Welcome to Tom
Jenkins' Home Page
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| This site shows the topics that interest me
in the world of model & prototype railways. There are pages on
historic items, photographic, technical and engineering aspects, also
on this site are pages on scale railway modelling and the layouts and
model projects I am or have been involved with. It will continue to
expand as I include more pages. |
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| MENU | Scale Drawings Since 2001, I have been involved in producing scale drawings for LMS and pregrouping engines and rolling stock. This is a jpeg image of a drawing of an L&NWR cattle wagon. Click here to see a clearer 4mm to the foot drawing of this cattle wagon in PDF format or click on the drawing.  In 2002 I produced a booklet of LMS wagons in 4mm scale for our model railway club, the Workington Model Railway Group. Further booklets are in the pipeline but the chap who came up with the idea and started on the the first drawings has left the club. He passed away a couple of years ago so I will produce the books when time allows.
My modelling experience ranges
from N Gauge, though
American HO, 009, 00 Gauge, EM Gauge to 0 Gauge. I am currently working
on my EM Gauge exhibition layout have a plans to build another 00 Gauge
layout in my loft
My first 4mm scale layout grew from a test track into a branchline of the London & North Western Railway. I called the station Mardale after the countryside the proposed line would have run through but the line was never built in full size reality. If the line had been built then it would have run between Kendal in Westmorland and Penrith in Cumberland. Between 1970 and 1992 I have
been a member of four Cumbrian model
railway clubs, building club layouts and my own layouts that have been
exhibited at two of the club's exhibitions. When I lived in Lancashire
I was also a member of a club in Lancaster.
In the 1980s I built an N gauge layout of Bangor in North Wales. Regretfully no photos of the layout have survived. It went to several exhibitions in the North west of England and we ran BR steam locomotives as well as the occasional item of BR corporate blue stock. After an excursion into
modelling American outline railroad models and
layouts between the mid 1980s to 2003, my first interests
kicked back in and I returned to modelling in 4mm scale UK outline
again. In 1985 I was disillusioned with some of the crude RTR UK
outline models I was selling in my shop and I was intrigued by Athern's
and Bachmann's American outline models. They had drive on all axles and
were powered by 5-pole motors. On a scale of 1 to 10 of Hornby made
model locos compared to American and Asian models I would rate the
Margate engines in the 1970s and 1980s at about 6. The Athern models
didn't appear to suffer from dirty wheels like British made RTR models
did. I became a fan of the Santa Fe railway, Yes it was a railway not a
railroad. The corporate name said railway not railroad. I soon became
interested in a new regional railroad that had emerged in Wisconsin.
Their stock was painted in maroon with a broad horizontal golden yellow
stripe. This was the Wisconsin Central Ltd. A few years after I sprayed
up some models into the WC maroon & golden yellow scheme the
prototype company took up franchises in Great britain to become the
EWS. UK engines were painted up like the WC engines but I had a deep
rooted inclination to get back into UK outline modelling. I satisfied
my urge primarily by doing some 7mm scale LMS wagon drawings for a
friend. Now Hornby models are made in China and Bachmann has
established itself as a world leader in 00 gauge I can honestly say
that both Hornby and Bachmann models are as good as the American models
I switched to when turned my back on UK outline models.
Encouraged by my best friend who had moved away from Workington to live in Horwich, I decided to have a go at UK modelling again. I settled upon a Railway Company I have always been interested in, The Cleator & Workington Junction Railway (C&WJR). I planned to build an imaginary branchline that branches off the C&WJR's Northern Extension. I decided to use the old name of Broughton Moor for the name of my station - Wyndham Row. The scale is 4mm/foot but the gauge is not 00. I have chosen to model the gauge to 18.2mm - EM gauge. Below is a photo of the layout under construction. The wagons in the photo are scratch built as is the station building. I have based the design upon the prototype C&WJR station of Seaton, near Workington. When work has progressed a little further I will keep adding photos and information as work progresses. The locomotives for Wyndham Row
have been scratch built, built from
kits, or are heavily modified RTR models, altered to run on EM 18.2mm
gauge track.  At the same time as I am
building the Wyndham Row layout I am working
on another layout. It takes the name of the layout I built in the 1970s
- Mardale, but this time it is version 2, and it is being built in my
loft. This time this time I am working to 00 gauge so that RTR engines
can be run without converting them to EM. Mardale 2 will be set around
the end of the 2nd World War in the LMS's latter days. Some
models are out of the box where
others are kit or kitbashed into a different model. Such examples are
Stanier's Turbine Pacific - LMS 6202 Turbomotive and the Ivatt
improvement of a Stanier Coronation named after the great man himself -
LMS 6256 Sir William A Stanier FRS. All the stock I have collected for
to use on Mardale 2 will also be used on West Cumbrian Railway
Modellers's Conwy layout, but in theory the pacific engines will run
less
frequent and then in LMS days they were only used on running in turns
after being overhauled at Crewe.
My Loco Information Web pages  LMS Patriot No.5507 with a Fowler pattern tender. Rebuilt Patriots had a taper boiler and a Stanier 4000 gall riveted tender. Last year (2006) I produced a web page dedicated to the LMS 5XP locomotive, the Patriots. All the engines' names and numbers are listed and rebuilt engines are also indicated. Click here to go to the LMS Patriot locomotive information page or click on the image to enlarge the photo. To be added shortly info regarding Black Fives, Jubilees, Princess Royals, Coronation LMS Pacifics and Royal Scots engines. Currently I am a member of two model clubs. First is the West
Cumbria
Railway Modellers section of the Workington MRG. The other club is the
Maryport Model Club |
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| Wyndham Row layout The Old Mardale Layout The Old Workington MR Club West Cumbria Rly Modellers FR animated GIF train Modelling Data Pages |
4mm scale LNWR Loco kits Patriot loco info Coronation loco info Royal Scot loco info Black Five loco Info More Links >> |
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| Introduction
Regular
visitors to my website will notice that I have changed this web page
layout slightly. As more pages are added the top menu line was
beginning to look untidy so I decided to change the layout Thanks
for choosing to view my web pages. I was born and I've lived most of my
life in Workington. Apart for a short period away from home I have
lived near to a railway or a disused trackbed. Railways were a common
theme in our family as my grandfather and an uncle were engine drivers.
