This is the home of one of Britain’s most exciting model railways, a world in miniature which combines the nostalgia of the late steam days of British railways with the advent of the High Speed Train in the 1970s. And while ‘above ground’ you can relive the best of the transition era of railways in this country, below the surface highly-sophisticated control systems manage the smooth running of the trains, points and signals.

McKinley is the culmination of the lifelong dream of owner David Townend to recapture the days of his youth watching trains in the west of England. He was fascinated not only by the scheduled passenger trains moving in and out of Bristol Temple Meads, but also by not knowing where the other, non-timetabled trains were coming from, and going to. Decades later we can now all enjoy this dream together as passenger and goods trains travel all over Britain in OO scale.

The McKinley railway takes up two large rooms, with one hosting the original layout whose roots go back around 25 years, and the second now home to the McKinley extension which has been under construction since 2016. The extension has hugely increased the scope of the layout; three massive underground storage yards hold a comprehensive roster of locomotives and rolling stock which can be introduced and withdrawn from service to simulate the passing of the years between 1956 and 1975. These three levels of storage are topped by two visible levels with three new locations (set in Yorkshire) which complement the original stations at London, Birmingham and Manchester.

Trains can now run between London, the Midlands and the North on two pairs of double-tracked mainlines which appear and disappear above and below ground as they make their way around the layout under the watchful eye of the Fat Controller at his central operations desk. Trains are run by the TrainController software system in tandem with an extensive Digitrax DCC network.

A major classification yard at Sheffield looks after the layout’s very extensive freight services, and is also the junction for the slightly-more sedate branch line to Wakefield and Halifax.

But while the technology takes care of the running of the main and branch lines, a team of human operators is needed to run the stations themselves. They receive and prepare for departure the many passenger and goods services which run day and night at McKinley. Many of the operators have been McKinley team members for years, and regularly attend Thursday night running sessions.

Lifelong friendships have been forged on this railway, and we always offer a warm welcome to new visitors, especially if you bring a supply of chocolate biscuits with you! Tea is drunk in copious quantities, and lively banter is exchanged above the toots and whistles. So get in touch if you’d like to come and see us, and perhaps join the McKinley team. We look forward to hearing from you soon.