1981 Ticket to Ride Hornby Catalogue Model Railway Trainset Part 1 Baseboard and Track Plan

With the arrival of winter and the departure of my eldest daughter to university what began as a joke - replacing Eloise with my old train set from the loft - became the winter project for Abigail and I. The task of building a bedroom model railway. Like any railway, it will be a journey - it will begin slowly, with brainstorming, introductory stuff and the baseboard, before picking up speed with the build, landscaping and scenery diorama before cruising along into operation and, well, general play! My first train set was a Christmas present in 1980 or 1981. The OO Gauge Hornby R535 GWR Freight Set from God's Wonderful Railway, the Great Western Railway, was a small layout with a GWR 101 0-4-0 locomotive and a few trucks played with on the carpet or a table then put away. It was great fun! Later, the addition of an R052 LMS Fowler 3F Jinty 0-6-0T 16440 Tank Engine which was faster and noisier (bought for a fiver!) led to a bit more track and a permanent layout on chipboard that was stored under the bed and also allowed me to put my airfix model aeroplanes on too! These would regularly attack the trains with marble bombs or provide air support for toy soldiers which also attacked with the aim of causing derailments, crashes etc. Fun times! Then, a wonderful christmas present was received. It looked so beautiful in the catalogue and my parents hunted high and low as it was out of stock or discontinued - the Hornby R305 LMS 8P No.6234 Duchess of Abercorn, 4-6-2 (Pacific) Princess Coronation (Duchess) Class was unwrapped from under the tree, my main present for the year. Gorgeous it was and it's still my favourite. Then I discovered girls and everything was boxed up and put away until I wanted to do something with my own daughters and set up a few boards in the loft and bought a bunch more LMS locomotives, carriages, trucks and coaches, scenic bits and buildings and built a large two layer, seven track circuit in the loft at my first house which I never landscaped but ran from time to time before moving house to somewhere with no suitable space. By this time I had added the LMS R859 Princess Royal 4-6-2 6201 Princess Elizabeth, R066 4-6-2 Duchess of Sutherland 6233, R357 4-6-0 Patriot 5541 Duke of Sutherland, R055 Class 4P 2-6-4 Fowler Tank 2300, a Jinty in better condition (less crashed and abused!) R376 4-4-0 4P Compound 1000 and Hornby R859 4-6-0 Stanier Class 5 4657. These have been in a display cabinet on the wall of my lounge for five years without moving...but theirs is the resurrection and the life! So, Toot Toot! Choo Choo! The train departing from Platform Bedroom will be departing shortly - all aboard for this wonderful journey back in time to childhood and nostalgia! Updated List:Hornby R1031 LMS 0-4-0T Robson Class D Industrial Built 1907 Shunting Hornby R152 LMS 0-4-0ST Drummond Class 0F No.16037 Pug Built 1895-1908 Shunting Hornby R301 LMS 0-6-0T Fowler Class 3f No.16440 Jinty Built 1924-1931 Shunting Hornby R376 LMS 4-4-0 Compound 1000 Class 4P No.1000 Built 1902-1909 Passenger Hornby R055 LMS 2-6-4 Fowler Class 4P Tank No.2300 Built 1927-1934 Mixed Traffic Hornby R311 LMS 4-6-0 Patriot Class 5XP No.5541 Baby Scot ‘Duke Of Sutherland’ Built 1934-1951 Passenger Hornby R842 LMS 4-6-0 Stanier Class 5 No. 4657 Black 5 Built 1934-1951 Mixed Traffic Hornby R050 LMS 4-6-2 Stanier Princess Royal Class 8P No.6200 Lizzie ‘Princess Royal’ Built 1933-1935 Passenger Hornby R2179 LMS 4-6-2 Stanier Princess Coronation Class 8P No.6225 ‘Duchess Of Gloucester’ Built 1937-1948 Passenger Hornby R066 LMS 4-6-2 Stanier Princess Coronation Class 8P No.6233 ‘Duchess Of Sutherland’ Built 1937-1948 Passenger Hornby R305 LMS 4-6-2 Stanier Princess Coronation Class 8P No.6234 ‘Duchess Of Abercorn’ Built 1937-1948 Passenger Hornby R535 GWR Freight Set cod, bass, tope, dogfish, smoothound, thornback ray, whiting, wrasse and anything else I can target There's scuba diving off the North Norfolk Coast and Suffolk, wreck diving, reef diving, river diving, even Cenote Diving, in the Red Sea off Egypt, the Mediterranean off Malta and Gozo and in Mexico, Brazil, Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, Pembrokeshire in Wales, Swanage and Plymouth and of course the diving with sharks in South Africa. kayaking too, including surfing sailing and touring in the UK and abroad and a bit of snorkelling, Plenty of videos too of me fiddling with and driving my classic car, a 1973 Triumph Spitfire and other cars get a look in too. Berlin in Germany, Naples and Rome in Italy, plus the Vatican; Sofia, Varna, Plovdiv and elsewhere in Bulgaria; Lefkosia / Nicosia and much of Cyprus, Krakow in Poland, there's Malta too. Istanbul in Turkey just outside Europe too, and Egypt around Hurghada. Further afield there's a bit of South Africa and Latin America with the Mayan Riviera of Mexico and Rio de Janeiro, Paraty and Isla Grande in Brazil.

[@ashleybennett1064]

I really shouldn't watch your videos. I'm here at 9pm at night on a bank holiday taking my layout apart to make something similar to this 😂😂😂 love the the layout mate

[@Codbotherer]

I'm having inane conversations with my Action Man. You are not falling apart alone 🤣

[@ashleybennett1064]

@@Codbotherer 🤣🤣🤣

[@slbenfica1805]

It's amazing how excited we get about a base board. Good video mate. I'll watch the other parts later on

[@Codbotherer]

That's lockdown for you!!! That's my first two ever now completed. Today the postman brought an airbrush and compressor so now I'm out of space for trains i'll be tackling the numerous 1:48 Hasegawa and 1:32 scale Revell Hawker Typhoons I have had in the loft for 15-20 years. All will be marked as various 609 (west Riding) Squadron Typhoons, some of which will be the markings of people I once knew. Perhaps I'll start accumulating some modeller subscribers too. Gotta have a hobby or three to fit in between work...

[@kleedhamhobby]

Reminds me of my own experiments. The trouble with the R605 curves, as you've likely discovered by now, is that quite a lot of rolling stock can't get round them reliably. Pretty much any loco you buy, other than the little 0-4-0s, will say that it is not designed to run on curves tighter than 2nd radius, and R605s are 1st radius.

[@Codbotherer]

Yeah, discovered it as a kid when my 4-6-2 duchess of abercorn didn't really work. Took decades to know why!

[@marksinthehouse1968]

I always thought the driver on the cover looked like the late great John Lennon as we know ticket to ride was a Beatles hit ,good luck with the layout

[@Codbotherer]

Yeah, I am familiar with the song and I loved this catalogue as a kid! I'm not familiar with John Lennon's face to make the comparison there though I'm afraid. Just a few last pieces to arrive before I'm ready to begin work on it between night shifts. Unlike my previous layout which is purely rural with goods sidings to showcase my LMS collection I've gone for the Hornby buildings of the era (despite their toy like look) as a playability layout with predominantly GWR as per my first set though the LMS mail Coach set R542 is a contemporary and will do a few runs around the circuit (my GWR mail coach arrived in the mid 80's so isn't quite the right year).