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Build Ashby Parva in OO Scale

By Justin Noble  •  2 comments  •   5 minute read

Build Ashby Parva in OO Scale

Somewhere around 1998...

For our Scenery Showcase, we're presenting Ashby Parva, created by one of our very own: Railway Modellers Club member Andy Moore.

Nothing in Ashby Parva was especially polished, but almost everything had a purpose.

The builders merchants served the kinds of people who kept Ashby Parva functioning quietly in the background. Local builders loaded up bricks, timber and cement to repair garden walls, extend ageing terraces or patch up storm-damaged roofs before winter set in. Roofers arrived early for bundles of tiles and scaffold poles, usually with mugs of tea balanced precariously on dashboards and ladders rattling in the back of their vans.

Farmers collected fencing wire, gates and feed troughs to keep neighbouring fields running, while welders and mechanics searched through piles of steel beams, pipes and angle iron for parts that could be cut, repaired or reused.

Electricians, plumbers and decorators drifted through the yard throughout the day, their vans coated in dust from countless small jobs scattered across the town and surrounding villages.

In many ways, the merchants acted like a supply depot for everyday life. Behind every repaired roof, freshly poured driveway, rebuilt shed or repaired workshop door, there was usually a trip beneath to the old railway town first.

The alleyways

Most mornings in Ashby Parva began with sound.

Milk floats whining through side streets before dawn. Vans coughing into life. The slam of back gates. Dogs barking from upstairs windows. Someone scraping frost from a windscreen with an old cassette case. And always, somewhere in the background, the railway.

Youngsters used the alleyway behind the terraces as shortcuts and playgrounds in equal measure. Footballs bounced endlessly against retaining walls. Mountain bikes clattered over potholes.

The railway embankments became kingdoms of adventure filled with discarded shopping trolleys, broken televisions, buddleia bushes and rumours of hidden tunnels nobody had ever actually found.

Beneath the arches

The old railway arches had gradually transformed over the years into workshops, lock-ups and businesses stitched together with faded signs and improvised repairs. Some units changed hands every few years, others seemed eternal.

There was Kaff's Café, tucked away, open 24 hours. The windows steamed up year-round, and the air inside carried a permanent blend of frying bacon, vinegar and diesel fumes drifting down from the railway above. Drivers, scaffolders, mechanics and night-shift workers all ended up at Kaff's sooner or later. Some arrived before sunrise in fluorescent jackets, warming their hands around chipped mugs of tea. Others drifted in mid-morning for cigarettes and gossip. The menu board never really changed... neither did the regulars.

A few arches down sat Ashwood Autos. Half garage, half scrapyard, entirely chaos. The owner, Pete Ashwood, could allegedly source any car part, although nobody was entirely sure how. Customers wandered through the workshop doors carrying greasy engine parts bundled into old carrier bags, each one telling stories of breakdowns and hard miles on rain-slick industrial roads.

Beneath the viaduct, stacks of part-worn tyres leaned against weathered walls. Mechanics searched for whatever they could to keep another ageing motor alive for one more week.

The factories

The factories gave the town its rhythm and, for many youngsters, their very first pay packet.

Teenagers fresh out of school often started on the loading bays or in the small goods yards, unloading heavy pallets, stacking materials and learning quickly how industrial life worked. The work was noisy, cold in winter and coated their overalls in grime, but it offered something valuable: steady wages, practical skills and a place within the town’s hardworking community.

The terraced houses backing onto the railway had stood there since Victorian times, rows of red brick workers’ homes built shoulder-to-shoulder in the days when almost every family in the street relied on the industries surrounding the tracks.

Time had softened them. Original slate roofs had been patched with mismatched tiles. Chimneys leaned ever so slightly. Some doors were freshly painted; others were peeling in layers like tree bark.

Tiny back yards were cluttered with rotary washing lines, rusting bicycles, cracked flower pots, dented dustbins and sagging refuse sacks, while weather-beaten garden sheds stood crooked at the far end, looking as though the next winter gale might finally finish them off.

“Every time a train goes over the viaduct, another roof tile applies for early retirement,” sighed Mr Wilkes from number 12, staring nervously at the terrace with a bucket already positioned in the pantry.

Modern trains crossed the old viaduct where steam locomotives once thundered through clouds of smoke and ash. Drivers glanced briefly down into the maze of arches, workshops and back yards before disappearing into the distance.

Ashby Parva carried on exactly as it always had.

Weathered. Working. Unfashionable.

Yet, completely alive.

Build a viaduct town of your very own on your layout or diorama!

Fancy having a go at building a scene like this on your layout? Andy's used a few of our own kits and detailing accessories, so we've put together a diagram and a shopping list to show you what's what…

Diorama base is approx. L: 50cm W: 40cm H: 25cm (tallest level)

OO Scale Building kits

OO Scale Accessories

Scenery

Happy modelling!

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Scene Modelling Guides Scenery Showcase
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2 comments

Never mind the diorama, good as it is, that is a lovely piece of creative writing! Somebody has a real talent 😁😁

Roger Vipond ,

Totally, totally, brilliant…..

Andy Watson,

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