even Hornby have widened their back to backs for their most recent models (so I understand) to make them more compatible with finer scale pointwork. To be perfectly honest, I stayed with OO because: a) the thought of converting everything was (and remains) too daunting b) I can borrow/loan stock with friends who also do 16.5mm c) I do think that well built and weathered track in 16.5mm can look good as long as you don't dwell on the 'head on' view too much. I have been a member of both the EMGS and the Scalefour Society for several years, because they represent the finescale end of the 4mm hobby, which is where my interests mainly lie. In late 2003 a new Area Group of the Scalefour Society was formed locally and together with other members living in the locality, I was invited to come along to an inaugural meeting in a local pub. I went along and met other like-minded modellers and had a very good time. I was still completely committed to developing my OO projects at the time and didn't really think that we would do anything other than meet in the pub once a month and have a good chat about our hobby. How wrong I was! By the time we next met in January 2004, plans for a Group test track were being drawn up and one of our members had found a venue for us to meet once a month. It was clear that unless I wished to remain an armchair member, I would have to start building something in P4. This was the impetus I needed and during 2004 I started building and converting locos and rolling stock, although I have left the existing OO exhibition stock intact. Being part of the Scalefour Area Group has been a very rewarding experience, with new friendships being made and useful experience and tips being shared. We now meet twice a month and I am now planning to start construction of my first P4 layout - Callow Lane Goods - in 2005. I think that it all boils down to personal choice at the end of the day, because there are a lot more serious and important things going on in the world today and this hobby should be about bringing a bit of light relief and fun to our lives.
I still work in the railway industry, but find that doing the models is a good way to unwind after the rigours of the working day (you'd be surprised how many model railway enthusiasts there are out there working for 'the big railway!'). Sara, my wife, is also creative - she designs and makes cloth dolls. This hobby is really big in North America, but has yet to really take off in the U.K. One of our favourite holiday destinations is Prince Edward Island in Canada. We love going there, even though the last trains ran in 1989! My sharp gricer's eye can usually spot the disused railway formations but Sara is even better at finding the craft and fabric shops! Cloth and other fabrics are really cheap in Canada compared to the UK and we usually end up stuffing our suitcases with the stuff (once we even had to buy a new suitcase over there to accommodate all the dolls and fabric we had bought - who says it's just the train nuts who are fanatics?!). Sara has her own website at http://www.clothdollcreations.co.uk/where you can view her lovely creations for yourself. Sara is also Secretary of the Parochial Church Council for our local church at Dean Prior. This is a lovely old church situated next to the A38 between Marley Head and Buckfastleigh in Devon. You can find out more at http://www.deanpriorchurch.co.uk I do have other interests besides railways (oh really?!) - I have always been fascinated by battleships and the like and am currently 'into' the novels of Patrick O'Brian, who writes about the wooden Royal Navy of the Napoleonic era. His descriptions and characters really bring the stories to life and I really enjoyed the film 'Master & Commander' when it was released in November 2004. We have two cats - Comfrey (large, black & white male, who likes his biscuits) and Tarragon (small ginger female, who also likes Comfrey's biscuits).
All this, listening to music, reading, country walks, gardening, going to Tesco etc. keeps us occupied when we are not working. I have to say that I could not possibly have contemplated constructing this website without the help and support of Sara, to whom I am very grateful.
Please note that all written and photographic material on this website is the intellectual property of and copyright Tim Maddocks 2005, unless otherwise credited.
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