Quester's Gallery
Browse a selection of fantastic layouts from fellow model rail builders.
Do you have a model railway layout you'd like to be featured on the Model Railway Quest website? Send me your best photos along with a short description and I'll add your layout to my gallery page. I'll be choosing some of the best for a featured blog post. All you have to do is send your layout details to modelrailwayquest@gmail.com and write Gallery in the subject line.
February 2024
Horton Common
We, myself, John, and my two sons, Jamie 18yrs old and Lewis aged 14 yrs would like to present"Horton Common".
Based upon an actual area in Dorset, and part of the old "Castlemans Corkscrew Route", there's an actual place called "Horton Common" situated between Wimborne and Verwood, but it never had a railway station. It's quite a bleak and barren area, not suitable for agriculture. All goods traffic went to either Wimborne, Verwood or Ringwood.
As our surname is "Horton" what better area could we choose and base our layout upon, namely "Horton Common".
The layout measures 22ft x 2ft and took 11 months to construct. We have used Modellers' Licence and depicted the area as a busy country station, now a terminus, as the line had been closed to Bournemouth West by Dr Beeching. However we envisaged the line still being used regularly, with a branch off to Salisbury, the mainline going on to Southampton and then on to to London Waterloo.
It's analogue control, with working signals and based around the 1967 era to present day, although
we tend to keep things up to 1972, unless we run our extensive collection of rolling stock, with nearly 100 Locomotives we pride ourselves on hopefully not seeing the same loco twice unless a considerable amount of time has passed, only appearing again some 2-3 hrs later, we operate steam diesel and are starting to lay 3rd rail, which the line never had, so we use Modellers' Licence.
Elbow Lane - Dave Smith
Elbow Lane is a 4mm OO gauge, DCC "scabby" little South London terminus/yard. The inspiration? I love 'urban'. Why Elbow Lane? In 1880s Shadwell my Great Grandmother lived there.
Roanoke Valley - Scott Smith
This is a tinplate layout I built for the Roanoke Valley Model Railroaders located in the basement of the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, VA.
The layout runs through two rooms and has 8 track loops We run two gauges Standard Gauge and O-Gauge. All the trains and buildings are metal. The layout is 25ft by 8ft.
My inspiration is my son Joshua. We built this layout together over the last 5 years. Joshua has autism and the hobby has helped both of us over many years.
Little Narrow - Kevin Whyberd
Little Narrow is a small country terminus based on a surviving light railway somewhere in the south of England in the 1950's era.
It's a fictional line which was originally operated by the Narrow Valley Light Railway since 1895 and had connections with a certain Colonel Stephens,who had his hand in many light railways. The line operates a variety of 'hand-me-down' rolling stock and locomotives.
The station building is a Ratio Tabernacle Church kit, converted into a Colonel Stephens style station building. A farm equipment storage shed is also seen at the end of the layout which is made from Ratio corrugated sheets and weathered.
The layout is 2ft 4½ inches long by 1ft width,with a 18 inch long fiddle yard,so is classed as a 'Micro Layout'.
Island of Sodor - Liam
My layout recreates the island of Sodor based on the Thomas and friends TV series
Proof of Concept - Paul Mauchline
My layout shows what can be done with a two foot by six foot baseboard using 00 gauge flexitrack and ordinary track. It has moving vehicles, a working funicular railway, an oval loop, isolated sidings for independent shunting and two shuttle services including one at raised level. I built it to hopefully inspire people with limited space to build their own layouts.
PS: It sits on an ironing board with trestle supports at each end and is portable.
Hauteville Station - Michael Bourgaize
Not as good as the ones I see on YouTube but only been at this since Sept 23 and turning 50. My wife makes the buildings which she likes. I have a couple of locos in BR blue which I got out of my dad's loft which are from the 1970s.
Tinsley TMD - Dave Gilmour
This is my Tinsley TMD layout. I’ve been building this layout for 10 years now. It's non-stop, 50’x25’ and fully dcc.
Vaultec (Fallout) Micro Layout - Dave McManus
A lot of video games are being turned in to movies and TV shows these days so I thought why not turn a video game in to a model railway.
I hope my efforts will inspire others to do the same. It's OO gauge and is a simple shunting puzzle with trains coming underground to bring supplies to the vault. (Vaults are underground nuclear fallout shelters built by a company called vault-tec to survive World War 3)
