Model Railway Show
Lavenham Church's First Model Railway Show takes place on Saturday 16 May 2026
It takes place in the setting of one of the finest and largest parish churches in England, with layouts of all kinds, in a range of scales, regions and countries (with special focus on East Anglia), together with trade stalls. Refreshments will be available.
Layouts
A variety of layouts will be on display, including the following:
Long Melford Junction
00 Gauge Layout, 1950s/60s
Inspired by childhood memories, this layout models the Stour Valley Line in Suffolk during the late 50s to early 60s. Featuring a fully interlocked, 45-lever working signal box, semaphore signals, and a replica signal box diagram. See the historical routes and train movements in action!
There is a monitor screen, which is also displayed on the back scene, showing where each train has come from, and where it is going to. Hopefully, this gives a historical interest, showing the routes that were in place at the time. This timetable is based on real working timetables from the period and gives an idea of a typical day at Long Melford. Both fiddle yards also have their own screens and signal gantries which control movement on and off the layout.
Trains run from Sudbury at one end, through to either Cambridge or Bury St Edmunds at the other, via the junction which is operational on the layout. Shunting also takes place in the goods yard. Two fiddle yards are used, with a looped system at the Sudbury end, and another looped system at the junction end. The layout is DCC controlled with slow motion motors controlling the points, and the semaphore signals all have built in bounce! All the point work is hand built, and buildings are a mixture of kit and scratch built.
Peter Rednall - Brent Eleigh
009 Gauge Layout
Brent Eleigh is a small village lying between Sudbury and Bildeston in West Suffolk. Following the 1896 Light Railway Act, a line was surveyed by Colonel Stephens to link Hadleigh with Long Melford with the intention of developing the agricultural economy of the local area.
The railway was never built but this layout represents a narrow gauge version of what might have been. With a little tweaking of the route, a junction has been modelled at Brent Eleigh to allow
trains to diverge to nearby Lavenham.
On leaving the station the ‘main line’ loops and crosses over itself in Himalaya Darjeeling style to gain the necessary height to carry it out of the valley and onto higher land for the journey to Long Melford. Most of the buildings adjacent to the station are modelled on those in the village though a great deal of licence has been taken in relocating them.
The model is set in springtime in the early 1950’s by which time the company has acquired a variety of both steam and diesel motive power together with rolling stock from other lines which have closed. Road competition has yet to make serious inroads though cost cutting measures are being enforced.
The layout has appeared in January 2020 OO9 News and July 2020 Railway Modeller.
Bassett-Lowke Society - Vintage O Gauge Layout
The Bassett-Lowke society caters for those interested in the products of Bassett-Lowke Ltd, in particular model railway equipment, but also including model ships and other model engineering items. The society also welcomes those interested in the other model railway and model engineering makes of the same period, such as Bing, Carette, Mills, Leeds, Bonds ‘o Euston Road, Douglass, Exley, CCW etc.
Bassett-Lowke items are now very popular with collectors and have become valuable. Quite ordinary Gauge 0 locomotives in the standard range might reach a few hundred pounds at auction, while the larger limited production engines in good order often fetch several thousand. Rolling stock, accessories, literature, track and ephemera are equally sought after. Even a quite modest collection can be a considerable asset. A very good reason for joining the Society is to ensure that not only do you get good advice on looking after your investment, its originality and history, but you have access to the best advice on its value and insurance.
Hornby Railway Collectors' Association - 0 Gauge Layout
Hornby 0 gauge started life in 1920 as a children’s toy. It remains so, except that children are now of every age (up to 100!) and the ‘toys’ have become much more sophisticated and detailed. This layout has four electrically powered circuits showing ‘something of everything – engines, carriages, wagons, stations, signals and signal cabins and much more. It also features many items that look like original Hornby but have been made by enthusiasts in the last 30 years. Can you tell the differences?
Peter Boyt - 'Crickey' - Scenic tramway layout, 00/H0 Gauge
Presented by ex BSE MRC Chairman Peter Boyt, this fictitious tramway has a 5 road shed with hand made working traverser: a Faller Helter-skelter and roundabout. Peter has a very interesting and varied collection of more than 60 working trams - see which ones he brings along today. Inspiration for the layout comes from the National Tramway Museum in Chrich. It contains a small terminus stop, a tram shed with traverser, a small working model funfair with 20ft of continuous track. My trams are mainly European (like current Blackpool stock). It’s fully illuminated and has something running 95% of the time.
