Dave Forbes

I had no choice really, born to a lifelong BR driver and railway modeller, I don’t recall the exact details now, but I know I was allegedly responsible for my dad ripping up his TT layout as I wanted one of those fancy new Hornby HST’s. I don’t think he needed much encouragement in all fairness. After that I guess it was a normal upbringing, to a point.

 

My dad had become involved with Rail Riders and ended up building their ‘Rail Riders World’ layout on York Station. We got to pay a few visits to the Hornby factory (kid in a sweet shop!) and I remember floor to ceiling shelves stacked full. There were a couple of boxes of surplus Minitrix stock that was due to be thrown out, so they gave it to us. From then on I knew N gauge was for me. We built a couple of small layouts, and at this time we also had a rather nice French HO layout. I have fond memories of that layout, and it was exhibited quite regularly, but we knew we needed a better N gauge one. So ‘Hartland Valley’ was born.

 

Initially a 12’ x 3’ single track, this eventually (and quite ridiculously) became 42’ x 18’ x 42’ in a stretched out U shape. This defined the next few years, being exhibited with and for Network South East as their promotional layout. My dad was also busy organising shows including the 2 big 1980’s Open days at Cannon St and London Bridge stations, at which I was charged with looking after the layout. It eventually became too much though and although we could do shows with a smaller configuration, age took its toll on both the layout and the operators. We both continued going to shows and helping out on friends layouts, but eventually retirement and ill health forced my dad’s gradual retirement from the scene. I’d also got to the age where other pursuits offered a more glamorous option – music, beer, travelling, girls.. Model railways fell by the wayside for me.

​

This was all rekindled many years later when a chance visit to a model shop led to me buying a couple of coaches. My dad was sadly no longer with us at this point, but his legacy (and shed full of trains) lived on, so I knew then that I wanted to get back involved. At this point the hobby had changed A LOT and I was very confused with it all, but thanks to the internet and being able to re-cycle some of his stock I’ve now managed to get to the point where I’m fully immersed back in. I don’t have a layout – my pokey flat in East London doesn’t provide the size for that (I need somewhere to run my (now) 6 HST’s after all) - but now I’m in my mid 40’s I can quite rightly dream of one day owning a shed and being able to build one of the many variants of ‘Hartland Junction’ that exist in my brain. In the meantime, a chance read on the internet led me to "James Street" and getting the opportunity to not only go to shows again, but re-connect with old friends and have all those experiences that I knew I missed from the first time round.

 

My normal operating area at exhibitions are the two main goods yards at "James Street", including taking trains to "Lynford Junction Low Level" and across to the dock yeard. I also look after the "James Street" website