Inspired by the real Exbury village area in the New Forest, Hampshire, England and its military importance to D-Day preparations, ‘Lower Exbury’ was created in 2009 by Jo Palmer as a Scalefour challenge layout for Railwells in 2011.

Her fictitious South Hampshire Light Railway represents the terminus of a branch line’s twig, with a river wharf serving the local brickworks.

We are visiting in July 1952, during British Railways’ Southern Region era.

The future is looking bleak. Even after trackwork was relaid with secondhand rail from wartime sidings a few years earlier, the brickworks is facing closure and remaining traffic light. Basic passenger and freight services are worked by veteran pre-Grouping locomotives, elderly carriages and an assortment of period wagons.

‘Lower Exbury’, is a 4mm scale model railway built to 18.83 mm gauge / P4 track standards,  was acquired in 2015 and is now owned and exhibited by Mrs Alison BARKER (Southampton Model Railway Society).

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This layout is available for exhibitions