Southwold

The Southwold Railway was a short three-foot gauge line that linked the small Suffolk port of Southwold with the Great Eastern Railway at Halesworth. It closed in 1929, although there have been some attempts recently to revive it.

There is surprisingly little literature about the Southwold Railway. I’m lucky enough to have copies of a series of articles by A.D. Negus in the 1979 Model Railway Constructor, which include drawings of the complete rolling stock and most of the buildings, so I’ve been able to approach the project as a combined stock, scenery and layout exercise.

Trains passing at Blythburgh—something that rarely happened in real life, although it was theoretically possible to operate two trains

Southwold Station

To do (2008)

Having read a bit more about the line, there are various bits and pieces to correct, and I’d like to add a proper model of the swing bridge, now that I’ve found some photographs and dimensions. An interesting challenge would be to model the signals, which were of the type with arms for both directions on a single post. Should be possible, now that we have scripting…

Status (March 2005)

You can download the latest version of the layout from Uk Southwold.

The layout is essentially complete, but a few scenic items are still missing (e.g. goods sheds, Southwold carriage shed). Also, the layout needs some non-railway buildings and a few more roads to give it some life. A few suitable 1920s road vehicles would be a help…

Mark Hodson

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