McKinley owner David Townend’s misspent youth would often find him at Bristol Temple Meads station. The short-trousered youngster watched in fascination as trains arrived and departed with great purpose, although at the time he had no idea what that purpose actually was. Through the years, this fascination kept a grip on David and now forms the basis of the current McKinley Railway's design and operation.

To make life more interesting, the era modelled is that at the end of steam. This gives scope for a range of both steam and diesel to be modelled.


Space and motivation parameters meant constructing scale models of each location was not an option. Therefore the various locations around the layout have been based on their real life counterparts but are not supposed to be accurate. With the prototype locations so far apart, we could operate mainline running.


The London - Birmingham section meant we could run Western Region stock and the Birmingham - Manchester section meant we could run Midland Region stock.


Because we couldn't face dealing with the complexities of Overhead Line Electrification (OLE) we have instead used a slightly alternative version of history and kept the old Midland Mainline through the Peak District open (via Derby, Matlock, Millers Dale and Manchester Central).


We are currently building an extension to Yorkshire (think of the proposed second phase of HS2 if you like) which should be operational by 2020 - see Phase II for more details. This will allow us to run Eastern Region stock as well as Western Region and Midland Region.


At the time modelled ‘BR blue’ was invading the engine sheds of our green and pleasant land, and rumours abound about the Westerns, Warships and Hymeks being purged!


The McKinley Extension Project will see a massive expansion of storage facilities to allow seamless operation from 1956 to 1975 with appropriate stock to match the prototypes of each year. See the Time Machine for more details.