My father and two more uncles made steel for the manufacture of railway
lines and I owned a model railway shop for over twenty years. I lived
for twelve months in Harrington and a further twelve months in
Morecambe and Lancaster. The railways were within 10 to 15 minutes
walking distance or a couple of minutes in a car. This web site is an
indication of some of my hobbies. My
work has always been something to do with electronics. I left school in
1959 serving my time as an apprentice with a radio & television
retailer. Since then I have worked for several TV rental companies
becoming a Service Manager for a national discount warehouse and in
1970 I started up from scratch a model railway business. I first
began selling second hand model railway items and as the
months went on I became an agent for Tri-ang Hornby and Tri-ang Wrenn.
After a few years I took on more and more agencies and in 1985 I bought
out the firm known as Polytechnic. I left the model business in 1990
due to bad health but soon I was fit again. I
studied at college
and with other agencies and became qualified in business studies
and IT work. I applied for a job with a large electronics manufacturing
firm in Workington but after a while I was made redundant. It felt like
ages until I took a temporary job for there were no local electronics
or computing jobs locally. I became a dispatcher for a taxi
company and sold computer systems in my spare time. In 1999 I
swopped a computer system for a taxi and went solo and started up my
own taxi company. I called it LMS taxis and soon work was pouring in
like it wouldn't stop. I gave discounts on fares and the word spread. I
expanded to two taxis and a minibus but by 2001, when the foot and
mouth disease hit us hard in Cumbria my business folded almost
overnight. I managed to keep going for six months but threw in the
towel in the Autumn of 2001. I decided to take early retirement but
that didn't last long. I spent more time on the internet and computers
so I decided to use the internet and computing to my advantage, which I
will explain later.
Workington main
Railway station photographed
circa 1988 As
mentioned in the intro, my hobbies are reflected in the content of this
web site. Railways, both model and prototype and in particular the
railways of Cumbria, web page design and digital photography. Until the
Government Boundary changes of 1974 the County of Cumbria didn't
exist. Instead the area that is known today as Cumbria consisted of the
counties of Cumberland, Westmorland and parts of Lancashire and
Yorkshire. My main interest lays in West Cumbria, where there used to
be a complex network of railways serving the Iron & Steel
Industries and coal mining. There was also quarrying of limestone in
West Cumbria and the mineral was used as a catalyst in the conversion
of iron into steel. Workington was the centre of the Cumbrian steel
industry with other ironworks scattered around the county and another
large works at Barrow in Furness, which was in Lancashire until the
changes of 1974 when the busy town became part of Cumbria.
Workington owes its
existence as we know it today to iron and steel
making. The iron & steel workings caused the town to expand
and the railways to grow. In 1866 the London & North Western
Railway Company bought out two of the local railways in the west
of the county and later it acquired the Whitehaven, Cleator &
Egremont railway but within one year its newly acquired possession was
split between the Euston giant and the Furness Railway. The
L&NWR expanded its workings and infrastucture in Workington in the
1880s and rebuilt their stations in Workington. The Main station known
to Workingtonians as the Low Station was rebuilt in 1886 and was
quietly opened on November 6th. There were no parades or celebrations,
nor did any spectators turn up to witness the event. The station
remained almost in its 1886 condition for many years and about 100
years later the approach to the station was altered. See the above
photo for the present day approach to the station then left click on
the image with your mouse to see an earlier photo.
My
first 4mm scale layout grew from a test track into a branchline of the
London & North Western Railway. I called the station Mardale after
the countryside the proposed line would have run through but the line
was never built in full size reality. If the line had been built then
it would have run between Kendal in Westmorland and Penrith in
Cumberland.
As well
as being an enthusiast of local railways of West Cumbria and the London
Midland & Scottish Railway I started up a model shop in 1970. I
used the LMS initials in the trading title and called it The Locomotive
Model Shop. The shop was open for business from 1970 to 1990. We
expanded by buying out another business and we sold electronic
components for the railway modellers. Health reasons dictated we close
the shop. It is now a private residence.
We sold
mainly model railways as the name implies and were service dealers for
Hornby, Wrenn and Palitoy- Mainline. Out of view to the left of the
photo stands St Michael's day centre of which, I am the Vice Chairman.
It is a charity to help and provide social activities for unemployed
and the older residents of Workington.
The shop closed in 1990 when the lease ran out. I continued to sell by mail-order from my home under the name of Hartington Modeltechnic. Hartington was the name of the street where I lived and Modeltechnic was an amalgamation of Locomotive Model Shop and Polytechnic. We changed the name to HM Products for several months but full time work commitments prevented me spending the time on the business it deserved, so I ceased trading. I sold off both the modelling and electronics side of the business in 1998 but the new owners never found new premises or continued to trade. They were a married couple and soon after they accquired the businesses they split up and devorced. Under the terms of the sale, I could recover the old trading names if the business ceased trading or failed to start up again within a specified period of the transfer. All of the old trading names have been recovered and transfered over to the WMR Group. They are a not for proffit organisation of which I am an executive member. The group plans to trade again shortly using the old trading names of Locomotive Model Shop, Polytechnic and HM Products. Sales will be mail-order and internet based. |
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