Single Owner Collection of Model Trains & Railways: John Marchant

Thomas Marchant; A Single Owner Collection of Model Trains & Railways

Interest in railways started in the usual way for my generation with a modest Hornby -Dublo set as an early birthday present.  Added to this my maternal grandparents lived in Aberdeenshire, so between roughly 1948 and 1963, annual three week holidays were taken at their home in Aboyne on Deeside, overlooking the railway from Aberdeen to Ballater, a daily source of interest, peaking with the occasional passing of the royal train en route to or from Ballater - and I once witnessed the pre-war Coronation train, stored at Ballater till after the war, being ‘exercised’, hauled by a K4, to prevent axleboxes seizing.  It never ran again as a dedicated unit.

Several decades later, when retirement loomed, remembering these years of annual journeys on the East Coast mainline, I resolved to start a collection of locomotives and items of rolling stock that I would have seen working that line, some dating from very early twentieth century till about the late 1950s.  Accordingly over about thirty years I acquired examples of most classes of LNER locomotive ranging from the massive unique U1 Garratt to the tiny Y9 ‘Coffee Pot’!   Most were kit built, several by well known model engineers like Mike Edge and the late Graham Varley from whom a few were specifically commissioned.  Many however are proprietary makes as reliable accuracy in these has increased markedly in recent years.  Most represent LNER classes, though several predate 1923 and belong to the old constituent companies. Included are all classes I saw on the Aberdeen - Ballater branch.  I travelled behind many of the principal express classes though I was never a true ‘train spotter’, so kept no accurate records.

Items of rolling stock include ‘layout quality’(my definition!)examples of ‘triplet’ dining car sets, two ‘Silver Jubilee’ sets and one ‘Coronation’ set, a twelve wheel ex-NE dining car, an ex-NE engineers/directors’ saloon,  ex-NE dynamometer car and a comprehensive range of Gresley passenger rolling stock, proprietary and kitbuilt. Amassing the collection gave great pleasure over many years during which all locomotives were used, many on layouts, but regularly tested if not.  This year, which marks the 200th anniversary of steam travel and the real birth of the railway network, seems like a good time to present a collection for wider appreciation of the significance of a particular and distinguished area of steam railway development over the first part of the last century.