Fisherton Sarum to return to its spiritual home of Salisbury

Fisherton Sarum as I am sure regular readers will know uses Salisbury shed as its basis and inspiration. The London and South Western Railway (LSWR)  buildings and their relationships with each other are modelled to create the spirit of Salisbury shed,  that hopefully to some is instantly recognisable.  Albeit somewhat modified and condensed to fit within the quite limited space that I had available. This enabled me to use available drawings of the actual LSWR designed buildings along with photographs to portray the location as an adaptation.

The weekend of the 10th and 11th May Fisherton Sarum will be returning to the Salisbury area to be exhibited at the Salisbury and South Wilts Railway Societies 50th Anniversary exhibition.   The exhibition is being held  at the Michael Herbert Hall, South Street, Wilton and being their golden anniversary should hopefully be a special event. It is open to the public 10.30am to 4.30pm on the Saturday and 10am to 4pm on the Sunday. In addition to Fisherton Sarum there are 14 other layouts across a wide range of scales attending including a number that are Southern related.

As many readers will know Salisbury also has a strong family connection, my grandfather was a ganger for the Southern Railway, based at Salisbury for most of the period I model, before he gained promotion to Sub Inspector (permanent way) at Andover Junction during 1948. A model of my grandfather can be seen taking a break alongside the typical Southern concrete platelayers hut next to the main line.  Also my dad, who will be assisting with the operation of the layout at the show on the Saturday,   used to try to sneak into the shed, ducking under the time keepers office hatch that overlooked the access steps from Cherry Orchard Lane. A model of my father albeit in his younger day can be found trying to bunk the shed along with some of his school mates sneaking up the steps at the entrance to the shed.

As hinted above this is not the first time that Fisherton Sarum has been seen in the Salisbury area as back in May 2009 we actually exhibited on platform four of Salisbury station as part of the event to mark the 50th Anniversary of the first passenger train that traveled from Salisbury to Gillingham. If you are able to get along to this show,and help the Salisbury and South Wilts Railway Society celebrate its 50th anniversary, it will be good to see you.