Hazel Markham - Conception

Hazel Markham – an OO9 model railway

Back as a kid, my dad built me a model railway, TT scale, on a standard door board which meant it fitted on the dining room table, then hinged to my box room bedroom wall then later in the alcove in the back bedroom.

When I was 17, I thought it would be a good idea to include a narrow gauge railway on the layout to serve the quarry. I then thought the narrow gauge would need somewhere to go, so checked with my parents’ then flattened my TT model railway, an action I still regret and feel guilty about (the work my dad put into building it and the money he spent on it) and needless to say the new layout never got built.

But considering laying a quarry line (and the odd holiday in Wales) did spark an interest in narrow gauge railways and after many years there was an interest again in building a new layout, there have been a number of false starts, but now the time has come.

The concept.

I wanted a smallish layout, there’s not much room at home, and I wanted narrow gauge and something that was interesting to operate.

Like many railway modellers I scanned the internet for ideas and whittled it down to a couple, the one I liked most was the Fairlight Works / Harrowgate Gas Works railway http://fairlightworks.narrowplanet.co.uk/2010/02/planning-harrogate/  so I spent some time putting my own slant on the track plan, I drew up the plans and built the base board, then start laying the track.

I then realised I had fallen into the old trap, trying to fit too much into too smaller space, not only that, but I realised the layout was too complicated, messy and wouldn't operate the way I wanted, so time for a re-think.

Two things came to mind -

1] I needed to come up with my own layout, not re-gig someone else work.

2] There are or have been a large number of prototypical track plans out there in the real world that worked operationally and fulfilled their purpose.

So where should I look, well I was brought up in Harpenden in Hertfordshire, which once boosted 3 railway lines the MR / LMS line from London St Pancras to Bedford and beyond, the Harpenden to Hemel Hempstead (Nickey) line and the GNR / LNER, LNWR / LMS Welwyn to Leighton Buzzard, via Luton and Dunstable, now I remember all three running and in steam, I also remembered that the latter was single track with a passing loop at Harpenden East Station, sounded interesting, 

so time for a look at the Disused Stations Web Site and yes Harpenden East station was listed http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/h/harpenden_east/ .

Looking at the maps, the station had a goods shed, cattle pen, coal siding, signal box and what looked like an interesting track layout. The Disused Stations Web Site also contains a number of photos.

I sketched out the track plan and had a play tracing various operations and yes it seemed to work well, the plan would obviously need to be condensed and with Ox Lane being made to go over the railway instead of below on one side and Station Road on the other I had my frame work and boundaries for the model.

The other advantage is I know the area and there are still some features existing I can use as reference.

So I had my track plan, I just needed a name - my partner’s name is Hazel and mine is Mark, be nice to use them so just to make it a bit more placey, stick Ham on the end – Hazel Markham