COMPLETE WORKING RAILWAY IN A ROOM.
By Robert Machray.
The seven beautiful illustrations which appear in this article are taken from photographs of what is without doubt one of the mechanical marvels of the day. They clearly set forth the most complete, and, at the same time, the most costly miniature model railway system in the world.
So perfect, indeed, is this line and its equipment that the first cursory glance at these pictures of it will certainly cause the beholder to imagine that he is looking at presentments of some portions of the London and North-Western Railway or of some other well-known, full-grown railway. But his eye, on gazing a little longer at these views, will take note of the curious circumstance that the entire system appears to be embraced within the four walls of a single room. Having discovered this, he will look still more closely, and then he will see other things which will immediately excite his interest, and he will forthwith "want to know" all about it.
This wonderful railway is owned, controlled, and operated by Mr. Percy H. Leigh of Brentwood, Worsley, one of the suburbs of Manchester. This gentleman has no professional connection with railroading, but for some years past he has amused himself with models of locomotives and their practical working. "Some men spend their money on racehorses, others on yachts, and so on," says Mr. Leigh, "but this railroad of mine is more to my fancy."
I am not permitted to state how much exactly this hobby of Mr. Leigh's has cost him, but I am not betraying any confidence when I say that in one way and another a sum not far short of ten thousand pounds has been spent on his Liliputian line. This large amount may be accounted for by the fact that Mr. Leigh was not to be satisfied with anything short of perfection in every detail. His instructions to the contractors who built and equipped the "road" were that there were to be no "dummies," and that everything was to be made accurately to scale. How faithfully and thoroughly Messrs Lucas and Davies, of Farringdon Road, have carried out his commands will be evident from the following statement with which they have been kind enough to supply me.
The country, if I may so term it, within which the railway runs, is a great, oblong, single-storied building, consisting of one chamber, ninety feet in length by thirty feet in breadth. It has been added on to Mr. Leigh's residence, and was specially constructed with a view to giving the line a sufficient range for its successful operation, and also to afford it protection from damp and other undesirable effects of the weather. The room is provided with a double floor—a wooden one, on which stand the trestles supporting the track itself, and, two or three feet below it, another of concrete. An even temperature all the year round is secured by means of two rows of hot-water pipes. When these precautions are considered, it will be seen that this railway system probably enjoys the most perfect climate in existence.
The line has not yet been given any comprehensive name. Perhaps it is almost too soon for that, for it is hardly more than finished; indeed, the goods-engine remains to be delivered by the builders. But it might be christened, from the names of the two stations on it, the Oakgreen and Beechvale Railway.
First of all, to describe the track. The road-bed is made of pitch pine, mounted on sixty-five trestles, three feet from the floor, and the track extends to 276 feet, of a double line of rails. Of the rails all together there are 1,200 feet; and some idea of what this means may be understood from the fact that when they came from Sheffield, where they were specially rolled for Mr. Leigh, they formed two solid heaps of metal, each as high as a man. The rails are of mild steel; they are double-headed, and about an inch in height; some of them are nearly twelve feet long. They are fastened down to 2,000 pitch pine sleepers by 4,000 malleable cast-iron chairs, held in place with hard-wood wedges and 16,000 screws. All the fish plates, bolts, and nuts used in joining the rails together are exact miniatures of those to be seen on an ordinary railway. The track is ballasted with nine hundredweight of limestone chips, and the gauge is six inches.
Details which involve a large number of figures are apt to be rather dry and tiresome; but in the present case, if frequent reference be made from the letterpress to the illustrations, it will be seen with what extreme care, and with what extraordinarily minute and even loving faithfulness, all the features of a first-class modern railway have been reproduced in miniature.