LAYOUT | N | HUNTERS LANE
I can date the origins of this layout quite precisely to January 2015, when the production of Revolution Trains’ N gauge Class 390 Pendolino was confirmed. Having always described myself as a ‘contemporary’ modeller interested in the WCML, the lack of an N gauge Pendolino had effectively frozen my modelling era to the early-2000s, as the most upto-date express train I had was my Poole-built Graham Farish Virgin Trains Class 87/Mk3 set with a Dapol Driving Van Trailer.
The announcement of the Pendolino meant modelling the present-day WCML was suddenly possible (I had attempted to make my own 3D-printed 390 set but it wasn’t entirely convincing). As with the Farish Class 350 and plenty of suitable freight locomotives in my collection, the Pendolino was an important missing element. The trouble was that in 2015, and even in 2018, when the Pendolino models finally arrived, I was in the middle of a 10-year gap between layouts due to both space and financial constraints. Nevertheless, the plans for ‘Hunters Lane’ began to fill a sketchbook, and by the time of a house move in 2021,1 was itching to get going.
The concept
‘Hunters Lane’ was always intended to be a small
