Cliddesden Station

Cliddesden Railway Station (1916 & 1925)

Cliddesden Railway Station, on the Basingstoke & Alton Light Railway, is the first layout we built in N gauge. The project was initiated by Edward Smith who discovered the track bed remains whilst cycling near Cliddesden. He thought the station would make an interesting model and called upon his dad David, who has years of railway modelling experience, to assist him in making the layout.

The model railway was built between October 2011 and October 2012 and its whole development was reported as it happened via postings on this Blogging website.

Cliddesden Station (L&SWR) was one of four stations on the B&ALR serving sparse populations between Basingstoke and Alton. The period of the model railway is August 1916, a few months before track was lifted and sent to France for use during the great war of 1914-18.

In 1924 track was relaid and service resumed. It closed forever in 1936 as it was not a profitable venture for the Railway company. Today, the railway and station have returned to nature. The houses are still there, albeit much modified for 21st century needs.

The entire station area scaled to N gauge occupies only 4’ x 3’ thus lending itself to being a portable layout. A follower of our Blog suggested we exhibit the layout at his clubs annual exhibition and so it was we found ourselves showing it to the general public at the Farnham & Distict MRC exhibition in 2013.


Basing a model railway layout on a real place demands much research. It would have been difficult to do this without recourse to the two books published about the line. The first and most comprehensive volume is ‘The Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway’ by Dean, Robertson and Simmonds. The second is also titled ‘The Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway’ by Edward Griffiths, an earlier publication that has more anecdotes and stories about the railway staff that enabled us to recreate events on the model.

Track Plan


4 comments:

  1. I visited the site yesterday, no evidence of the station sadly although the houses and base if the water tower are still there.

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  2. Glad the book has helped you with both your layouts. Excellent results and a credit to you.

    Martin Dean

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    1. Thankyou for your comment, glad you like them. I think it's safe to say without the book these layouts would not have happened - it is a fascinating subject.
      Thanks,
      Ed

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  3. David Richardson12 June 2018 at 19:02

    Hello - what a great layout! I love the Will Hay movie and was delighted during a tour at RAF Odiham to discover the actual station site. One thing does puzzle me about the line which you may be able to answer. When it was cut back to Bentworth and Lasham, how were trains shunted, as there doesn’t seem to have been a loop there? I am building a small O gauge layout based on the imaginary station of Winslade, just round the curve from Cliddesden! It’s built in the B and A Light rly style, but my next effort will hopefully be even better.......Thank you

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