Keeping on the right side of the tracks at Bexhill

By The Newsroom
Published 16th Aug 2017, 11:00 BST
Updated 7th Jun 2018, 21:43 BST
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The sound of a steam locomotive pulling away greeted visitors to St Richard's Catholic College on Saturday.

The sound effects were authentic even down to a fireman shovelling coal. But, wait a minute, the station announcements were in German…

Where model railway enthusiasts are concerned, imagination knows no bounds. Members of the Sussex Area Group of the G-Scale Society formed the welcome party for the hundreds of enthusiasts who arrived at the college for Bexhill Model Railway Club’s annual exhibition.

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The big G-scale garden-scale layout, complete with sound effects, was set up outside the buildings.

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In the assembly hall, host club chairman Dave Gibbons was exhibiting “Wendover” – 26ft of circa 1930 Metropolitan and Great Central joint line Buckinghamshire in OO gauge.

Dave said: “It took about three years to build but the gestation period was a lot longer. Finally, I moved house and found I had a room big enough to build it. My railway room is 32ft - and there’s a kitchen at the end so we can make tea!”

For Bexhillians with long memories, local member Peter Bossom’s 12mm gauge “Bulverhythe” involved some geographic “licence.” Warburton’s corn and seed merchants premises from pre-King Offa Way Belle Hill had been faithfully reproduced but in mirror-image and next to St Leonards’ Bull Inn adjacent to the tracks in this 1941 fantasy.