Passenger types: All

Freight types: All

Operators: Computer controlled

A core feature of how McKinley operates is its era management system.

Put simply, McKinley represents the world of British railways in miniature between 1956 and 1975. Those two decades spanned the momentous transition of steam to diesel, and a multitude of changing rolling stock as the new world of British Railways distanced itself from the post-war ‘Big Four’ companies.

To sustain this McKinley holds a huge variety of rolling stock, both passenger and freight, to represent that 20-year period. Very little of what you will see at McKinley in 1956 will still be around as the era ends with the screaming arrival of the HST twin passenger sets in 1975. At any given time, every item of rolling stock in the McKinley inventory must either have left the layout, be actually on the layout, or be ready to emerge from storage for its period of service. And that’s what Hades is all about.

In Greek mythology Hades was a distant kingdom, or realm, which received an individual after death. In McKinley’s twist on the underworld original, Hades acts both as the forelife and the afterlife for rolling stock not in current service on the above ground, visible parts of the layout. Trains arrive and depart their mortal lives depending on their relevant slot in the 1956-75 era, and are then seen no more. Hades occupies three entire storage levels under Sheffield, Wakefield and Halifax in the new extension room, and is entirely computer-controlled. We could have called it Watford, but who’d want to spend the afterlife there?