4mm/OO Gauge
Presented by Crawley Model Railway Society
Wellbridge is the 4mm scale, 00 gauge, Finescale layout built by Crawley Model Railway Society. It is a centre controlled, continuous run layout with a footprint of 20 feet by 16 feet and is based on Southern Region practice under British Rail in the late 1950s to early 1960s. Wellbridge is a fictitious layout and the name comes from the Thomas Hardy Wessex novels. Whilst not based on any prototype, train operation follows the traffic paters of Branksome and Parkstone, adjacent stations to Poole in Dorset. This enables three operators to run as wide a variety of stock as possible, whilst encompassing most of our members’ interests. We run complete trains, some of which will be ready-to-run stock suitably enhanced and kit-built items for more experienced members and thus provide and interesting operating programme for exhibitions. It has been estimated that the average viewer spends no longer than five minutes watching a layout. We therefore depict a railway running through the countryside with many different trains and plenty of scenic items to look at from three different sides.
The line emerges from a tunnel in a chalk escarpment, crosses the curving viaduct where below is a collection of farm buildings and a stream. It then passes a small housing development and runs into the station.
After leaving the station and goods yard, the line passes Wellbridge village and its high street before running into the cutting next to the village golf course and finally under the high three-arch occupation bridge.
Website – www.crawleymrs.org