Somerset and Dorset

Model railway club and groups from Devon and Cornwall

Clubs in Somerset and Dorset

Somerset and Dorset have a proud railway heritage, from the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway to a number of preserved lines still running today. The clubs listed below are active across the region and represent a wide range of scales, interests, and modelling expertise. Where applicable, we’ve included layouts that are available for exhibition, showcasing the high standard of work produced by local modellers. Whether you’re looking to connect with a nearby group or book an exhibit, this page highlights the best of the Somerset and Dorset modelling scene.

Blandford Forum Model Railway Club

Bridport & District Model Railway Club

Burnham & District Model Railway Club

Clement Street Yard 14ft x 2ft O Gauge

Clement Street Yard is entirely fictitious but was inspired by Mike Baker’s Bradstock O gauge layout which itself was inspired by the S&DR Radstock mpd.The name Clement was chosen from heritage dating back to the Norman conquest of 1066.

The layout is a small railway yard featuring a 48ft, turntable and a single line engine shed. The main line incline in the background is on a 1:37 (just like the Midland Lickey incline). Mainly GWR stock with occasional visitors from the LMS.

Tank engines and short wheel base 0-6-0 tender locomotives have access to the vacuum powered turntable. The compact design incorporates a double slip and a single turnout both powered by DCC Concepts Cobalt stall motors. The layout is controlled by Lenz DCC but points and signals are analogue.

Minimal signalling, so far, from Dapol with more ground signals to be added when available. The track is from Phoenix Permaway with hand built double slip and turnout. Buildings and cassettes from Intentio and Lasercutrailways. The turntable is from Kitwood Hill Models.

Nosach Green 40ft x 2ft O Gauge

This layout is based upon main line operation with a through station at “Nosach Green”, an imaginary through station

somewhere in the West Country.

There is also a small siding servicing a factory unit and the station features goods shed with an engine shed near by.

Dual track makes for realistic operation featuring passing trains from two fiddle yards, one at each end.

Both steam and diesel electric operations from the 1930’s up until the 2010’s. Operated mainly by the Great Western,

good old British Rail green and blue and later privatised liveries and some southern steam.

Large and small locomotives are featured together with a good mix of freight and passenger service.

Required Operators: 2-4

Cale Rail Society

Central Southern O Gauge Group

Chard & District Modellers

Church Hope Model Railway Group

Compton Model Railway Club

DEMU Roadshow

D&S Model Rail O Gauge

Dave Dunn Model Railways

Dorset Railway Modellers

East Somerset Modellers Group

Exmoor Coast Railway Modellers

For The Love Of A Railway

For the Love of a Railway is a registered charity dedicated to celebrating the Axminster to Lyme Regis Line (1903 – 1965). Our base is a former Axminster shop which we have christened ‘The Depot’ and which operates as a visitor centre open to the public on Thursdays (10am – 3pm) and Saturdays (10am – 12.30pm). In addition to our centrepiece OO-gauge model of the line, we are running workshops to encourage children to take up railway modelling and have plans to run special memory sessions for people living with dementia. More details are available from our website: www.fortheloveofarailway.co.uk.

Ffestiniog Railways

Fleet Lane Group

Charlestown TMD 9ft x 2ft OO Gauge

Green diesel/Blue diesel/Current scene. This layout is currently work in progress.

Required Operators: 1 or 2

Fleet Lane 12ft by 18 Inches OO Gauge

00 gauge. Late 1950’s to 1967. All locomotives are DCC sound. Fleet Lane is a representation of the former steam shed 71G/70G at Weymouth. All locomotives operating on the layout are representative of those which would have been seen at Weymouth up to the end of steam on the Southern Region in July 1967

Required Operators : Can be operated by 1-3 operators

Heather Hatch Railway Modeller

I’ad’that

Iain Sclanders Model Railway

Illminster Model Railway Club

James & Chandler Thick Railway Modellers

Keith Budd Model Railway

Lakeland Railway

Marsh Vale Model Railway Club

Phoenix Model Railway Club

The Classic Novels of Agatha Christie 17ft x 8ft OO Gauge

Phoenix Model Railways were part of Team phoenix in Series 2 episode 2 of the Channel 5 TV series The great Model railway Challenge, The layout has all the TV animations . but reworked into an exhibition layout. Its bigger and features even more Agatha Christie related Cameos. The layout has been twice exhibited at the weeklong International Agatha christie festival in Torquay and has also featured on ITV Westward.

The following Agatha Christie books are featured:

The ABC Murders

Death in the Clouds

Murder on the Links

Murder on the Orient Express

Death on the Nile

The 4:50 from Paddington

Mystery of the Blue Train

Cameos from these books have been modelled on the layout inspired by Actual Southern region, London underground, Great western , Great Northern and London North Eastern Railway Locations . (East Grinstead Viaduct, Brackhampton crossing (Stone Level Crossing),Botherly (Rothery station),Greenway halt, Brackhampton station (Sudbury Station London),Marble Hill Tube Station (Arnos Grove Tube station). At regular periods during display, the show sequence of animations are rerun.

The layout also features a custom build Touch control Multi-computer control systems that allow ease of operation of all things that move. The Layout is set in an art deco period, features a Flying plane, moving vehicles, moving boats, full lighting, working Semaphore signals and level crossing gates , a working avalanche ,together with Period rolling stock to recreate a miniature world set in the 1940s bringing the Literary and Railway world together to form a one of a kind model railway not to be missed.

