I was in two minds as to whether to post this or not, especially as it is O Gauge related, but in the end I decided to.
[Moderators please delete if you think it is not applicable to this forum]

A friend of mine who lives literally 10 minutes away in Dawlish is an O Gauge modeller.
He has a pretty large, probably 30ft by 20 ft layout under construction  at my old club down in West Cornwall but back in the period roughly 2008-2015 he built, with assistance from a few pals, a rather magnificent layout in a purpose built building.

It is based on South Devon - mainly Rattery Bank and the Plymouth area.

Due to a house move the railway was dismantled.

My friend had some video footage but it was in various formats, several CDs, some files on his laptop, various memory sticks and a little bit of early phone footage.

Malcolm asked me if I could collate all of that into a watchable format as a memory of the layout for him which was a bit of a challenge as the videos were in various formats.

We had about 4 hours in total but a lot of it was of rather poor quality and taken, unfortunately, in less than ideal lighting  conditions.

Nevertheless I managed to do my best with what was available.

We took the decision to overlay the video with background music because the videos were a mixture of sound and no sound with in many cases a lot of background noise and chatter.
Please do turn the sound down if you don't like it.

It was, to my mind, a magnificent layout so, if you are interested, here goes.
Just a warning though that it is about 80 minutes long.
Oh and I do know that there are a few errors in the textual info but that's for another day to correct.

What you need is a beer hammer.
Hammer one side, beer bottle opener the other.

"Probably the best hammer in the world"

Came in very useful when I was dismantling a DJM 71. If you look closely you can see the tiny double ended motor with its two yokes.

Twice a year I have to think carefully when setting my oven timer for our Sunday morning freshly baked baguette. Luckily I have a degree in engineering. And a hammer.

Just a reminder clocks go forward in the small hours of tomorrow so we lose an hours sleep

This is a great thread!,
Emjaybee thats a wonderful layout, but I confess my eye was drawn to the wonderful wall of ephemera!

I'm afraid I don't have any pictures of my first railway.  My Dad built it for me and it was N gauge, my little bedroom had room for it and my bed only.  Dad built it high enough that we could hang my clothes under it and put everything else under there.  It was a 3'x 3' double track loop,(in a 6'6"x6'6" room!).  My first trainset was a Lima 31 and 2 coaches, unfortunately gone now, I know they were pretty rubbish but I did love that locomotive.

What's just as remarkable was that my Dad built it despite hating trains (something to do with being stuck in a train at Crewe for hours and hours when he was a squaddie!).  It was my mum who got me into them as she used to holiday at an Uncle's who was a signalman at Pencoed crossing on the South Wales mainline and used to stay in his house in a room so close to the track you could almost touch the trains

Graham

Quote from: Bealman on March 28, 2026, 11:45:32 AMA great potted history! Thanks for posting.

I like the little 009 bit tucked in the end!

A few years ago the 009 got a new lease of life. Dad said he wished he'd got something to run them on as for 30+ years all it did was occasionally potter back & forth in the timber yard.

So I built him this...





It's progressed somewhat since the last picture. It's fully ballasted & has a complete farm, crossing gates etc..

Oh, and the blighter now has my Double Fairlie on permanent loan!

Oh dear, Gareth.
Some people just can't be/won't be told and, sad to say, it's usually us oldies

A couple of months ago I mentioned how the father in law had another fall, broke his pelvis and 4 ribs. He has been in hospital since and was due home today.

We had a meeting with the various authorities last week along with the father in law and it was agreed due to mobility issues he would have care at home coming in 4 times a day, to get him up, meals, toilet etc and then to bed. He wasn't to try to do anything himself.

All this was met with a stupid grin from him which, as family, we knew didn't bode well.

It was explained if he had another fall he would be in hospital for even longer.

He lasted just over an hour. Decided to get up and go into the kitchen, fell over, cracked his head and was found on the floor by care at home having taken his lifeline off. He is already back in the hospital.

Quote from: njee20 on March 27, 2026, 07:57:00 PMWell they're not the ideal source of information on such things at this point. I read that Heljan weren't actively seeking a buyer, which is very different to being on the brink of collapse.

Well Heljan seem to have embraced it, and their senior staff are retained, so it can't have been too bad a deal.

Anyway, I expect it will all settle down in a while.

Bob

Quote from: cmason on March 28, 2026, 12:44:13 PMHmmm... Rails have taken my money for the pre-ordered hoppers already - but no news yet on the C-class. Hope I have not been gazzumped ( I did pre-order...).

No news on my C class either, Colin.
I checked the Bachmann website yesterday and it didn't say 'Arrived' so maybe Rails jumped the gun a bit