Welcome to 'Holland Park' the name of my second 'OO' gauge modern image exhibition layout. For the benefit of readers outside the UK who may be used to H0 (1:87) as the common model railway scale, I should explain that virtually all commercial models of British trains are built to a scale of 1:76 (4mm = 1 foot) while running on the same 16.5 mm gauge track as H0 models. Having always built large continuous run layouts in the past my interest shifted to small shunting layouts and detailing locomotives, which left my large layout's full potential unfulfilled. So, a change of direction in the hobby led to me creating my first compact portable exhibition layout Dyserth Road. My interest in model railways waned after I retired Dyserth Road from the exhibition circuit so to try to regain inspiration I sold it, now I would have to build another layout. After a visit to the Warley show at the NEC in December 2006 and seeing the new Heljan DCC container crane in action I was motivated again and promptly bought a crane. I missed the 'buzz' of the exhibition circuit so a small diorama based on a container terminal with the crane as the centrepiece was planned. After studying photographs on the internet and in magazines I realised I would need more space and the project developed into a 18ft long layout. Thoughts turned to the operation of the layout and it soon became apparent that the 18ft envisaged would not be long enough the fiddle yard being the limiting factor of train lengths. After some thought another 6ft of fiddle yard board was added now giving the layout a overall length of 24ft.

 

Holland Park makes its debut at Stafford, February 2008.

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