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In
the beginning . . The
fact that my late father had a long love
affair with the Duchess of Atholl had no
real bearing on our latter day modeling of the lady's home ground, but there is a
clue therein to something of our history.
Like the old Leslie Howard film
"Brief Encounter", it was a
romance which took place on the West
Coast Main Line, but rather different
from the film in that he was a lifelong
Polmadie footplateman and the lady in
question was one of Stanier's Polmadie
based finest.
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Like
many career railwaymen, he was a noted
carrier of the railway bug from which
those around him were prone to infection.
In my own case, I got the milder version
which went no further than a life long
interest in the mainline running of the
real thing. In later years however, my
son Ian, contracted the more virulent
form which, in time, develops into
railway modeling and attacks the wallet.
My late brother in law Jim Lang, for
years a leading light in Eastwood MRC,
was a similar victim. In
Ian's case it probably all started at the
age of four when a mate of my father's
carried him up and sat him in the driving
seat of their class 50 at the head of a
Saturday Mid-day Scot in Glasgow Central.
He was certainly well and truly smitten
in later school years, when he and my
father, then in retirement, would go off
on day trips around the network and it's
depots. I well recall my envy on one of
these occasions when they returned from a
day trip to Carlisle Kingmoor in the cab
of an 87 on the down Scot, driven by the
very man who had sat him in the class 50
many years earlier. There was no doubt
that when his interest turned to railway modeling, he certainly knew a thing or
two about the subject matter.
Our
association with Blair Atholl started
with family caravan holidays in the early
seventies and being an area of great
natural and scenic beauty it became, for
us another world to which we escaped with
increasing regularity over the years, and
to this day still do. On these early
holidays, "the enthusiast"
spent much of his time in and around the
station and signal box being regaled with
tales of the Highland line and gaining a
first hand, albeit unofficial, knowledge
of British Rail signaling practice.
In
1985 the local MRC of which Ian was a
member required a station for an
exhibition layout with a highland theme.
I thought that I might, having spent a
career in building materials, have a
crack at building modeling and the
choice of prototype was obvious. In time
models of the station, signal box and
line-side cottages were completed and
deemed to be acceptable by those in the
know.
The
layout was exhibited at Model Rail
Scotland and from the interest shown by
both public and club members towards this
"taste of The Highland
Railway", was born the idea to
replicate the actual area in model form.
Since
the local club had just completed a
layout of "no where in
particular" to satisfy their tail
chasing urges, it was decided to "go
it alone".
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