Being raised and living on the Isle of Man, my first introduction to the world of railway by my grandfather as a small boy, was of course, on the island’s narrow gauge systems – hence my interest in all things narrow gauge – as to me, standard gauge is 3ft. What I shock I got after years and years watch and riding on the Manx narrow gauge, when I was take to the Science Museum in London, and saw the huge ‘broad’ gauge monsters in there – the GWR Castle and prototype Deltic looked enormous. Even now forty years later, when I frequently visit the big island, your standard gauge tracks still look big too me. However, I have grown to love all types and gauges of railways, both steam and modern traction.
To fuel my interest in narrow gauge, I started to write about the Isle of Man railways and tramways in the UK railway magazines, and this interest extended to other NG systems, and as a consequence, I have been the UK News Editor for Narrow Gauge World magazine for the past ten years. Of course, my first railway love is the 3ft gauge Isle of Man Railway, and I still supply news, photographs and articles on this railway to all the railway magazines. I have also written three books on the Isle of Man Railway too. One in 1996, on modelling the IoMR, another called ‘Manx Peacocks’ in 1998, which a profile of the system’s famous 15 Beyer, Peacock 2-4-0T Tank locomotives, and I have a book coming out in a couple of weeks time entitled ‘Manx Railways a Celebration’.
I am also a keen railway modeller too. To be honest, I have been a bit of a grasshopper modeller in the past, dabbling in various scales and gauges. In the last forty years I have modelled modern, narrow gauge, GWR branch line both in 00 and N, a BR 1970s diesel refueling depot in 00, 0 gauge GWR/BR branch, Swiss NG in H0m, Isle of Man Railway in 00n12, and out in the garden on 45mm gauge. There is so much choice out there for the railway modeller, in fact too much… At the moment, I have 15mm scale on 45 mm gauge track Isle of Man Railway in the garden. However, being out in the garden in the winter running trains is not ideal, in fact, some summer’s days are not much better either. I have a urge to do an indoor layout in a smaller scale, but not sure what I want to build and run. I find N too small, so it’s 00/H0 and above. A blank canvas, but so much choice. I have just been thumbing thought the latest issue of the Railway Modeller, and the latest models are superb in every scale – help!
Being honest, my dream would to be build a large indoor layout of the Isle of Man Railway featuring the main station at Douglas and a couple of others too in 10mm scale on 30mm gauge track which seems about the right size to me (about 0 gauge size). Of course, with no commercial support this would be a totally scratch built affair taking many years to complete. Still I can dream…
Cheers
David
www.davidlloyd-jones.co.uk
dlj@manx.net
David Lloyd-Jones