It all goes back to a lengthy conversation, sitting in a pub consuming decent local ales, after exhibiting the now retired Ian Harper and Gary Thomas owned "Latelee Town" at DEMU in Burton on Trent in 2005…. Latelee Town was to be retired and we had nothing in place to follow it onto the exhibition circuit.

Many ideas came and went, some sensible and some not so sensible. It seemed that we were all fairly happy with the concept of modern image in 00 and that it should be a “tail chaser”, Latelee Town having been an end to end. We still needed a name, some features and something to challenge us.

Resolution? To have a spectacular but prototypical bridge, overhead catenary and to provide the challenge we chose  DCC! Oh and the name – well we were in Burton and we had chosen a bridge as one of the features, but there’s already a Burton Bridge after all we were consuming their product. So after much deliberation and more ale we came up with "BURTON OLD BRIDGE" from there on affectionately known as BOB!

The other thing we all agreed upon was the ethos of the group,  which is "Keep it simple and have fun." We should do everything to the best of our abilities whilst not rivet counting or having prototypical operation at the cost of everything else.

Over the coming weeks further discussions took place, generally over another ale or two, about track plans, DCC, wiring and all the other usual topics. Basic decision were made and the project begun.

Staying in line with our "Keep it simple and fun" principal the track plan would include just two basic circuits with an up loop, engineers yard and TPO platform. A fourteen road fiddle yard feeds the layout with seven roads allocated to each main circuit. The track would be off the shelf peco code 100, recycling from previous layouts where possible.

Electrically the layout would be wired for DCC control of locomotives and initially conventional pushbutton / cdu firing of solenoid point motors via three operators control panels.

The period modelled started off as 1995 but has since slipped to c2000. We will allow "modellers license" to keep the whole crew interested and besides we have enough traction and rolling stock to cover that entire period and then some.

For more details on this layout check their website - http://www.burtonoldbridge.co.uk