Nouvion - French AchO Layout - Ron McCaskie - H0 Gauge
Nouvion is a medium sized town somewhere in Normandy which has grown considerably in importance since the Second World War, in no small part thanks to a serious of economic initiatives instigated by Rene Artois (a well-known local cafe owner of certain notoriety) and his long suffering wife Madam Edith. The town, as befits its status, now has a large through station very much in the French style, an extensive goods yard and a small engine shed which dates to the less prosperous pre-war steam era. There are frequent train services to a number of major French cities all using Hornby AcHo locomotives and rolling stock manufactured by Meccano (France) Ltd in their Calais Factory between 1960 and 1973.
Cockfield - 1950s 0 Gauge Layout - John Thurman
The layout is based on my local station, Cockfield, and is modular, designed to fit in whatever space or theme is at the venue, based on 48” x12” modules. It is radio controlled with sound effects lights, and sound. It is all battery powered. The back scenery is low relief.
Apart from that, it is kept relatively simple aiming to provide entertainment for all ages and genders, to help raise funds for charity, church repairs, museum maintenance etc, to encourage younger people to take up the hobby and learn new skills, and to help husbands convince their wives that they do not have to take over the spare room, as it can pack away neatly.
Bryan Panton - Lego Layout
This layout features the LEGO 9V train system, produced between 1991 and 2005. It represents a particularly successful phase in the evolution of LEGO railways, combining electrical reliability with the simplicity of the standard LEGO building system.
Although discontinued in 2005 in favour of battery-powered radio controlled systems, the 9V era is widely regarded as the high point of LEGO’s track-powered trains. It remains popular with enthusiasts today for its reliability, simplicity, and the ability to create fully powered layouts without onboard batteries.
This exhibit demonstrates the enduring appeal of the system, combining two classic toys model trains and Lego.
Graham Wilkins - 16mm Narrow Gauge Layout
Demo layout of live steam and battery powered narrow gauge engines and rolling stock suitable for running on a garden railway plus advice on planning, building, stocking, running and maintaining a railway in the garden.
Hornby Dublo 3-rail Layout - Revd Simon PItcher
Our Rector, Revd Canon Simon Pitcher, has always been one of those clergymen who enjoy railways. He previously enjoyed a 15 year career on British Rail. Simon inherited his father’s Hornby Dublo 3-rail models, and is pleased to exhibit a few of these on a simple loop layout. The layout shows a four road engine shed, turntable and station buildings. Hornby Dublo was the original and best of British model railways. The company flourished in the 1950s and 1960s, producing high quality models that were exported all over the world from the Liverpool factory.
Lavenham Station - 00 Gauge Layout - Robyn Lloyd Hughes
This layout, which is still incomplete and under development, will reproduce the site of Lavenham Station and Goods Yard as it was in its last twenty years or so of existence. The line opened in 1865 from Bury St Edmunds to Long Melford where it joined the line from Cambridge to Sudbury and Marks Tey. It was built by the Great Eastern Railway and passed through the ownership of the London and North Eastern Railway (1923-48) before becoming part of the nationalised British Railways in 1948. The station closed to passengers in 1961 and to all traffic in 1965, a few weeks before its Centenary.
British Military Operations in Germany 1945-91 - H0 Gauge - Robyn Lloyd Hughes
After the end of WW2 the British Army’s Royal Engineers (subsequently Royal Corps of Transport) and the US Army Transportation Corps ran extensive rail operations across Europe. They supported the recovery of rail networks which had been destroyed or severely damaged during the hostilities, as well as providing Cold War defence and maintaining the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) and the US European Command.
This layout, using Märklin Digital H0 (3-rail) and Fleischmann 2-rail, includes the Hospital Trains, Ammunition Trains, passenger and freight trains that remained in use for many years, some into the 1990s, through the steam and diesel eras.
There will also be some displays of railway paraphernalia and pictures, trade stands selling various items, and refreshments provided by Good Food Army from their classic 1973 Commer van.
Further Details
This page will be updated with more details about layouts and trade stalls as they are confirmed - please complete the form below if you would like to keep you informed of developments.
Tickets
Admission is by ticket by one-hour time slots. Adult admission £7.00, family tickets £12.00.
Please note that a ticket for admission between 9am and 10am (for example) guarantees you entry between those times, but does not restrict access later in the day - you will not be kicked out at 10am, and indeed a wrist band system will be in place so that you can leave the church and re-enter (if you wish to seek refreshments in the village for example) during the rest of the day. We merely wish to ensure that we do not have a big rush at one particular time during the day.
Click here to buy your ticket for your preferred time-slot now to guarantee entry. Tickets may be available on the door, but entry cannot be guaranteed unless pre-booked.
Replica Station Signs
We have commissioned full-size replica stations signs (in plastic) in the Eastern Region blue for the stations that were on the Bury St Edmunds to Long Melford line (including Lavenham of course), and we are please to offer the chance to order these now for £56.25 each. They will be available to order at the show as well, but the price will be more if you wait until then!
