Modeling the Furness Railway

Some notes on history, prototypes and available models
Compiled by Will Quale

This started out as an informal search for available models, and grew into a much larger (and growing!) project as I realized how few models were available for the Furness Railway, as well as how little information there was on the Internet regarding modeling specifically the Furness Railway (while there was plentiful information on the railway itself, scattered across numerous websites).

The impetus was to find a few representative goods and express engines, carriages, and wagons of enduring design (and a few typical structures), which could readily establish the setting of an OO-scale model railroad as the area near Swarthmoor Hall, Cumbria, in the pre-grouping era. Swarthmoor was the manor home of George Fox (early Quaker, for whose Hall my alma mater Swarthmore College was named). It lies adjacent to Ulverston, which in turn was situated midway along the Furness Railway's main line from Carnforth to Barrow-in-Furness.

The area holds more interest than just the sentimental: Carnforth was an interchange between the Furness, Midland, and London & North Western Railways, such that locomotives and carriages from the two neighboring lines would not look terribly out of place traveling around Swarthmoor on the Furness line. (And LMS-liveried equipment would be right at home there for a change of decade.) And the small towns with both freight (ore and minerals largely) and passenger (to the Lakes District) traffic provide an interesting setting for a modest switching layout.

It should be noted that Barrow-in-Furness was also a major junction with another important railway!

So, this site seems to be growing into quite the resource for matching models to prototypes and offering suggestions for non-expert, moderate cost, yet still reasonably accurate OO-scale modeling of the Furness Railway. At the least, it will provide a solid ready-reference as I progress in my modelling projects; perhaps it will also be helpful to others.

iKnow Lake District eBay auction

Steam Locomotives -- A look at a several representative goods and express engines of the Furness and London & North Western Railways, with photographs of prototypes and information on some excellent (with minor modifications) available models. I'd love to find photographs and potential models for Furness Railway tank engines, but I've had no luck in that department on the Internet. Passenger Carriages -- An investigation into possibly representative coaches on the Furness Railway, and some quite nice available models which capture the feel of the Furness carriages if not the elusive (on the Internet, at least) prototypes. Freight Wagons -- [researched but unwritten; lots of links to prototype information for now, none for modeling yet] Structures -- [researched but unwritten; lots of links for now] Edward the Blue Engine -- Edward's branch line on the Isle of Sodor wasn't so far away from the Furness Railway as you might think... and he has another Furness connection, too! Further References & Links -- [just some links for now, largely uncompiled]

All research was carried out on the Internet with the exception of several O.S. Nock books in my possession. The sites were primarily historic preservation trusts, heritage railways, and railway historical societies, and hence can be considered rather authoritative as Internet research goes. Wikipedia was used sparingly to fill in the gaps, and where any sources disagree I have gone with the historical society's information. Should I acquire books or articles on the Furness Railway (or its modeling) extensive revisions may be in order!

On the flip side, the advantage to carrying out most of this research on the Internet is that all of the images and source materials are freely available to anyone who finds this page. All I've done is collect, edit, organize, and summarize things. So if you're like me--just starting to explore the topic, and without access to the authoritative published books--perhaps a resource like this is a useful introduction. Creating it has certainly been educational for me so far!

Final footnote: I realize I've been inconsistent in the spelling of "modelling" or "modeling" throughout these pages. After some consternation, I've learned that both are acceptable spellings, the former being more British and the latter being more American. I leave it to you to decide whether this is sloppy editing on my part or a clever amalgamation resulting from an American writing about British railways.

Text © 2008 Will Quale; images as attributed.