In the mid-1950s, Geoff Williams began researching and modelling Aylesbury LNWR station in 4mm scale 18.2mm gauge. The model was built in the large loft of Geoff’s house where the space was used to painstakingly create a faithful replica of Aylesbury station as it would have looked in the pre-grouping LNWR period immediately before the Great War.
AYLESBURY (LNWR)
Andrew David
FACT FILE
Layout Name: Aylesbury (L&NWR)
Scale/Gauge: 4mm scale, EM gauge
Size: (including fiddle yards): 36' x 7'
Era/Region: 1911 L&NWR Buckinghamshire
Layout Type: Fiddleyard to terminus
The late Geoff Williams’ model of Aylesbury High Street station was created in the 1960s and early-1970s. Geoff settled on this location as a suitable LNWR terminus with the added interest of an adjacent gasworks - he himself being a site engineer with Eastern Gas. His aim was to reproduce faithfully the prototype as it would have looked in 1911, and thus the layout has become known as ‘Aylesbury LNWR’ - although the platform signs as modelled bear the authentic nomenclature of ‘Aylesbury'. Through various appearances in the model railway press over the two decades after its creation, the layout became something of a legend, due to its groundbreaking finescale modelling; and now, some 55 years on, it has been given a new lease of life by Risborough & District Model Railway Club. This came about as a result of your author - an admirer of Geoff’s exquisite and pioneering workmanship since the 1970s - contacting Geoff ’s son Mike Williams when the layout was offered for sale in 2012.
Mike kindly showed me over the layout, which was then stored in his loft, and this led to its acquisition, with a view to being put on public display, by Risborough & District MRC. In fact it will be showcased as a working layout for the first - and maybe only - time at Railex 2016 - the Club’s forthcoming exhibition at Stoke Mandeville Stadium in Aylesbury on May 27/28.
ACCOMPLISHED MODELLING
The layout is actually ‘Aylesbury Mk 2’; Geoff was unhappy with his 1950s ‘Mk 1’ version and sold it to the late Pat Whitehouse before starting afresh. Both layouts were designed for home use. The first layout was stored in a chimney breast when not in use, while Mk 2 was snugly built into the family’s loft, and therefore has never been shown fully operational at an exhibition until now.
The gauge chosen was 18.2mm, at a time when most EM modellers were still working to 18mm - prior to the general adoption of 18.2mm by the EM Gauge Society - and P4 (18.83mm) was still in its infancy. This was an era long before modern-day techniques such as CAD or laser-cutting, or materials and products such as embossed plastic card, or Hornby or Bachmann finescale ready-to-run stock - so kit-building and scratch-building were the order of the day. Geoff ’s professional abilities as an engineer, and as an accomplished amateur artist, are clearly reflected in this carefully engineered and beautifully presented 36ft long layout. This quality simplified the Risborough Club layout team’s task of preparing the layout to be exhibited.
On the technical side, we have re-wired the layout, converted the locomotives to DCC and made some adjustments to the baseboards, which were designed as a built-in loft unit. We were astounded and delighted to see the 55-year-old motive power and rolling stock run trouble-free at first go, even after almost 20 years in storage. The Rivarossi couplings combine ease of operation (over three-link couplings) yet are also discreet while not impeding the overall realistic image of the layout. Geoff ’s son Bob has pointed out that when the manufacture of this type of coupling was discontinued, his father decided to make his own spares to match,
We were astounded and delighted to see the 55-year-old motive power and rolling stock run trouble-free at first go, even after almost 20 years in storage rather than adopt a different system. The marshalling of trains off-stage is facilitated by a mechanical traverser positioned at the end of the scenic section, built along the lines of Peter Denny's fiddleyard model and utilising Meccano parts with a handoperated chain mechanism.
A timetable based on a typical weekday has been devised by Geoff ’s son, including the arrival and departure of a race day excursion, and the various passenger, goods and mixed train movements associated with an early 20th Century market town terminus. Geoff is said to have insisted on avoiding the intervention of giant human hands (in the late Reverend Peter Denny’s words ‘crane shunting’) when operating the layout, resulting in some stressful operating sessions, according to Bob. The operating team may need to relax this ‘no crane-shunting’ principle for running at Railex in May.
VISUAL DEPTH
On the presentation side, having been stored in a relatively dust-free environment for many years,the scenery needed only minimal titivation to make it presentable. It shows off to good effect the foreshortening of the shops and houses in the lower end of the High Street and other surrounding streets, as the eye follows their receding outline to an imagined vanishing point. This somewhat exaggerated perspective lends a visual depth to the model that is rare, even on more up-to-date layouts. There is also a careful blending of scenery into the sensitively painted backscene. The layout is designed to be viewed from a somewhat oblique horizontal angle, positioned on its supports at a higher level than the usual 4ft 6in from floor level.
