Hagley Historical and Field Society

The background story behind the model of the bridge

Hornby model R9751 – Hagley Footbridge

The front of the box for Hornby model R9751

 

Hornby had produced an 00 gauge (1:76 scale) model of a railway engine named Hagley Hall several decades before Hornby’s Simon Kohler visited Hagley. He has said that there was something about the name ‘Hagley’ that persuaded him to investigate the station.

At that time, he was looking for suitable subject matter to add to Hornby’s ‘Skaledale’ range and decided that it required a selection of Great Western Railway (GWR) buildings such as a station, signal box, engine shed, a goods shed and if possible, a footbridge. During his visit he took photographs of the footbridge from all angles, picking out sufficient details so that a model of it could be created. Soon afterwards a model was designed and became available in late 2013 as model R9751.

The model doesn’t include the GWR logo or the date 1884 because the modelling process used at the time was not refined enough to legibly include either the GWR logo or the date.

 

Simon also took photographs of the station buildings during his visit, resulting in Hornby making Hagley Station building as its model R9752. The production run of the two models was 1000 of each; photographs of the models were included in the Hornby 2014 catalogue.

One of the photographs that Simon Kohler took when he visited Hagley station in 2013