Railex

A collection of model railways in our general hall. Our resident experts, Finishing Touches, will also be open for all your modelling needs.

Parking is available on-site which is FREE on Sunday but charges do apply on Saturday. More details can be found on the town Car Park website. A number of buses also stop directly outside the Market Hall on Northampton Road with the mainline train station a short 10-15 minute walk away. Choose How You Move can provide more assistance with planning your visit.

Refreshments are available from a range of outlets within the Market and toilets are also available.

We also have a colouring competition for children where you can win a £10 voucher to spend with Finishing Touches or Kits and Bits. Closing date for entries in Sunday 23rd October and forms can be collected from the market or coloured in whilst you are here.

If you want to make a weekend of it, then more details regarding accommodation and other ideas for activities can be found at Home – Visit Harborough – Visit Harborough District

Layouts

South Wigston Model Railway Club

Layout One – South Wigston. Now and Then
Illustrating the busy and important life of the London Midland Region with 7 signal boxes and 3 stations. This 00 gauge layout controlled by a DCC system shows the old and present day examples

Layout Two – Roofers Lane
This layout demonstrates how much scope there is for bringing to life a detailed N gauge layout without needing too much space but still retaining a high degree of interesting aspects and room for an extension.

2mm Finescale Lambourn

The town of Lambourn lies in the Berkshire Downs, some fifteen miles north-west of Newbury. The railway to Lambourn was opened in 1898 (The Lambourn Valley Railway) and taken into GWR ownership in 1905.

The model was constructed by Allen Martin in the 1980s and is built to 2mm Scale Association finescale standards.  All track-work is hand-built to a nominal gauge of 9.42mm.

Stock and locos are mostly conversions from proprietary items, with some scratch-built stock thrown in for good measure. DG couplings are used to ensure ‘hands free’ shunting operations.

The scene is set notionally in the inter-war years, say 1932. The real station had a very limited service of 5 or so trains a day, generally worked by a GWR Railcar (No 18 was built especially for the Lambourn Branch) or tank engines. Not much happened in reality- the odd goods train 3 times a week, passenger trips to Newbury and the stations between, but there was horse traffic. Lambourn was home for racing stables and on race weekends at Newbury there could be a fair number of PACO Horse Box wagons around.

The model is operated to show a far greater density of train types and movements. There is much to look at in the scenery.

Welland Mills

Welland Mills is an O Gauge freelance layout based on a fictional branch line situated somewhere along the Welland Valley. Perhaps an LNER branch line closed in the 60s and reopened as a heritage railway with an eclectic mix of rolling stock to suit our need to run LNER, GWR and BR locomotives and stock (or anything else that takes our fancy).
The original concept for this layout was in the form of the ‘Railway Shunting Puzzle’ INGLENOOK SIDINGS with additional scenery which forms our model railway.