Early Layouts

The layouts we operated couldn’t have been more different. Mine began with an up and down shunting strip on a board in the garage and ended with a double tracked main line with two stations running around a large double garage. The layout had the capacity to run 9 coach trains with plenty of yard space for wagons and spare locomotives. My friend James’s was more of a model than mine with beautifully built buildings and scenery on a looping branch line with a mainline running around the back. Sadly I have no pictures of either but I still have fond memories of walking around to his house with a small bag containing a locomotive and rolling stock.

My very first proper layout was an 8^th or 9^th birthday present form my mother and Father. I had always had a hankering for something narrow gauge after visiting the Talylln and Ffestiniog railways and had probably pestered my parents for months over the issue. I remember visiting the Ffestiniog with my father on a very wet weekend. Inside Boston lodge works lay a number of narrow gauge layouts. All were to different scales and each modelled a different prototype but this I think certainly set the seed that would blossom over the next 20 or so years.

The First Layout

My father constructed a beautifully made baseboard that could be lifted onto the kitchen table. The railway was built to 009 standard, featuring a dock or port area with a number of sidings and an oval loop running around the outside. Stock was a variety of Lilliput and second hand items bought from Hatton’s model shop in Liverpool. The only locomotive on the line was an 0-6-2 called Zilletal from the Zilitahn railway but this proved more than capable of keeping me interested. I Anglo sized it a little by balancing a GWR safety valve cover over the back section of the boiler; I saw it as an attempt to make it look almost Welshpool and Llanfair in style. The layout had no buildings or scenery but this changed later that year as I created a welsh landscape with small quarry, tunnel and slate/dock transfer sidings. I built a small halt and used buildings from the Wills Grotty huts range to give the feeling of an old falling apart welsh narrow gauge railway.

Sadly my interest waned partly due to the fact 009 was so expensive and I really wanted some modern image 00 stock. My father was a great believer in selling or throwing away things that became inferior and investing in better models. So the layout went to the tip and the locomotive and stock were taken to Hatton’s and exchanged for a Lima intercity 125 and 7 MKIII coaches. This at the time was a great move but I do wish I still had the layout.

The Second Layout

The second railway was probably the most ambitious and sadly never got completed. My parent’s house had a spare double garage at the bottom of the garden that used to belong to a row of houses but had become derelict. Through some odd planning issues the land and garage had become my parents and my father decided to rebuild it for the great model railway. Being a large rectangular space with good light and insulation it proved the perfect place for a large-scale express main line. Base boards were constructed that ran around the outside of the room allowing enough room for two large stations and yards plus scenic breaks for the double track mainline to run through.

The scale was 00 H0 track running both steam and modern image dependent on which year it was that day. My father was always unhappy using peco H0 track and wanted to convert everything to EM gauge. His idea was to model GWR Brent station with a small branch and storage sidings. The track and stock would be built first and then installed once everything was ready. Now by this time my interest had moved onto other things and the prospect of spending 10 15 years on a layout seemed like an eternity to me. I also didn’t see the point in going super fine scale on a project this big, the cost to convert one locomotive was high enough. At this point I had my first car and was more interested in classic cars, So the railway was shelved indefinitely.

Sadly I have no images of the layout but I have most of the rolling stock and locomotives, which over the last 4 years have grown somewhat. The modern image stock has all been sold apart from my trusted class 47 and the GWR steam locomotive fleet now totals 73. Many of these are duplicates of classes but each feature different details. I hope one day to have at least one model of every class of GWR locomotive ever built, some project, I think you will agree!

The early years sharing the hobby

Although my interest in railways stems back through the family it must be said that part of its on going appeal was due to a shared interest with a childhood friend. Both of us went to the local primary school and lived within 10 minutes from each other. This meant that weekends would be spent at one another’s houses running our locomotives on each other’s layouts. Numerous shared trips to preserved railways and various locomotive purchases would fuel both of our interests in railways.

Our interests varied from GWR steam locomotives, through to BR steam and diesel, and later private owner locomotives. Both of us started to modify and improve our locomotives in an attempt to look more prototypical. Many were poor looking back but it marked a change of approach from playing trains to modelling railways. My first attempt at detailing began with a Lima class 47 in Scotrail livery (we both had a soft spot for this class). I removed the couplings added extra pipe work flush glazing and chain couplings. This would be the start to improve and create better models although at the start I was a little impatient. I remember my Dad remarking ‘You never let anything dry before you paint it, what’s the rush’ something I have noticed with regret as my Class 47 details have all dropped off in the box!