The very high standard of realism - hard to capture through a camera lens - to which the layout was constructed, is witnessed by such details as the portrayal of Aylesbury prison on the backscene, or the metal fencing scratchbuilt from fine-toothed combs purchased from Boots the Chemist. Realism is also captured by the detailed modelling of the osier plants, cabbages (made from cloves picked out of tinned fruit) and the trees, many of which - so Geoff 's widow assures me - are made from human hair - her hair. The positioning of train crews in an active, working stance, a half-opened carriage window, with a passenger or a guard leaning out, all bring a sense of life to the model. It all adds weight to fellow EM modeller - and Geoff ’s contemporary - Peter Denny‘s declared maxim, that a layout should present a holistic “model railway, rather than being merely a collection of models in front of a scenic backdrop”.
PUBLIC DISPLAY
Considerable interest is anticipated at the forthcoming showing of the layout at Railex 2016 in Stoke Mandeville which, serendipitously, is within two miles of the prototype location and easily accessible both locally and nationally. No doubt the pioneering scratchbuilding and realism of the layout, with its Pre-Grouping setting, will evoke personal memories of the prototype and of a bygone age for local visitors, while at the same time appealing to the wider exhibition-going public. To enhance the viewing experience of this unique and historic layout, it is intended that ‘front-of-house’ personnel will be available to offer information and answer questions about the layout.
In addition to the work done by Risborough club, we are indebted the Williams family - particularly Geoff ’s son Bob - for their generous offer of the layout and their continuing support in making this project happen. Credit is also due to Paul Bambrick, of bambrickstudio. co.uk, whose meticulous and sensitive restoration work of the backscene has added so much to the overall impact of the model. In writing this article I am indebted for much of the information on the prototype to Geoff Williams’s careful and meticulous research, which formed the basis of Bill Simpson’s 1989 publication The Aylesbury Railway. Many photographs in the book come from Geoff ’s collection; and to Aylesbury: a County Town and its Station 1877-1905 (Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society Paper No.14, 2008) by Keith Bailey. My thanks also go to Bob Williams for invaluable information, advice and support regarding his father's model.
THE PROTOTYPE
The Aylesbury Railway opened in 1839 and is regarded as the world’s first railway branch line. It ran from Cheddington, on the London & Birmingham Railway main line, to Aylesbury with the intention of continuing to Oxford. It made no connection with the Wycombe Railway/GWR Aylesbury Joint station, although to this day Exchange Street links the present Chiltern Railways station to the former LNWR station site. There was one intermediate station at Marston Gate, and four level crossings; negligible earthworks were required, with no tunnels or bridges. The journey from Aylesbury to Cheddington took about 15 minutes, at around 30mph, and the trip to London about two hours. The line proved profitable and successful throughout the 19th Century with the carriage of coal and coke from Midlands collieries being the main traffic - for the nearby gas works and for domestic use. Beer was also brought in from Burton-on-Trent by train.
Carriage of livestock was important, including ducks and geese for the London markets. These were transported in locally-made baskets woven from locally grown osier (a species of willow). In 1889 a new station building was erected by the LNWR to the south and west of the 1839 building, which was demolished to make way for a goods facility. By the early-1900s (the period in which Geoff's model is set) up to 50 churns of milk per day were being loaded at Marston Gate, all of which were destined for Aylesbury’s Nestlé factory where condensed milk had been produced by the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company since 1875. Fruit such as the famed ‘Aylesbury Prune’ was sent swiftly to London and elsewhere - while horse manure cleared from London streets made up return loads, and the town's two print works patronised the line with the distribution of their printed matter. Later, a significant volume of agricultural machinery was transported from the New Holland factory - 40 tractors a day, at the peak of production. In 1950 the station was renamed Aylesbury (High Street), to avoid confusion with Aylesbury Joint, as they were both now within BR’s London Midland Region. Sadly the Cheddington-Aylesbury (High Street) line was closed to passengers by British Railways in 1953 and services ceased altogether in December 1963. New buildings and roads were built over the site at Aylesbury. Little remains of what Geoff modelled, save some commercial buildings, and some of the terraced housing surrounding the station.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew David is a Member of the Risborough & District Model Railway Club and has recently ventured into railway journalism: his day job is teaching Latin and ancient civilisation at London’s City Lit college, and at the British Museum, as well as home-educating his children.
NEW PUBLICATION
This book, published by Wild Swan and written by Geoff’s eldest son Bob who grew up with the layout, recalls and describes the pioneering historical research and modelling techniques used by Geoff to create his finescale masterpiece. Heavily illustrated with photographs and drawings of both model and prototype. ISBN 978-1-912038-64-0 £24.95
ADDITIONAL IMAGES
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