‘O’ gauge looks at best outdoors, and DON NEALE’S beautiful Settle and Carlisle inspired garden railway is still running almost 60 years after construction started. Photography, Trevor Jones.
Above: A ‘Black Five’ runs off Deeley Viaduct and passes ‘Jinty’ 0-6-0T 7251 just completing a shunt at Deeley Works sidings. The little tank was the first locomotive I tackled at ‘Kirtley Works’ in 1971. My mentor at the time was Cyril King, fellow member of Leicester Model railway Group and great garden railwayman.
Well over 80 years ago my parents presented me with a four wheeled clockwork Hornby locomotive with a couple of wagons and oval of tinplate track all to that comfortable gauge of one and a quarter inches. I have stuck to ‘O’ gauge ever since. This little train set triggered off a love of steam railways that has stayed with me to this day.
Inspiration for Kirtley was, as you might have gathered from the viaduct, definitely the former Midland Railway Settle to Carlisle line. I live further south in the Shires and grew up in a world of mainly Johnson and Fowler engines with a smattering of Stanier designs entering on the scene. So my model line just had to be London Midland & Scottish Railway (Midlands Division) set in the l…
