Here is a bit of history about our club. We are a model railway club with clubrooms in Tyldesley, Gtr. The society was formed in the late 1970's by a group of enthusiasts in the Leigh area. We met in various establishments,such as the Railway Hotel, and later the Classic Cinema,
and we were able to build our first layout, which was called 'The Central Line '. For more information on the past layouts the club has had please click here or go to the Past Layouts page. In 1980 we were the only model railway club to exhibit at Liverpool Rd station, in the Great Railway Exposition,
the celebration of 150 years of the Liverpool-Manchester Railway. As a result of this, and due to the efforts of the late Cllr. Gordon C.Thomas, we were able to secure a grant from Greater
Manchester Council, which went a long way towards our buying our own clubroom which some 30+years later we are still in. Over the years we have built several layouts, some of which became quite well known on the circuit. One such layout was Bedrock, based on Red Rock, near Standish. We were lucky enough to be able to borrow some architects drawings of the station building, to enable a very accurate model of it to be made.The successor to Bedrock was Lea Moor and Randale Summit. This was a large 'roundy-round' layout with a railway viaduct and a canal aqueduct on the front viewing side. Buildings from Horwich, Farnworth, Entwistle and Dunham village adorned it. The rear part of the layout could also be slotted into another section to make 'The Branch'. We were quite pleased with the scenery on it, most features again being taken from actual locations. The layout was sold to a member rather than be scrapped, and it has recently been sold on again. The club has two layouts being worked on at the moment, a long thin 00 gauge layout that started as a test track, fixed to the wall, and a 00 gauge colliery layout, which utilises parts of the old branch layout
We also have a members personal '00' layout in the clubhouse at the moment, which is being built to exhibition standard. This is presently under construction, needing much work before it can eventually go out to represent the club at exhibitions. It will depict the East Lancashire/West Pennine area, and will have scratchbuilt buildings, of course, with ideas for buildings coming from some of the lovely stone buildings around Accrington and Halifax, amongst other places. We are always looking for new members for the club to help build layouts and run existing ones.
