Redruth Model Railway Club’s latest ‘OO’ gauge layout is a present-day quarry scene set on the Devon/Cornwall border, offering a nod to the famous operations at Meldon Quarry, as ANDREW KEAST reveals. Photography, Trevor Jones.
HOOPER’S AGGREGATES is a ‘OO’ gauge layout set on the Devon/Cornwall border from the 2000s to the present day, based on a stone quarry and nearby traction maintenance depot.
It has been suggested there’s an element of Meldon Quarry on the former London & South Western Railway route from Exeter to Plymouth via Okehampton and Tavistock, and that would certainly fit the location. Perhaps it’s that the quarry – like Meldon – extends to the edge of a valley with a viaduct on the main line crossing it. With the stretch from Crediton to Okehampton proving very popular since it reopened a year ago, could Meldon once again see freight trains again in the future? View it through squinted eyes and you might imagine the South Western Railway Class 159s wending their way on a Plymouth-Exeter-Waterloo train, with Great Western Railway diversions!
Above: It’s another busy night shift for the traction maintenance depot team, with EWS’ 60001 on the fuel road, while 66209 and 66050 are on-shed receiving t…
