Ilkeston Town was the terminus station on a half-mile branch line from Ilkeston Junction Station on the main London Midland and Scottish Erewash Valley Line from Nottingham to Sheffield. This layout depicts most of that line. The model is an interesting historical record of the area and the trains that served the town in LMS days.

It is set in the 1930s and is operated to reflect the seventy daily train movements that were timetabled in that era. Passenger trains ran to and from Ilkeston Junction, Trent, Nottingham, Sheffield, and Mansfield. The goods traffic consisted of four daily trains with a cattle train on Wednesdays. The stock is mainly kit built but some of the locos are ready-to-run.

The layout is based on the LMS rating plan for 1923, although the layout has been reduced in scale length. Nevertheless all the main features from the bridges over the Erewash Canal and the River Erewash have been included. The railway buildings have long since been demolished, and the station is under a Tesco superstore. Therefore, all the railway buildings are scratch-built, based on plans and old photographs. The shops, houses, and gas works on the back scene are based upon those few houses in the vicinity that remain, and photographs of those that have been demolished.