Before I bought the Roco train set I started to take the Railway Modeller every month, and found plenty of articles about 009 models to give me ideas. Later on I also bought a copy of P D Hancock’s book ‘Narrow Gauge Adventure’, about his layout The Craig & Mertonford Railway. I still have this book, a first edition dated 1975, which must be the year I bought it. The other good move I made was to join the 009 Society, and swell the ranks of the seekers after bargains at the second-hand stall when visiting exhibitions and AGMs. The stall was run by a young chap called Brian Guilmant – I wonder what he's doing now?
Another influence was Michael Andress's book Narrow Gauge Model Railways - I see there's a copy for sale on Amazon for £23 as I write this. An early purchase was a PECO book called ’60 Plans for Small Layouts’, which gave me the idea for my first proper layout, Bowcester & Vayne I, establishing a name that has lingered up to the present day. This was in the prevailing tradition of rabbit-warren layouts that 009 seemed prone to at this period. The running wasn't great – probably down to the odd points – and when it did run, watching the train run round and round soon began to pall.
We lived in a bungalow at this time, with a loft that was part-floored and had lighting and good head-room, so I decided to expand up there. For the next several years my modelling was punctuated by plaintive cries from my wife and children floating up through the hatch, complaining that the loft ladder was blocking access to the toilet. However, I was not to be put off, and after a deal of head-scratching and plan drawing, I started construction of Bowcester & Vayne II.
In 1976 we had a family holiday to Wales, staying in Harlech, and by a combination of cajoling and bullying I managed to drag my wife and daughters around all the Little Railways of Wales. The FR only ran as far as Dduallt at that time, but we duly made the journey there and back, up the TR to Nant Gwernol, along the VoR to Devil’s Bridge. We also visited the Bala Lake and Llanberis railways, and even drove over the mountains to the W&LR, although for some reason we didn't ride on that one. From then on, whenever I was required to fly over that way, I managed to plan my route to take in the railways, until my pilots cottoned on to what I was doing, and only the ones who were interested would cooperate – there were dark mutterings in the crew-room about “b***** Corser and his b***** railways”.
Up to this point my layouts had been placed in a fictional ”somewhere in England” setting, but exposure to the Welsh lines started me thinking that my sort of models were meant to run in that sort of location, so I searched around on OS maps for a suitable spot. After much consideration, Bowcester & Vayne II was dismantled, and the Banwy Valley Railway appeared in its place. Not only did this have the required Welsh sound, but I didn't have to repaint the rolling stock with a new set of initials. The Banwy Valley reappeared in several incarnations over the years.
However, this was to be my last effort in 009, as I realised that there were some other railway modelling scale and gauge possibilities that I wanted to explore.
Page created 26 April 2011 Last Edited 12 May 2011