Location: STEAM Museum of the Great Western, Fire Fly Avenue, Swindon, SN2 2EY
Date:Saturday 1st March 2025
Time:10:00 - 16:30
Admission: Adult £7.00, Children under 16 free when accompanied by an adult. Admission to STEAM museum is not included and is not required to visit the exhibition. The museum will be offering a combined discounted entry to show visitors.
Sponsor: Swindon Model Railway Club
The exhibition organiser set us a friendly challenge to display a long, thin layout design on six tables this year. Swindon Model Railway Club kindly donated us a pair of second-hand Kato scissors crossovers at ModRail 2023, and now we've returned with the crossovers working in our layout.
In N scale, six tables is approximately a scale mile, so it takes a few minutes for a train to run from one end to the other of our "system layout": we've got terminus stations at each end, an intermediate station, and a set of sidings to stable spare trains. The aim of the game was to run a busy train service and keep as many trains moving as possible. We had at most four trains shuttling back and forth at a time, mostly Class 153s with a Class 158, Class 150, or Class 170 for variety.
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Layout plan. |
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Our Left/West Junction, which connected to the Weston Riverside terminus station. |
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Our Right/East Junction, which connected to the Monkton Park terminus station. |