Overcombe

In the late 70s, early 80s I was a member of the Southampton MRS. A fabulous group of modellers. They taught me so much in my formative years of railway modelling, things like how to build track from components and proper scenics. The club is still going strong, with many of those members from 40 or so years ago still very active, albeit a little greyer! 

Here are a few of scenes on Overcombe, one of the various layouts the club had at the time. On a sunny day in June 1985 we took the layout outside to photograph it for The Model Railway Constructor. I was a keen photography student at the time, so was given the job to snoop about with a few rolls of Ilford FP4, whilst several club members moved the layout around to suit the sun whilst holding up a large sheet of pale blue painted hardboard to block out the background. 

After 37 years, the negatives from the shoot are back in my possession having been stored by a club member far better than I ever could have over half a lifetime. I’m now slowly scanning the negatives to super high res so they can be enjoyed in this digital era by a global audience. 

Sadly the narrow gauge section of the layout no longer exists, but the station and river boards do - they having been in storage for over 3 decades. But moving to the present day, I had the delight of a revisit earlier in the week to photograph the layout again for the popular press. 

The layout, now in private ownership still runs beautifully, despite decades of disuse, that’s surely a tribute to the quality of the original build. The buildings, many of which I gather were made in the 1960s still look great, they being of their time from cardboard, a medium which if done properly appears to have great longevity