Wiveliscombe is a stunning representation of the station of that name on the Devon and Somerset Railway. It was originally built by Derek Garret and the late Tony Hiscock, following Tony’s sad passing it was purchased by Freddie Huxtable (author of the definitive history of The D&S, The Taunton to Barnstaple Line) and Elliott Cowton, both members of the Barnstaple MRC (although Elliott is better known for his connections to the Fareham & Dist MRC CIO, as a presenter for Ashdown Broadcasting and ModelRailway.tv, and the resident Weathering Demonstrator at FebEx). They will be assisted by other members of the Barnstaple MRC.
The layout first made an appearance at an exhibition in 1992 and was developed over a number of years by two people who had direct family connections to the village, and as such there are a number of really nice touches included in the model. The scenes are easily recognisable by anyone who knows the village, indeed at the recent outing to the National Festival of Railway Modelling one visitor pointed to the backscene view of the main road through the village and said very loudly “My daughter lives in that house”, that’s how recognisable the backscene is! However, one of the challenges of taking over a well known layout is to place your mark on it whilst staying true to the plan of the original builders so at the NFoRM we chose to stick as closely as possible to the original way of presenting and operating the layout as we could, but going forward we will be making a few tweaks – starting with tapping into Freddie’s knowledge of the line’s timetable to redevelop the operations to more closely resemble what happened in a single day rather than the “representative” timetable used up to now.
Wivey on the Web: https://www.tauntontrains.co.uk/oldsite/WIVI-INDEX.htm
The History of Wivey Station: https://www.tauntontrains.co.uk/oldsite/WIVI-HISTORY.htm
Wiveliscombe has a presence on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61564855532987
Wivey was published in the May 2008 edition of Hornby Magazine and was photographed by Chris Nevard. Photographs reproduced with his kind permission.
Layout plan
