Market Deeping Model Railway Club exhibit their Woodcroft layout at the Warley National Model Railway Exhibition at Birmingham's National Exhibition Centre after 25 members spent 1,000 hours repairing it when the layout was vandalised before the club's exhibition at Stamford Welland Academy in May
After a 1,000 hours of work by 25 people, a model railway club’s hand-built layout that was smashed up by vandals has been displayed again.
Woodcroft, which belongs to Market Deeping Model Railway Club, was displayed at the Warley National Model Railway Exhibition at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre on Saturday and Sunday.
Read more: Rod Stewart is made an honoury member of the club live on BBC's The One Show.
Peter Davies, club chairman, said: “I was at the Birmingham exhibition all day on Saturday and there were several members that travelled to the show.
“It’s a huge exhibition - one of the biggest in the country - and it was just wonderful to meet so many people and to be able to show one of the layouts that was so badly damaged in May.
“A lot of people had worked incredibly hard on it.”
Peter added that Woodcroft is an EM gauge layout that is entirely hand built and finished.
As well as the model trains, track and scenery being painstakingly restored by hand, the layout’s electrics and wiring behind the scenes had to be rebuilt.
Woodcroft was orginally created by former Market Deeping Model Railway Club chairman David Smith.
It is a through station on an imaginary single-track line built to give access to Stamford from the Great Northern main line.
On Monday, Peter Davies joined Sir Rod Stewart on the sofa of BBC television’s The One Show.
Sir Rod, a model rail enthusiast, donated £10,000 to the club after the vandalism and when Peter walked across the stage to join Sir Rod, the pair embraced.
Peter explained how it took about 1,000 man hours and 35 people to restore just one damaged model railway layout.
He also spoke of the overwhelming response the group had received, and showed his gratitude to Sir Rod, whose money has helped immensely with the reconstruction of the model railway and the group’s work with youth projects and charities.
Following on from their successful exhibition at the NEC, the club will also be exhibiting at the Deepings Community Centre during the Market Deeping Christmas Market this Sunday, as well as the National Festival of Railway Modelling at the East of England Showground in Peterborough on Saturday, December 7 and Sunday December 8.
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