Quester's Gallery
Browse a selection of fantastic layouts from fellow model rail builders.
Do you have a model railway layout you'd like to be featured on the Model Railway Quest website? Send me your best photos along with a short description and I'll add your layout to my gallery page. I'll be choosing some of the best for a featured blog post. All you have to do is send your layout details to modelrailwayquest@gmail.com and write Gallery in the subject line.
March 2024
Parklands County (HO) - Rob Read
St Mary Harbour - Daniel Gutiez
I'm a French modeller, fond of UK railways. This is my first showcase made in a wine box, a fictitious little harbour: St Mary Harbour.
Turquar 7 - Mel Laycock
A crossover of two hobbies: wargaming and railways. Called Turquar 7, it is completely modelled from Games Workshop, Warhammer 40K models. It fits with the rules and ethos of the game. Another feature of the layout is the amount of interaction with the public. The trains are set up behind the scene but the public drive it onto the layout and shunt the rolling stock around. The layout will next be exhibited at York.
Karlea Fell - Keith Tompkins
Midsomer Parva (N) - Chris Sharp
Midsomer Parva is a micro N gauge layout built in a standard box file with a circle of track to enable a simple continuous run. The track extension is made from foam board and card. The road bridge and storage shed (a freebie) are Scalescenes downloadable kits. The other bridge is a Peco product. The Halt platform is scratch built and the waiting hut is an old Langley white metal kit. The back scene on the box lid is a photo of the Herefordshire Welsh border. Street furniture and sheep etc are from various sources
Midsomer Parva is a quiet rural backwater set in the western region where the big axe of Mr Beeching failed to fall. DCI Barnaby and Det Sgt Jones are rumoured to be in the area but have yet to be seen!!!
Rowley & Muggleswick (N) - Tom Dodds
Model railways don't have to be big and expensive. With Rowley & Muggleswick, I set out to see what I could build in a small space on a budget.
Out shopping one day, I saw a 400mm x 400mm bamboo tea tray in Tesco for a tenner and thought that, flipped upside down, it would make a base for a small working diorama. On a visit to Beamish Museum in County Durham, I thought that Rowley Station building would make a good subject to model.
The layout is a simple DC end-to-end ‘shuttle’, with a spur to a cattle dock. It can operate four different train types: three steam formations and a ‘Bubble Car’ diesel unit. In ‘auto shuttle’ modes, either a Bubble Car or a steam-hauled ‘Autocar’ can shuttle backwards and forwards reasonably prototypically. Manually, it’s possible to detach a cattle wagon from a train and work it into the siding.
All the wagons are kits, some fitted with Peco lift arms on the couplings to enable shunting. The cattle trucks have been modified to make them a little more prototypical, and all three are slightly different. The backscene is elements cut from Yorkshire Tea boxes!
The layout was built for around £200, but if you already had some electronic components, it could have been built for £140. I have spent about £400 on locos, Bubble Cars and rolling stock (rather self-indulgently, I have two Bubble Cars, so it could have saved another £100 by just having one).