The award-winning Norman Colliery was born out of Geoff Brain’s need to have somewhere to shunt wagons about with his growing collection of early design diesel shunters. The baseboards where originally made for a OO continuous run 12 x 8 layout which never materialised. They were converted to a 16 ft x 2 ft scenic O gauge layout with a 7.5 foot exchange yard.

It represents a small colliery at the end of a goods branch line. The premise is that the colliery is winding down at the end of its life, in the 1970s/1980s, with the lower screens closed down and only the top screens in use, and small trains of wagons taking out the remaining stocks from a once thriving site. The only problem is that the feeder road to the upper screens has been closed by subsidence, so a link line has had to be made to the lower line.

The shunting engines are all kit-built, from various manufacturers, except one 03 from Brassworks. The wagons are all kits, mainly Parkside Dundas, with a couple of Slaters and Piercy.

The colliery buildings are all scratchbuilt from foamboard, with brick and stonework from Slaters and window frames from Highland Castings. The track is all Peco, and the point motors are from Conrad.

Geoff decided to wire the layout for DC operation. He uses a Morley Vanguard Zero One unit, so that he can control two locos. These controllers have very long remote leads that reach both ends of the layout.

Dimensions           23 foot 6 inches x 2 feet (16 x 2 scenic)

Norman Colliery featured in the July 2022 issue of Railway Modeller. It can next be seen at our Spring Show, 1st and 2nd March 2025.