This O gauge (7mm to the foot) Narrow Gauge layout depicts the station and mid-way passing point on the 2 3 gauge North Devon Light Railway (NDLR) modelled during the 1950s / early 60s.
The privately owned NDLR is operated by the Dewhurst Family, who still own and operate many businesses and farms in the area surrounding the family stately home of Bratton Hall. Lord Dewhurst of Bratton St.Andrew is determined to keep the railway running despite the fact that it has made a loss every year since the end of the war. It still carries goods and mineral traffic and a surprising number of passengers, due to the totally inadequate roads in this part of North Devon. The line uses a wide range of rolling stock, much of it purchased second hand from other lines that have closed. Motive power is still mainly steam but diesels are now making an appearance in an attempt to reduce running costs.
Although the layout depicts a fictitious railway and location, it has been built in such a way as to try and capture the atmosphere of what a rural line of this nature might have been like at the time.
The layout makes use of Peco O / 16.5mm trackwork and kit built rolling stock on commercial chassis but with Kadee couplings fitted. The buildings are all handmade, mainly using cardboard, and the scenery combines many of the usual modelling materials readily available from model shops these days.
[ Back to Narrow but Nice 2011 details ]
(c) 2011 SNGMs