Narrow Gauge North

Underhill - Isle Of Stoner Railway by John Wooden
Scale 009 (4mm/1ft)
Gauge 9mm
Size 4’6" x 4’6"

The layout represents in 009 scale the two ends of the branch line to Underhill of the Isle of Stoner Railway. The mainline runs from one end to the other of one of the less well known channel islands, the Isle of Stoner, which lies about 100 miles south of Newquay in Cornwall.

The right hand baseboard has the terminus of the branch line at Underhill, with its small unused quarry. The other board has the cheese factory and its associated herb nursery; the island is famous for its green cheese. This stands in front of the running line, where it emerges from under the hill on which the main island town of Port Lucy stands.

The layout is the portable part of the IoSR, as the mainline lives in my garage, and is distinctly not portable, or finished. Being entirely freelance I can have anything I like, rolling stock wise, but I do try to keep a reasonably uniform and plausible look to things. The story is that having been built in the 1870’s, the line peaked around the turn of the century, and ran down towards the second world war, when the island was invaded by the Germans, who used the railway for their own purposes, but left it in a parlous state. After the war Lord Stoner was inclined to close the railway, but a preservation society persuaded him that they would keep it running and help get things going. We find the railway in the summer of 1964 and things are on the up.

More news about the Isle Of Stoner railway can be found here.