LONGNOR

Factfile

Layout name: Longnor

Scale/Gauge: 7mm:1ft scale / 16.5mm gauge / O-16.5

Size: 16ft x 1ft 6in

Era/Region: Mid-1930s

Layout type: End-to-end

Longnor is a village in North Staffordshire and not too far away from Hulme End, which was the terminus of the Leek & Manifold Railway. In reality, Longnor never had any form of railway connection and the model is a simple ‘might have been’.

The Leek & Buxton Railway never existed in real life. The story behind the layout is that the line’s backers intended to have a general purpose line linking Leek to Buxton and, as it would have to be narrow gauge to tackle the topography of the route it would need to take, it would be an obvious attraction for tourists as it travelled through the Staffordshire and Derbyshire Dales. The railway was opened from Leek to Longnor in the early twentieth century. The story goes on to say that the general traffic and tourists didn’t materialise at the levels expected and that the line never got beyond Longnor – about halfway from Leek to Buxton and, although small, the largest inhabited area along the chosen route.

The model is set in 1935 and