Aldgate Hill & Norton Folgate

By David Wheelton & Jim Barry

The Aldgate Hill extension from Old Street was opened by the Great Northern Railway in 1888 in order to gain access to London’s east end and the docks in particular. Unfortunately for the GNR by this time the GER and the NLR had this traffic all but sewn up so that it was only the passenger facilities that got built.

The layout depicts the rail blue period between 1969 and 1975 (up to and including the TOPS renumbering). This allows green diesels with ‘D’ numbers through to blue locomotives with TOPS numbers to run together with a mixture of rolling stock. Trains portrayed are the local suburban turns to Finsbury Park and Hitchin (class 31 and non corridor coaches) with through coaches for Leeds and Newcastle to be attached to trains from Kings Cross at Hitchin. Other traffic is mainly Newspapers for the distribution centre at Norton Folgate and the occasional engineering train.

Built as a salute to CJ Freezer's famous ‘Minories’ concept, the layout has been built to 3mm scale using Ratio track and points by 3SMR. This layout could not have been built without the 3mm Society and the few independent suppliers brave enough to be involved in this scale. Use has been made where appropriate of old Triang models such as signals, the class 31s and modified suburban coaches. All other items of rolling stock are either kit or scratch built. The majority of the buildings on the layout make use of the excellent download kits from Scalescenes.

Notes for Exhibition organisers;

4-5 x operators,

Layout size 22 feet 6 inches x 18 inches

Free standing with built in lighting

Requires 1x 13 socket, 1 x stock table

Accommodation required over 40 miles or 1 hour travel.

Contact: Jim Barry Tel: 01270-662995 Email:. Jr.barry@hotmail.co.uk