Modeller Motivated Mutterings (1)

Post Harvest Festival

For those following the exciting life of fbb and his lovely Mrs, the Church Service went very well  yesterday (with a few technological bludners by himself!) with a congregation three time the rather weak "normal". The lunch for two dozen suddenly burgeoned into lunch for 34 (or was it 32), fortunately with adequate reserves of nosh.

But two days hard work meant that a long snooze "happened" during a Sunday afternoon repeat repeat of a Columbo repeat, which rejuvenated the old boy enough to compose today's blog. It was the current edition of Railway Modeller that stimulated the "leedle grey cells".

Euxton Excellence?

The general view is that it is pronounced "EX-ton", but fbb remembers (thinks he remembers?) meeting a local who said it was "UX-ton". It sits serenely south of Preston.

The station at Balshaw Lane and Euxton ...

... closed in 1969 but reappeared Phoenix-like in 1997. now named Euxton Balshaw Lane; probably because it is located on Balshaw Lane at Euxton. Clever eh?

It lacks the character of its predecessor ...

... with entrances from the road leading down lengthy ramps and shallow steps to the platforms.

The facilities consist of bus shelters ...

  ... and four exposed metal seats located, helpfully, outside the shelter.

It boasts (?) an hourly service of trains from Blackpool to Liverpool.

The station is unstaffed and has no facilities for buying tickets.

But, despite this lack of interest, a group of chaps who belong to the Preston and District Model Railway Society have built a model including this "halt".

When fbb was a lad, most model railway enthusiasts built models of stations, real or imaginary, but there is a growing trend to make your model more representative of the main line. It may not even have a station at all.

 Balshaw Lane OO scale station is as incidental to the model main line as the real thing is to the busy electrified West Coast main line.

The station is a tad south of the junction which takes trains from Preston to Bolton and Manchester.

The layout is called "Euxton Junction" as is the junction itself.

The first station (not in the model) round the bend is Buckshaw Parkway ...

... a much more substantial edifice than Balshaw Lane. But it, too, is a phoenix station. It was built on the site of the Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF Chorley) station ...

... and serves the Buckshaw Village development, which replaces the former munitions works.

The old station buildings survived until demolition in 2011 and were something of a mystery to train travellers (which included fbb at times) as they made their way between Manchester and Preston. Nothing stopped there yet it still remained, large and spooky!

Buckshaw "village" is pretty much what you would expect.

But back to the model.

Most OO gauge depictions of real places have to be compressed because the real railway is long, thin and big.

Length is thus drastically shortened; but one feature of real life that is retained in part is where the tracks cross the A49 Wigan Road.

The road wiggles dramatically and the bridge is narrow and low ...

... with traffic light control. Here is the model's version ...

...  although no bus routes run that way, according to Google Streetview.

The defunct operator Fishwick did run a Leyland Lynx ...

... and it did have a service 111, but not, fbb thinks, via the Wigan Road wiggle!

Stagecoach 109 and 109A (Preston, Leyland, Chorley will allow you to explore the delights of the area by bus.

Stagecoach now operates the 111.

But never mind, eh? The model is superb and features on the front cover of the October issue of Railway Modeller.

Yet another beautiful model which makes fbb snivel in disappointment at his pathetic modelling efforts.

Tomorrow we return to Switzerland, leaving a few more "Modeller Mutterings" to fill blogging emptiness as the fbb's set off on their jolly holiday in Morar in a few days.

 Next Geneva blog : Tuesday 18th September