A Corner of Craigshire
Note: Due to its age and historical significance Dundreich’s exhibition appearances will be strictly limited in number and it will only be available on special request.
Scale: ‘009’ & ’00’ [4mm Scale on 9mm & 16.5mm gauges].
Built by: P. D. Hancock
Dundreich is a corner section from the third and final version of P.D. Hancock’s Craig and Mertonford Light Railway [C&MR]. After his death Dundreich was presented to the Club and has undergone conservation work to secure it for future generations and enable it to be displayed at exhibitions.
PD, like many modellers of his era, was not a man to discard anything which might prove useful in the future. With each re-incarnation of Craigshire parts from the previous layout[s] were re-cycled and it appears that much of the current Dundreich landscape is from the 2nd layout i.e. early 1960’s with part from around the time of Ormistone station on the 1st layout. Dundreich station, as it currently exists, was created circa 1975 and is built on the site of the 1960’s Dundreich narrow gauge station. It is thought the remains of the platform of that 1960’s station now support the MacKays/Wests terraced building at the rear with the remainder of the 1960’s narrow gauge station site being cleared and rebuilt. One of the very earliest parts of Craigshire lies partly hidden within the hillside behind the crofter’s cottage. The tunnel mouth seen in the very first article on the C&MR, ‘Why Not A Narrow Gauge Layout’ and published in the October/November 1950 Railway Modeller, appears to have been reused firstly as the standard gauge tunnel mouth for the line leading to Dunbar in the late 1950’s version of the layout featuring Ormistone station and then incorporated into both versions of Dundreich. Also from the first layout is Dundreich signal box which was Craig signal box when the standard gauge reached Craig in about 1956 and the footbridge, now at Dundreich, was previously in use at Craig providing access between the standard and narrow gauge platforms on both the 1st and 2nd layouts.
Dundreich’s scrap material is rich in C&MR history: for instance, the old tender to the right of Dundreich signal box once trailed behind ‘Angus’, the front buffer beam from ‘Joan’ the diesel [Railway Modeller, October 1955] resides in the ‘garden’ of the Dundreich station master, Mr McGregor, and part of the permanent way vehicle described in the article ‘Model Bashing’ [Railway Modeller, March 1954] sits in the engine shed yard. The remains of the Kemtron ‘Thomas Flyer’ [Railway Modeller, March 1958] now sit towards the front of the layout just across the tracks from the Dundreich signal box and behind the standard gauge siding buffer stops.
Photographs of the restored Dundreich taken in 2018
Photographs of Dundreich taken at the 009 Society 40th Anniversary Convention, Kegworth in 2013 by Mick Thornton and featured on Mick’s Roving Reporter Blogspot