OVER the years, how many youngsters have dreamed of getting a train set for Christmas?
Across the generations, from the wooden, tin and clockwork models of the Victorian and Edwardian eras to the OO gauge electric models popularised in the 60s and 70s, countless children must have awoken to the excitement of a toy train on Christmas morning.
But although our picture choice this week shows a model railway, this is no ordinary train set.
It’s more like a work of art, a carefully crafted diorama using scale models and landscaping to recreate an authentic glimpse of a bygone era – and it’s the work of professional modeller, photographer and blogger Chris Nevard from Guildford in Surrey.
What makes Chris’s models come to life is a combination of painstaking research, artistic flair and an expertise born of over 40 years’ experience of building prize-winning model railways.
He creates scenes so lifelike that it’s often hard to be sure that they really are models.
From collieries and quaysides to branch lines and even a cement terminal, his creations are often surprisingly small and transportable for such convincing landscapes, springing up at exhibitions or commissioned by individual customers.
As well as writing about model making and undertaking photographic commissions for the UK-based Model Rail magazine and several manufacturers, in recent years Chris has also built model railways on a commercial basis.
If that wasn’t enough to keep him busy, he also plays in a band, enjoys fine ale and actively pursues an interest in social and industrial history.
The fascination with railways began as a “spotty teenager” living in Sweden in the 1970s, he says, and a particular fascination with the Somerset & Dorset Railway was stoked by the pictures taken by the prolific railway photographer Ivo Peters during the postwar steam era.
Conjuring up the “perfect English railway” running through Chris’s favourite part of the country, the appeal was perhaps inevitable. even if he was too young to travel on the line.
But the influence of Ivo Peters is perhaps particularly significant. “Ivo lived in Bath and photographed the line and people extensively,” says Chris. “Through his eyes and lens he captured more than just images of trains and stations – he captured the soul behind the railway.”
That’s the same fascination Chris shares when he sees an inspiring picture in a book.
“I then want to read about the people and the location, trying to work out what it was really like to live and exist in the portrayed scene,” he says. “Understanding more than track geometry and what engines were used is vital if I’m going to have a successful stab at recreating something from the past in miniature which has atmosphere and a feeling of time and place.
“To achieve that I need to know about the personalities and the fabric that made or makes up the community.”
Intricate modelling and clever photography allows him to adapt scenes to the seasons, capturing the mood of a misty morning or chilly evening, but it’s not just the fascination with historical detail which marks out his layouts, but also his delight in the characters who inhabit them.
Regular tongue-in-cheek blog entries capture moments frozen in time from the miniature worlds he’s created, with a cast of tiny individuals living out their dramas in front of a growing audience of thousands on social media.
It’s all a far cry from that day in 1978 when he bought his first engine by mail order from Hattons of Liverpool, but then the modelling world has been transformed in that time too.
“Modellers more than ever before are realising that there is a lot more to realism than ‘correct’ flange-ways, bolts and exact scale gauge,” he says. “Influences from the USA and mainland Europe where model makers frequently embrace the overall scene equally is at last starting to have a real effect over here too.
“The internet and more recently social media have created a highly effective platform for people to share and exchange ideas. This ‘real time’ tool is really making modellers push the boundaries, which in turn is producing some really exciting new model railway projects and layouts!”
Chris can be contacted through his website, blog and social media feeds like Twitter and Instagram.
