I will be traveling to Liverpool and London at the end of the month and hope to browse some hobby shops. Any suggestions from any English model railroaders out there? Thanks!
Hattons in Liverpool is a must. They have an excellent online business which have bought from. They will even ship to your address in the states sales tax free, which at 20% sales tax (VAT) in the UK is a substantial saving and usually covers the shipping cost and some! They also have some of the most competative prices in the country.
Don’t know of any to recommend around London I’m afraid, but I’m sure there are plenty.
Enjoy your visit. I can recommend some great preserved railways also if you like.
Dan
My wife was invited to speak at a conference and is bring me along, so I will have quite a bit of free time. I would love to see a preserved railway if you have suggestions. Thanks.
Thank you. Looks like there are shops close to my hotel in both cities.
Check this page:
Ulrich’s website is a good one. Are you going to have a rental car? I’m assuming you’re not with my recommendations, there are plenty accessible from public transport,oh no, you may need to ride a… TRAIN! Probably some long days getting there and then back again.
From Liverpool is going to be the hardest to get a visit. I would recommend the East Lancashire Railway
http://www.eastlancsrailway.org.uk/
You would probably need to get a train from Liverpool to Manchester then a connection to Bury.
From London there are many more options within relatively easy travel. Probably the easiest/best would be the Mid Hants Railway (The Watercress Line)
http://www.watercressline.co.uk/Home
There is a direct train from London Waterloo station to Alton, which is one end of the Mid Hants Railway. The line shares the station with the mainline so it’s just a walk over the bridge.
The Bluebell Railway is beautiful, but a little more tricky to get to.
http://www.bluebell-railway.com/
There are two train options which will get you close then you need a bus. Their website has good instructions, but make sure the bus will be running, one service appears to be just on weekends,the other in school holidays. Well worth the effort if you can get there.
The Epping Ongar Railway is a new one and I don’t have personal experience of it. I mention it as it’s close to where I used to live and they could probably do with the support in their early days.
Access looks easy, just take the Central Line underground to Epping where the railway put on a bus.
The Nene Valley Railway is an interesting one. They not only have British historical stock but some European too. If you’re a James Bond Fan it is where the train scenes were filmed
You could try the following forum, which seem to be Euro oriented - ask there
I also got a good response by asking GOOGLE
‘uk model railway clubs’
the response I got was three pages of close type.
Rob
A little south of London, there is the 15" gauge Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway - not a toy, but a public railroad with double track mainline and steam powered express trains - a must see!