Blimey - that's my local station!
Modelled in 7mm scale, this is part of Pete Waterman and his team's superb recreation of the place where he first became interested in railways. Since I last visited, a couple of years ago, the GWR station building has been built and looks great. There's still work to do but it's now easy to take photos from angles to recreate views I have seen in real life.
The whole thing is horribly sentimental. Look at the signal box at the north of the station, it was there when I first watched trains from the platforms in the early 1980s but long since gone, along with the all the semaphore signals that I also vaguely recall.
Although the model has been compressed in places, looking at it gives a whole new perspective on the remaining railway, especially those bits now standing idle but inaccessible and so unsaleable. You really get a feel for the life in the place 60 years ago. I miss those lines of 16t mineral wagons.
As ever, Pete and crew were very generous, letting the members run freely run trains. Gradually, those keen to get hands on with the MERG controller leaned to drive big, heavy trains over the gradients around the room. It's scary stuff taking a 12 coach teak set out of the platform, or letting a Peak with 15ft of wagons head off to areas you can't see from the operating position.
Brilliant fun though. See more photos from the visit over on Flickr.
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