Archive Footage

While clearing through a mass of videos I stumbled across some archive footage of 'The Looms'. William Ellis is present with his Princess plus Jimmy James, my Grand Father and Great Uncle plus my Father as a young boy. The footage isn't great and will be put onto dvd when I get the chance but it gives an idea of the development of the plot of land. The film was made by my great uncle Ron and dates from around 1949/50, he had a keen interest in film, sadly all his home movies are missing. I am not sure who the American locomotive belonged to but I assume is was part of Jimmy James' collection. As can be seen in the later shots the LNER Pacific and coaches were built to a very high standard. I can remember wondering around the back of the property when it lay empty and seeing the coaches rotten and collapsed behind the hedge. My father and I didn't realise the locomotive was still locked away in its shed, my last view seeing it driven away on the back of a trailer on my way home from school. Also included on the reel is some early footage of GWR King George V at Chester and Clan Line? I would think in the early eighties

Real Steam

As described earlier the interest in steam and model railways can be traced back as far as my great grand father, Mr William H Ellis. The family no longer has any of his models but we do have a number of paintings, photographs and a selection of tools.

By all accounts my great grand father was a very strong minded man who’s language was always choice. My father notes in a small bio on the family, ‘he was a brilliant engineer in a variety of fields including aviation, automotive and railways as well as a painter and sculptor’. I remember my father relaying a story where by on returning to his workshop his grandfather had destroyed a car body he had been working on, saying ‘you would never had finished it and they were like oil slicks when new’ Not the most encouraging man it seems but he did past on his knowledge and instilled an interest that has been passed on to me so he can’t have been that bad!

I have a number of photographs in my possession that show the last model he made a live steam LMS Princess. Built around the late 30s early 40s to a gauge of either 31/2 inch or 5 inch the locomotive looks an impressive piece of engineering. There is some confusion about the gauge, as I know he built a number of locomotives of LMS design in a variety of scales. I would dearly love to track it down and perhaps even get the locomotive to run again, alas sadly not at the railway it spent many hours running on.

The locomotive is pictured at ‘The Looms’ firstly pulling a number of wagons and then appears in the corner of a number of photographs. I would really like to solve the mystery of the gauge, which is further confused by the history of the railway it ran on.

The photograph below shows the locomotive on a small bench possible confirming its gauge of 5inch?

'The Looms' was a large garden railway built by Jimmy James just outside Chester around 1930. It was located in an old orchard close to the Chester to Birkenhead railway line. The original layout was a built to a gauge of 3 ½ inches, running around the orchard with a 3 ½ / 5 inch or maybe 7 1/2 inch gauge raised level track running down one side. At some point the inner layout was replaced with a 7 1/2 inch and 5-inch gauge railway that ran around his house and orchard. This remained until about 1993 when the house and railway were sold. 

These pictures show the last running day 1983/4 with resident 71/2 inch A3 pacific built by Jimmy James and a visiting LMS Royal Scot. Today the buildings remain including the small shed down the side of the house, much of the original track bed is still visible forming planting boarders for the new residents

The railway used a variety of locomotives with the princess making regular visits. There are a number of other locomotives pictured in my possession which appear to be models built by Jimmy and my great grand father. I have also been able to dig out some very old film footage from about 1950, which shows locomotives running back, and forth on the demonstration line. This is of poor quality but once transfered to DVD it maybe possible to see other classes of locomotive.

The last picture shows Jimmy James with a relative operating a locomotive on the raised demonstration line. My father is on the left aged about 8 which makes this date to around 1953. Thirty years later I would be stood aged 3 next to Jimmy's A3, marking the beginning of my interest in railways.

3 Generations in one class of Locomotive

My interest in trains stems back to my father who was a passionate steam enthusiast and excellent model maker but its possible to trace the interest back to his father and grand father. Effectively the interest in trains and modelling goes back 4 generations. Unfortunately many of the models have long gone but I do have photographs that show some wonderful looking specimens. I am going to start with three particularly interesting models that mean a great deal to me spanning 3 generations of modelling. The fourth generation will have to wait as it’s classed more as live steam model engineering.

My Grandfather Cyril Ellis was a very competent modeller and engineer specialising in scratch built EM and 00 models in the 1950s and 60s. He had built a variety of LMS and GWR locomotives and was planning a layout of St Ives when he sadly died in his early 50s. As a family we don’t have much to remember him by something my father used to point out on numerous occasions. When Cyril passed away my father lent his tools and equipment to Cyril’s brother Ron Ellis. Ron was also a keen model maker and engineer who used the equipment until he passed away in 2007. Unaware to my father, and me the equipment was disposed of rapidly, much of what would have been my grandfathers and his before him disappeared never to return. All the equipment had been stamped with W.H. Ellis and C.R. Ellis; I still have a rummage of old tools just in case I see some initials. Thankfully my father was able to get some light tools and machining equipment but sadly that was it.

