The Amalgamated Conserves Tramway

  A 7/8" scale 18" gauge tramway

Insert title text here ...

  "Jam's for the Masses"

Here you see our tram engine, 'Nipper' on the Dodford Hills ledge with a short ore train. The marigolds I planted out a week or so ago are starting to bloom and have a nice yellow colour. The new sand-stone ballast seems to have merged nicely. The mossy plant (7/8" scale gorse!) to the right is trying hard to survive!

Hello, This is a welcome to my new web site which hopefully you will now find more or less complete as I took near forty pictures recently as a 'catch-up'! The outfit is built more or less to the scale of 7/8" to the foot though I am not obsessed by this, and due to cheap figures I purchased when starting this scale the actual scale seem's to be a 'rubber' one of 15/16ths. or so.... midway between 7/8ths. scale and 1.12th. (dolls house) scale. The track is Peco SM32 with a gauge of 32mm which makes T.A.C.T. a 18" gauge tramway. The line in the garden is a simple circuit of 95 feet or so long with a siding off at the 'Reynitium' mine at West Dodford, a passing loop and sidings at Timberhonger and the loading dock at Rhubarb End! As my house is on the slope's of a near-by range of hills the garden slopes quite steeply. My line is raised off the ground at one end by around 18" or so on a rockery shelf and at the other side around 2' 6". Due to garden alterations this part of the line is on a shelf butting against a stone wall with a drop on the other side of four foot and six inches or more. One can lean on this side of the wall and watch the trains pass by under one's nose! (pictures provided to show you this feature!) The place names on my tramway come from places I pass through on my favourite cycle ride down to Droitwich, a former Roman town, where three Roman roads meet (plus site of a Roman fort) and is a large former salt extraction area.

"Proof of the Pudding"!

Here's a cutting out of the local paper from 2002 of local fruit picking over 100 years ago! When I was modelling the 7mm version of my outfit (early 1980's) I just picked a area... (Dodford) off the route of a cycle ride I enjoy as the name of my line plus the fact that the area matched my initals...W.D.R.....West Dodford Railway....Get it?! I... (to my suprise) found a item in the local paper in the 'Down Memory Lane' section in July 1993 concerning July 3, 1943 when the strawberry season was in full swing and the comments on...... "the huge acreage planted in Dodford, and the vast quantities of fruit picked" in the PAST.... and how things had declined! It also stated that labour was in short supply dispite wages of a shilling (5p.) a hour on offer..... (I suppose with a war on labour was bound to in short supply!) I was most suprised to find the above picture, (in July 2002) as it seemed to be too good to be true that the area choosen for my outfit was in fact a FORMER big fruit growing area!