12AD Model Railway Group

Railway modelling amongst friends

Eaglesham – 12AD Model Railway Group

Eaglesham
By Bill Auld

Eaglesham is a 4mm/OO gauge layout set to the south of Glasgow in 1912.  The layout features a station with run-round loop, goods yard with shed and cattle dock and a rail-served dairy.  The trackwork is a mixture of SMP Code 75 plain track with handbuilt pointwork.  Recently the train control has been upgraded to DCC, and the point control to servos, along with a full re-wiring.  Total size is 28 feet by 2 feet, over 7 boards (5 scenic, 2 fiddle yard boards).

The real village of Eaglesham was never connected to the rail network, although there were at least 3 proposals mooted, but none of these ever came to fruition.  The track plan is based upon East Kilbride, as it was at the turn of the 20th century, this was chosen because although East Kilbride looked like a through station, it was never operated at such and was a terminus for trains from Glasgow, and trains from Hamilton. ​
​Construction of the layout started over 20 years ago using traditional methods for the boards which are still going strong.  The buildings were constructed by a small team of modellers, mostly built from card and covered with a brick papers.  The station building, which is based on the Caledonian station at East Kilbride, was built using original drawings, as was the goods shed.  The other buildings were built from photographs.  Different construction methods were used on the the road bridges, which were built using embossed stone plasticard fixed to thin plywood formers.  The station buildings and dairy/stable block were built by Tom McGhie Hugh Douglas respectively, both sadly no longer with us.  Jimmy Anderson built the signalbox (this appears to be his forte) and John Anderson constructed the goods shed.  My fellow 12AD group members, Spencer, Michael and Joe have helped out more recently on the extensions to Eaglesham which consist of one board featuring a 5-span girder bridge alongside another bridge under construction, and another board with a couple of sidings and a single road loco shed.

Pre-Grouping rtr rolling stock is somewhat thin on the ground so all loco’s, passenger and goods stock have been built from kits from a variety of sources, or are scratchbuilt.  Loco’s, in passenger and freight liveries, representing small yard shunters to express passenger and heavy freight examples can be seen on Eaglesham, whether or not they would have ran on the line!  Passenger stock varies from 6 wheel to bogie examples in differing liveries, and goods stock is a motley collection of private owner and company vehicles.

Eaglesham is operated in the same way as East Kilbride was, ie a terminus for trains from both directions.  This can make for some quite complex movements.  All stock is fitted with Kadee couplings and these are operated by permanent magnets hiding amongst the sleepers at various locations around the layout.

Eaglesham has appeared at a number of exhibitions from Aberdeen to Warley, and most recent at the Manchester show in December 2023.  The layout was featured in the January 2013 issue of Hornby Magazine and January 2015 issue of British Railway Modelling.

Please click here for photos of Eaglesham.

If you would like to book Eaglesham to appear at your exhibition, please download the Layout Exhibition Details document, or send me an email