The 57xx is the only thing left of Cyril Ellis' modelling career. Made in the early 50s its completely scratch built in brass with a handmade motor. The only thing bought were the wheels sets everything else was either turned on a lathe or cut on a workbench. The model is built to 00 gauge but it was intended to be converted to EM. The locomotive won a number of prizes for the outstanding quality of modelling but it is no comparison to RTR 57xx available today. I have it sat on a point made by his brother Ron (incidentally the only thing of Ron’s we have) in a display case. There is also a box, which accompanies it with his address and details of another locomotive he was building that sadly no longer exists. The only other items are 3 badly knocked about modified triang coaches that were in the stages of a rebuild.

The 96xx is one of the few models my father refused to part with. It was his first kit built locomotive on a scratch built brass chassis made in the 1960s I think sometime in his late teens. This was intended to run on his father’s layout. The detail is quite remarkable and shares some of the details of his fathers; I think there must have been some healthy competition. It retains its original box dribbled with lumps of araldite that looked to have been mixed on its top. My father had up until about 8 years ago a complete set of Exley coaches, that he used to buy once every month with his father from Hatton’s model Shop on Smithdown Road, Liverpool. His uncle Ron Ellis had a complete set of LMS Exley coaches bought around the same time. Other locomotives and kits made by my father included a Bulldog 4-4-0 which was sold to buy 0 gauge models and 2 white metal wagons, a GWR 3 wheel milk van and a shunters pole wagon which are safely put on display.

The third loco an outside-framed buffalo is my creation made out of the remains of a triang chassis and a mainline 57xx body. The motion is built from plastic and brass, with dummy plastic card outside frames and brass brake gear. This was more of a small project to see what I could do with the remains of what was really only fit for the bin. It could do with some extra detail and a driver to hide the motor but I think it goes nicely with the other two.

So there we have it, the 3 GWR Ellis family panniers, spanning 60 years of modelling each one constructed from the materials of its time.  

Where did it begin?

Hello and welcome to what I call the beginning of a new dawn in my modeling career. From the age of 4 I can remember making and playing with trains. My father an excellent model maker and GWR fanatic ensured the interest was ingrained in me from an early age. My earliest memory being stood next to a hot simmering 7 ¼ inch A3 at ‘The Looms’ a family friends garden railway just outside Chester (pictured) This set the seed. My first layout started with an oval of track and an Airfix Prairie with motor taken out and a rake of badly knocked about coaches progressing to a lovely hand built 009 model railway built by my father (sadly no pictures). As my interest developed a large collection of GWR 00 Gauge was amassed culminating in a double tracked layout that ran around the garage, 9 coach expresses were something of a norm! Sadly through my late teens and early twenties I had other interests and gave up the hobby.

My father continued modeling off and on experimenting with EM for a number of years. It became obvious that the scale was too small for him to work with so he started building up a collection of fine scale GWR 0 gauge models instead. It was at this point my interest was reignited. The scale for me was very appealing, it allowed for greater detail and smoother running but it was expensive. I had very little money then so turned to scratch building and kit bashing. My first project was an 0 gauge Hymek built from a much modified Triang Big train (pictured). This set the tone and I soon had a Lima 4F on the chopping board. Great plans were hatched and a certain amount of competition arouse between us. Sadly my father passed away very suddenly before we had time to begin the great 0 Gauge garden railway project. I finished a number of models and for a time ran them at Gauge O Guild running sessions but it was not the same.

From this point on modeling became a form of therapy. I built one more scratch built O gauge locomotive a freelance Aveling Porter (pictured) and decided to give up on the scale. Money, space and the reality that the projects we had planned would not materialise made me pack up and sell what I had made. I kept hold of all my fathers’ collection which comes out now and again to stretch its legs on a family friend’s vast 0 gauge garden layout of Reading and Paddington.

So that was where I was up to about 3 years ago. I was keen to continue modeling but unsure of what scale and prototype to go for. I had always regretted parting with my 009 and thought maybe narrow gauge? I had a brief dabble with some 16mm, cutting some steal frames for a Vale of Rheidol locomotive but in the end settled for something in 7mm 0-16.5. I had toyed with the idea of 009 but this was a bit costly for my budget back then so a simple challenge was hatched, build a Quarry Hunslet as cheaply as possible for fun (pictured). That was the beginning of what some people might call an illness! This passion or obsession has grown somewhat and shows no signs of diminishing, so I invite you to jump on board and share in some of my creations……