Photos by Philip Hall.
It’s the turn of the century and the heyday of the Edwardian railways, but not all railways are thriving. Not far from the bottom edge of the Sussex Weald lies the Dicker Tramway, a small independent light railway connecting the brickfields of Dicker with the market town of Owlsham. An intermediate station serving the village of Horselunges forms the subject of the scene depicted here. Times are hard for the Dicker Tramway, as evidenced by the overgrown track and the hand-me-down stock.This 25-year old iconic layout produced by Allan Woodyard started life as an automated Diorama, but ended its useful life in 2006 in a skip! It was rescued from this ignominious end by a member of the Mendip MRG and is now being given a new lease of life, worthy of the quality of models contained within it. The defunct automation has been removed and all the track work has being re-laid to P4 standards, (previously it was EM). Minor track changes (off scene) have improved the operation and include amongst other enhancements two turntable fiddle yards. Locomotive control is now undertaken using DCC, but the paintwork is operated by our own design of slow motion RC servo actuators.
All of the scenery has been carefully reworked and the layout restoration is now almost complete. All the buildings on the layout come from prototypes which are within one mile of the East Sussex village of Hellingly. The layout's curious name is taken from a nearby manor house.