Required Operators: 3

Poole Model Railway Club

Sedgemoor O Gauge Group

Shaftsbury & Gillingham Railway

Longmoor 15ft x 6ft L Shaped N Gauge

Based on the Longmoor Military Railway the layout includes many features of the site and covers a wide-ranging period to provide plenty of moving interest to the viewer

Required Operators: 2

Marshwood Road 18’6ft x 6’6ft OO Gauge

Marshwood Road represents an extension of the Southampton and Dorchester railway towards Axminster and Exeter as proposed by Charles Castleman but never built as the LSWR, eventually, favoured a more central route via the Salisbury and Yeovil Railway.

The line is portrayed during the BR Southern region era around 1960. A fictional branch to Charmouth runs to the Dorset coast. The buildings on the layout are scratch built or kit-bashed.

Required Operators: 4

Shaftesbury Parkway 12’6ft x 6ft N Gauge

Set in the south and west, the partly modernised junction station is painted in Network Southeast colours. Watch the trains run in time sequence from 1980 to 1995. Starting with class 33s in Blue and a 4TC unit.

With locomotives in many of the liveries of the 1980s & early 1990s finishing with the new class 158 & 159s in regional railways & network southeast colours. Many of the locomotives carry the “Templecombe” name and modelled on the trains that have carried the name over the years

Required Operators: 4

Shillingstone 36ft x 2ft OO Gauge

The layout is based on the station on the S&DJR in Dorset . The operating period covers from 1920-1940 with S&DJR and LMS stock in use. It is OO scale (4mm to the foot) and 36 Feet long, covering the north and south of the station.

. The layout covers Raglans Drove Br178, through Cattle Creep and Lamb House (Haywards Lane) Br180, to Hackers Lane Br182. The layout is DCC controlled with both JMRI and a Signal Box and features sound fitted locomotives. The layout was designed to run in a carriage and is operated from the ends and the front.

Required Operators: 5

Sturminster Newton 11ft x 2ft N Gauge

N Gauge Layout of Sturminster Newton in Dorset and set towards the end of the line in the 1960’s. Earlier periods are run from time to time .

The layout is DCC operated with sound fitted locomotives and controlled via JMRI

Required Operators: 3

Shepton & District Model Railway Society

Signals Model Railway Club

Alstone Quay 9ft x 1’6ft O-16 Gauge

O-16.5, Mid 19th century narrow gauge western Britain quay side layout – DC operation

Bovington Junction 12ft x 3’3ft N Gauge

N gauge, 1940 to 1970 British Railways. DCC layout

Operators Required: 4

Wendel Tag 12ft x 3’6ft HO Gauge

HO and HOm, 1960’s to 1980’s Swiss multi gauge. DCC / iTrain controlled (part built)

Required Operators: 2

Somerset Railway Modellers

Summitelse Model Railway Group

South Western Model Railway Club

Exton Quay 8ft x 2ft N Gauge

Exton Quay depicts a quayside and branch terminus with a Devon flavour.

Set in the era of 1930’s Southern Railway Company.

Required Operators: 3

Piddle Regis 22ft x 2ft OO Gauge

OO scale. 1970s-80s BR(SR) – Network SouthEastOO scale. 1970s-80s BR(SR) – Network SouthEast

Rural Dorset location featuring 3rd Rail DC alongside a heritage railway.

Required Operators: 3 – 5

Pine Road 9ft x 8ft L Shaped OO Gauge

Pine Road is a layout started in 2007, named after and inspired by the very road the builder of the layout Kelly Miller was born in. However, despite the portrayal of several childhood memories, Pine Road remains a largely imaginary vision of a place somewhere in Southwest Dorset around the mid-1930’s.

Each of the buildings, except the station, has been scratch built and brought together from a host of sources and locations. The thatch cottage was copied from a photo Kelly recalls hanging from her mother’s lounge wall, depicting where she was born. The Goods and Engine shed are from Lyme Regis, The Bridge Inn is from Cranborne and the Signal Box used to stand at Morton between Wool and Dorchester. Even the blacksmith’s shop has special significance, named in memory of Kelly’s father.

Although this is a Southern layout, you may still spot the odd LMS engine sneakily borrowed from the Old S&D (Somerset & Dorset)Line. Also, can you find the little girl on the swing with her dog?. She’s probably late home for her tea by now and I can hear her mum shouting “Come on Dawn Tea’s Ready”

Elsewhere an owl looks out from one of the trees while the shepherd stands with Jake, his dog, talking to Mrs Habgood the landlady of the Bridge Inn. Two boxing hares can be found in the back field and a fox peers longingly through the hedge at all those tasty chickens in the Farm Yard.

The manning for the layout is one operator and one fiddle yard organiser plus one relief. The layout can be operated from the front, but the preferred method is from the rear as per the attached plan which shows the area required.

The era modelled is mid 1930’s with DCC subtle sound in keeping with the layout size. Required Operators: 2

Ramsgate Sands 9’6ft x 7’6ft L Shaped N Gauge

N gauge, late 1950’s Kent terminus. Closely based on ex-LCDR Ramsgate Harbour station (which actually closed in 1926).

Required Operators: 2 – 3

St Levan 5ft x 2ft TT Gauge

St Levan is a real location near the south Cornwall coast it never had a railway. This 3mm scale model is a typical fictitious GWR/WR Branch Line Terminus station with a run round loop served by a single autocoach train and a small goods operation.

Required Operators: 2

Stem Lane Yard 18ft x 2’6ft O Gauge

O/7mm scale. 1950’s/60’s semi-rural small freight yard

Required Operators: 4-6