This page is dedicated to the home layouts of club members. If you are a RaILS member and would like to submit pics of your home layout for this page, please contact us.

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These pics are of the Whitebell Railway, which is owned and run by club member Neil Moody. The line is a 15mm narrow gauge light railway, and Neil makes many of his own original models.

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The following pics are of the Monsal Valley Light Railway, owned and run by Robert Ward. Robert has also provided us with a short (fictitious?) history of the MVLR......

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"The M.V.L.R was first opened on the 7th September 1883 as an industrial narrow gauge railway, to serve many local factories and potteries, as well as a china clay mine. Unfortunately the china clay mine closed along with many of the potteries. Fortunately this did not affect the railway, as it increased its freight traffic with goods produced by the local factories.

During the summer of 1908 the chairman of the railway a Mr Robert Ward decided that the M.V.L.R should also become a passenger carrying line. Subsequently two years later a limited passenger service began to run between Monsal station and Frog Pond halt, using existing locomotives and a set of newly built coaches. This proved to be so popular that the railway decided to open two more halts to meet public demand.

This service ran successfully for four years, but had to cease in 1914 due to the First World War. The Railway reopened for passenger traffic after the war in 1918, and carried on well through the 1920’s, with passenger and freight traffic doing very successfully even gaining Royal recognition.

But a year later in 1930 freight traffic on the line ended due to the new fangled idea of Road transport, so the M.V.L.R decided to end all services on the entire line and close. During this period all of the lines buildings and track were moth-balled for possible future use, and all of the M.V.L.R’ s stock was sold off.

Thankfully but for only seven years the railway was taken over and used by the War Office and R.A.F during the Second World War, but was immediately closed after the war ended.

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Moving forward 70 years into the future to 2002 a group of volunteers began to restore the moth-balled railway, after public demand for the railway to be used again. In 2003 due to some very hard work and determination the railway was finally restored to what you see today. Following restoration work the line bought it’s first locomotive and rolling stock, and on Monday 30th July 2004 the Monsal Valley Light Railway finally opened to the public, with a Grand Opening attended by many local and important people.

Since that day the railway has grown from strength to strength by becoming one of the South's busiest, well-known tourist attractions."

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The following pics are of Neil Moody's indoor Southern Railway Mainline. The station is Stourbank Road, and the line is in N Gauge.

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