‘OO’ GAUGE LAYOUT ‘NORTH TYNESIDE’

Surely building a layout should be relaxing and fun? Not for Kyle Humphries, who enjoys the challenge of working to a deadline.

Words: Chris Gadsby

Photography: Chris Nevard Artwork: Andrew Mackintosh

The bank running along the back of the layout is fictitious. The actual site is in the middle of an industrial estate, so Kyle suggested to the museum that he make it slightly more scenic so as not to detract from the railway itself. The scenic break on the left-hand side is based on a real bridge on the line, but the prototype is about a mile away.

Modelling to a deadline adds a whole new dimension. Every time something doesn’t quite go according to plan, you glance up at the calendar – two months to go. On the opposite wall, the clock, normally an innocuous device, glares down at you menacingly as you refill your static grass machine for the seventh time. Tick, tock, tick, tock. ‘Why won’t this post stay upright?’ you think to yourself as beads of sweat drip off your forehead, the heating on full blast as you try desperately to cure the resin water for the canal scene at the other end. It sounds more akin to something out of a horror movie than building a model railway. Wasn’t this meant to be a relaxing hobby?! Fortunately, for a seasoned modeller like Kyle Humphries, who has a wealth of experience, the heat of building to a tight deadline is quite natural and this is his eighth commissioned piece. We have featured several of Kyle’s layouts in Model Rail before, and his latest one is now available for all to see in a north-east museum.