The ”LONG PRESTON” Railway Exhibition
was held in the Village Hall on
Saturday & Sunday 4th & 5th July 2009

To commemorate the 160th anniversary of the railway coming to Long Preston the Heritage Group arranged an Exhibition of the History of Long Preston Station, which was opened in July 1849.

The exhibition featured a large, detailed model 'O' gauge of the station and sidings as they were in the 1920's, together with working model engines and rolling stock of the period.

There were also be displays of photographs and documents showing the history of the railway.

Photographs of the Model are by:

Steve Flint, courtesy of the Railway Modeller magazine [RM]

& Tony Wright,  courtesy of the British Railway Modelling magazine [BRM]

The layout in 7 mm scale O Gauge had been built by Jamie Guest and his colleagues at Wakefield over the last 14 years and was exhibited for the first time in 2002.

It started out as a simple model of a small Midland Railway country station near the owner’s boyhood home but grew.   It is set in the early 1920’s and all the trains are representative of examples that would have worked through the station in that era. Much detailed research has gone into producing examples of the correct liveries and vehicles.

The buildings are all based on the real prototypes and are as accurate as we can make them. The main aim has been to reproduce what a busy section of the Midland’s route to Scotland would have looked like in the early 1920’s.

To add interest, modellers’ licence has allowed the inclusion of an 0/16.5 narrow gauge line.   This is based on a nearby prototype that was built in 1920, by the Fylde Water Board, to take construction materials to Stocks reservoir.  Materials were actually taken by road vehicles from Long Preston to Tosside, 5 miles away, where the 3’ gauge line started.   The model is based on the “what if” the line had actually come all the way to Long Preston and includes a narrow gauge transfer yard on the site of the Water Board sidings.  These include a mixed gauge section.  Again much care has gone into building accurate models of the stock.

Photographs of the Exhibition to follow shortly.