==== Eccleston ====

=== Martin Nield ===
												
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Eccleston is a village in West Lancashire which never had a railway. It did, however, have two cotton mills and was surrounded by rich arable land, so there would have been sufficient traffic to justify one.

I have therefore imagined that the local mill owners, supported by Lord Eccleston of nearby Eccleston Hall, prevailed upon the Directors of The East Lancashire Railway, later part of The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&YR), to build a branch line from Croston on the Preston – Liverpool line.

Following the opening of the line, the village would have expanded to become a small town and the railway would have been busy with frequent passenger services to Preston and Blackburn, through goods workings to Lostock Hall and Pilot Goods workings to Croston for Liverpool traffic. The period modelled is around 1910.

Work on the layout started in the early 1980s and many of the techniques used date from that era. The baseboards, for example, are softwood frames and chipboard surfaces which have warped over the years. The track is all hand-built to P4 standards using the Brook Smith technique of soldering rail to rivets inserted into plywood sleepers. Some of the best years of my life were spent sticking plastic cosmetic chairs on.

The electrics are as simple as possible, with two controllers and eight electrical sections. All the points and signals are mechanically operated using a fully interlocked lever frame which makes operating the layout not only more realistic, but also more enjoyable.

The buildings are all scratch built: the railway ones are based on L&YR prototypes while the non-railway ones are based on real buildings in West Lancashire. The locos and stock are all built from kits.

Authentic operation is the aspect of the hobby that I most enjoy and therefore Eccleston is operated to a working timetable using block instruments and bells.

I would like to thank my many railway friends for all their help in making this happen.