| Formed | 1930's | | No of Members | 7 | | Section Head | Charlie Nelson | | Meets on | Wednesday afternoons & Sunday mornings |
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The club has it's own permanent 7¼" gauge miniature railway in the club grounds,
with a mixture of live steam, electric and petrol locomotves.
We hold monthly Steam/Open Days from April to September
which are open to the public.
One of the earliest members of the I & WEMRC was Dr Watts, back in the mid-1930's.
He lived in a large house at Chigwell Row, and around the estate was laid a long and winding irregular
circle of 7¼" gauge railway track, the main feature of which was a timber viaduct - some 30 feet long -
built on a curve across the middle of the lake. It was the doctor’s custom to hold garden parties in the summer for the sole purpose of running
sessions on his railway.
His locomotive was based on the LSWR Urie 4-6-0 N15 class that subsequently became
part of the King Arthur class and was named Excalibur (right). The war years played havoc with the track
as it was impossible to carry out any maintenance, and by the end of the war, the deck and timber
supports of the viaduct had rotted. When the doctor died, Excalibur, rolling stock and track were bequeathed to the club.
Excalibur had a new boiler in recent years, and is the mainstay of our monthly
Steam/Open Days, ably supported by our electric and petrol locomotives, and
occaisionally by Thomas Junior, (left) which has undergone extensive maintenance but is always very
popular with the children when it does make an appearance.
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