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.

January

February

March 2024

Parklands County (HO) - Rob Read

St Mary Harbour - Daniel Gutiez

I'm a French modeller, fond of UK railways. This is my first showcase made in a wine box, a fictitious little harbour: St Mary Harbour.

Turquar 7 - Mel Laycock

A crossover of two hobbies: wargaming and railways. Called Turquar 7, it is completely modelled from Games Workshop, Warhammer 40K models. It fits with the rules and ethos of the game. Another feature of the layout is the amount of interaction with the public. The trains are set up behind the scene but the public drive it onto the layout and shunt the rolling stock around. The layout will next be exhibited at York.

Karlea Fell - Keith Tompkins

Midsomer Parva (N) - Chris Sharp

Midsomer Parva is a micro N gauge layout built in a standard box file with a circle of track to enable a simple continuous run. The track extension is made from foam board and card. The road bridge and storage shed (a freebie) are Scalescenes downloadable kits. The other bridge is a Peco product. The Halt platform is scratch built and the waiting hut is an old Langley white metal kit. The back scene on the box lid is a photo of the Herefordshire Welsh border. Street furniture and sheep etc are from various sources

Midsomer Parva is a quiet rural backwater set in the western region where the big axe of Mr Beeching failed to fall. DCI Barnaby and Det Sgt Jones are rumoured to be in the area but have yet to be seen!!!

Rowley & Muggleswick (N) - Tom Dodds

Model railways don't have to be big and expensive. With Rowley & Muggleswick, I set out to see what I could build in a small space on a budget.

Out shopping one day, I saw a 400mm x 400mm bamboo tea tray in Tesco for a tenner and thought that, flipped upside down, it would make a base for a small working diorama. On a visit to Beamish Museum in County Durham, I thought that Rowley Station building would make a good subject to model.

The layout is a simple DC end-to-end ‘shuttle’, with a spur to a cattle dock. It can operate four different train types: three steam formations and a ‘Bubble Car’ diesel unit. In ‘auto shuttle’ modes, either a Bubble Car or a steam-hauled ‘Autocar’ can shuttle backwards and forwards reasonably prototypically. Manually, it’s possible to detach a cattle wagon from a train and work it into the siding.

All the wagons are kits, some fitted with Peco lift arms on the couplings to enable shunting. The cattle trucks have been modified to make them a little more prototypical, and all three are slightly different. The backscene is elements cut from Yorkshire Tea boxes!

The layout was built for around £200, but if you already had some electronic components, it could have been built for £140. I have spent about £400 on locos, Bubble Cars and rolling stock (rather self-indulgently, I have two Bubble Cars, so it could have saved another £100 by just having one).

Snowdon Mountain Railway - Joseph Hayden

The layout is tiny, only about 120cm by 12cm, but includes a representation of Llanberis station at the base, with the train climbing through the wooded foothills of the mountain. It then continues over the Snowdon footpaths, and up to the craggy peak that is Snowdon.

The locomotive is based on a Ferro Train chassis, and the accompanying track means that it is a fully functional rack and pinion railway!

The body of the locomotive is made from brass, soldered (rather amateurishly) together, and painted as best I could manage. The carriages and waggons were scratch built.

The control is via an arduino built into the hillside, and can run automatically, manually, or I've made a representation of the real life locomotive cab, where the regulator/reverser/brake/water level/injector can be controlled to manage the boiler pressure and ultimately control the train climbing the mountain.

Parklands County is HO scale freelance American.
It is diesel era but I do run steam locomotives on it for the public's entertainment.

This layout is owned and built by my wife, Lisa and myself, built to display at model railroad shows around New Zealand. It is made up of six sections for ease of transport in the back of our ute. We have displayed it at all the public shows around the South Island of New Zealand and have also taken it to a North Island show a few times.

The measurements of the layout are 3200mm long by 1830mm wide by 820mm high. The layout has viewing for the public on all 4 sides so is set up at
shows as an island layout. There are 6 sections to the layout.

The layout is controlled with a MRC Prodigy Advance DCC system with WIFI option added.

From as far back as I can remember I had always wanted a “rabbit warren” layout. It took me 50 years to bring one to fruition.

It was a bit of a job to get the track radius to fit. Anything longer than a Bo- Bo diesel won’t go round. The gradients are made from plywood. Scenery is made from plaster bandage on cardboard supports and a wonderfully messy process it was.

These Rabbit Warren layouts are fascinating as you see a train going into a tunnel and guess which one it comes out of. In the early days it didn’t often come out at all as I hadn’t left enough clearance in the scenery.

There are some skiers on the hill top and a rescue helicopter for when they “ break a leg”

In reality we would never see a real mountain railway in the UK but isn’t poetic licence a wonderful thing?

One of the best running locos is a Kato shunter that is based loosely on a UK electric shunter and the best thing is they cost less than £50.

The name Karlea comes from the first 3 letters of my daughters names. I hope you enjoy seeing the layout - before it melts !

Lavender Hill (OO) - Rob Lavender

This is my layout Lavender Hill in 00. My first layout was of the same name but built in N Gauge. I parted ways with that one as i couldn't resist the models of this larger scale.

I get asked if this layout has anything to do with the film of the same name. Unfortunately it hasn't. Its just my surname.

It is a fictitious layout set with the Peak District in mind. I don't have a specific era in mind as I just love to run locos from steam to modern.

It measures at 8ftx4ft and I've crammed quite a bit in a small space! Its a simple twin loop and two sidings set up with motorised working points. The inner track is DCC controlled with the outer being DC.