‘7MM’ GAUGE LAYOUT WENFORD DRIES
Shelf-fulfilling prophesy
Pete Matcham employed a shelf as a baseboard for this tight-focus china clay-themed scene, but there’s nothing off-the-shelf about his expertly crafted layout.
Words: Chris Gadsby
What makes this layout great?
Photography: Chris Nevard
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You don’t need a room-filler to have a great looking layout. The beauty of using shelves as a baseboard is that if the layout isn’t in use, it can go… on a shelf. Conveniently out of the way or placed on a display, Pete’s first foray into 7mm scale has been a great success.
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As Elton John, with the help of some cartoon lions, told us in 1994, ‘It’s the circle of life’. Although in model railway terms we aren’t grabbing our favourite ‘A4’ and holding it aloft on top of a piece of plywood in our garages, it’s surprising how many things come full circle in life, and your modelling career can experience this, too. Pete Matcham recalls that his first train set contained an ‘O’ gauge big blue diesel, and that provided hours of fun for both him and his brother. ‘N’ gauge and then 2mm finescale layouts followed, before a return to big blue diesels just before the first lockdown in 2020. ‘Wenford Dries’ is his first 7mm finescale layout after he was struck by the detail, mass and presence of an unpainted Bachmann Brassworks Class 08 shunter. So, with an IKEA shelf as a base, he began to look for a suitable scene to make his first foray into the larger scale.