The model railways & photography of Christopher Chinery

I built and completed my first exhibition layout in 2006. Mason's Bridge Yard went on to attend over a dozen exhibitions in the south of the UK, until it was decided to replace it with a larger exhibition layout, Bad Aston. This layout also attended a dozen or so exhibitions and also featured in the May 2011 Continental Modeller.

Both of these layouts were US outline, but in 2016 I moved back to British outline modelling, building Blackhurst, which eventually became West Sands. During the lockdown and events of 2020, I wanted to try something a bit different and more of a challenge, so made a start into modelling Spanish railways. More recently, I have also started building a small British outline layout, Sotherington Lane, on which to run my ever increasing fleet of kit-built wagons, and Southern Region EMU's.

Below are brief details of each of the layouts. The intention is to expand the details of each layout, with construction details and operational aspects.

I have also over the year been involved with a number of other layouts, when time permits I will add more details of these as well.

Sotherington Lane is my current 4mm/ft scale / 16.5mm gauge British outline layout. It represents a small BR Southern Region passing station, with a freight only branch serving a military stores site and local coal distribution depot.

Punta Brava is the name of my current HO (3.5mm/ft) scale Spanish outline layout. It was initially inspired during the first COVID lockdown, by some railway photographs my father took during a family holiday in Spain in the mid-1980's (see Spanish RENFE photos page).

The layout was intended to depict a small terminus station and freight yard located somewhere on the Catalan coast, near Barcelona, during the late 1980's and early 1990's (Epoch IV & V), with elements taken from real locations along the lines from Barcelona to Valencia and Barcelona to Girona. These have been combined to hopefully give a suitable Spanish look to the layout. For instance, the station building is based on the one at Blanes, albeit in mirror image and compressed slightly, with the retaining wall being inspired by the one in Tarragona.

However, the initial layout has been mothballed, due to not being satisfied with the baseboards used, so I am currently planning a new layout, using new baseboards, but it will use the same name.

West Sands is my current British outline layout, and is a rebuild of Blackhurst, using the same baseboards and track plan, but has been extended and modified. West Sands represents a Southern Region seaside branch terminus in the pre-TOPS period of 1967-1973, and supposes that the Selsey tramway in West Sussex had been taken over by the LBSCR and rebuilt to mainline standards.

In it's Blackhurst guise, the layout made a public appearance at the Railway Enthusiasts Club exhibition in September 2016.

View some images of the layout as West Sands

View some images of the layout as Blackhurst

West Sands / Blackhurst also has a thread on RMWeb. Click this link to view the RMWeb West Sands topic thread

Bad Aston is an HO scale layout built as a joint project with my father. It was built as a replacement for Mason's Bridge Yard.

The layout made it's first appearance at the Twickenham and District MRC's 50th Anniversary exhibition and the layout appeared as Railway of the Month in the May 2011 issue of Continental Modeller. The text extract of the Continental Modeller article can be found in the link below.

Bad Aston made a number of appearances at exhibitions in the south of England, until it's final exhibition appearance in January 2015. Unfortunately, due to lack of space, the layout has had to be dismantled.

View some images of Bad Aston

Bad Aston Continental Modeller Article

Mason's Bridge Yard was my first HO scale American Outline layout. Originally built just as a small switching layout for my sound equipped GP7, it evolved into my first exhibition layout and I spent, along with my father, a few years taking it to exhibitions in the south of the UK. The layout was eventually retired from the exhibition circuit in the autumn of 2010.

View some images of Mason's Bridge Yard

Find out more about Mason's Bridge Yard