Photo Time warp - my first layout 1970s

[Noel]

I stumbled upon these old photos from 1970s by accident of Kingsbridge mk1.  My first layout started construction when I was about 12 and finished or as finished as I could get it when I was about 16.  Not sure what date these were taken in but I guess mid 70s.  What is remarkable is that they were in colour and I think I took them with my well traveled uncles colour Polaroid camera. Layout was built in converted attic space of old farm house.

Mainline through station with branch line diverting off into tunnel on inside platform. In background over bridge of raised single track branch line. In those days every once of track was precious and layouts were planned around the bit of track you had

Branch station with loop, engine shed, goods shed and small bay platform for GWR autocoach. Bachmann mk1 CIE livery coaches hauled by Bachmann CIE 215 (supposedly A class) on platform 1.  Lima CIE vans in siding with Lima CIE (BR) brake van.  The station lights used to work.

CIE 215 hauling 2 x Lima mk1 and 1 Tri-ang hand repainted coach (still have the lot), on lifting panel of raised branch line. The telephone posts all had fine wires between them.  Anybody old enough will remember the mass of telephone cables along all rail lines and the hypnotic effect they had when staring out the window of a laminate coach looking at the lush green country side then alive with live stock, hay cocks and humans at work on a living landscape. Can't remember what the foliage was but the bank was the usual paper mache covered in plaster mix, painted and scatter applied when paint was wet. I had a sort of OCD thing for telephone poles and cables along the railways.  

The layout was left behind after my father died a few years later we sold the farm, but I managed to save all the rolling stock, most buildings, signals, etc, and people figures.  I still have some of these buildings since adapted on my current layout, along with all the figures.  You can just about make out the red Tri-ang breakdown crane in the siding behind.The Lima stuff nowadays is gastly but back then I considered it razor edge fantastic - I had Irish trains to run and that was enough for a kid.

[jhb171achill]

Superb! Brings me back..... I had something similar...

I made a "laminate brake" out of cardboard, using copper wire glued onto it to imitate beading between panels, which worked well enough, though nowhere close to being comparable to anything seen today. This vehicle still sees use on Layout-of-Nephew. The sight of it behind a Murphy 141, though, would give me the collywobbles and screaming fits.

Yes, the telephone wires.....rising, falling, rising, falling.......... and was that A42 just passed us with the loose-coupled goods on the other line? (These Park Royals are draughty oul things....)

[Paddy Mac Namara]

Great memories, thanks for sharing. I must have got my first hornby "train set" when i was around 12, 1977. basic oval 040 loco wagons and a point. As some of you know “good toys” anything electrical was very expensive back then, so it was a great treat to get one

I lived in Tipperary, so no handy trip into marks models, I used to buy track, directly from Hornby by post paid for with postal orders. And then the seemingly long wait to get the part…very exciting.

Anyway had enough room, just about to set up an 8 x 4 in the bedroom, but it was a put up and take down job. By the time I was 16 I had a double oval with two locos (I am not a huge collector of locos, I have about 14 collected over almost 20 years, my 12 year old self would be thrilled). Station sidings and other buildings. The baseboard was painted green, that was it, not really modelling…but still.

We moved home so I had to sell it on…..i think I got an OK price for it all things considered.

Then the wife bought me a Flying Scotsman set in 1999….the rest is history