For a staunch GWR man, Pat English built a considerable amount of Southern passenger stock. The following pictures are a representative selection.
Freight Stock
There are some 200 items of freight stock in the collection from a variety of sources. Before Watermouth was started as a layout, Pat English was scratch building rolling stock and some of his very early vehicles are in the collection today. He constructed a number of 10T open wagons from plasticard long before Slaters released their range of kits, and even today it is difficult to distinguish them from high quality injection moulded kits.
A wide range of kit manufacturers is represented, many no longer obtainable today, and latterly, Pat recognised the excellent qualities of emerging new RTR items which he modified and detailed to increase the stock list.
Much of the freight stock are mundane, run-of-the-mill vehicles typical of the working railway, but still delightful models, constructed and finished, often with carefully researched additional detail, to Museum quality standards.
A selection of these has been chosen along with some more unique items.
The Watermouth layout and collection represents some 45 years of one man’s modelling. Restoring and developing the layout has taken many hours of work by a very few dedicated individuals and there is still a great deal to do.
Currently Watermouth is erected at the Clubroom of the Helston & Falmouth MRC just outside Helston in West Cornwall. Work on the rewiring and new control systems was progressing well until Covid struck just over a year ago, since when very little has been able to be done. We are hopeful that 2021 will see trains running again and the layout re-erected in its entirety.
We would welcome any modellers living in the area, or even beyond, who would be interested in becoming involved, there is a vast amount to do! contact Steve Howe at the address below: