1.GENESIS

I am a member of a very informal internet society called the SMJ Society.  The Society is a loose collection of folk, all of whom have an interest in a quite obscure railway line.  That line; the Stratford upon Avon and Midland Junction Railway, is an East to West route that was designed to carry Iron Ore and Coal between South Wales and the Midlands.  That aspiration failed and it became a bucolic railway backwater, latterly part of the mighty London, Midland and Scottish Railway.  Passenger services were cut in 1952, well before the Beeching Cuts and although the line was upgraded in the late 1950's as a freight only route, road competition finally did for the line in the 1960's.

I had originally wanted to model Morton Pinkney station as a memorial to a lovely couple who lived in the village and were very kind to me in my formative years.  Les and Della Pratt were a mine of local information and it was they that encouraged my teenage interest in our local railway line.  Mrs Pratt had a photograph of her and Les waiting on the platform of Morton Pinkey station waiting for the train to the Blakelsey Flower Show, all dressed up in thier best clothes.

When I came to start the model, I decided to make it as cheaply as possible because tomes are quite hard in the Donal house.  The points I had didn't fit Morton Pinkney but a little research indicated that they would fit Blakesley nicely. I drew up the plans and with a bit of compression of the prototype, I found that a recognisable model of Blakesley could be made.