Last weekend was the Oxfordshire Narrow Gauge Modellers Open Day at Steventon Village Hall. I travelled down the night before and met up with Richard and Sarah Doe for a beer and a jolly good chat which was a lot of fun. Richard was exhibiting Shipmeadow, a small rural halt on the ficticious Beccles and Bungay Railway. Shipmeadow workhouse nestles on the hill above the station and is surrounded by open blue sky. It really captures the atmosphere of this part of Suffolk.

Richard has some very nice stock and he’s very skilled at buying new and secondhand stock and repainting it in the B&B liveries to make it look completely different. The layout is set in 1944, hence the blackout station nameboard and the rather nice War Department van.

Richard has even included a Willys jeep!

I took ‘First’ and I was very pleased that so many people stopped…