Connections through art…

Out of the house, turning left towards the canal, down the street past the freshly creoseted fence gently warming in the mid morning sunshine. The street is quiet and it’s cool in the passing shadows painting abstract sci-fi pictures on the pavement…

I always feel calm as the world melts away on this walk to the railway. Making the almost sub-conscious decision to leave the house, leaving the real world behind these days would be described as a mindful intervention but back then I was just excited to see what I would find in the yard at Paxton Road. 

Mind, I wasn’t rushing, instead savouring those smells and sensations on the walk. As I turned right on to the fabled road itself the houses turn to scrub and light industry and brick walls to concrete slab fencing, I find myself straining to hear any idling diesel noises on the breeze. 

Crossing the railway I always loved the texture of the cast iron girder, where paint and rust seemed to take on a wonderful dance, patterns woven randomly across the surface, pitted bare metal and flaking edges all ravaged equally with the weather and passing traffic. 

That bridge meant the end of the journey. I squeeze through the bent bars in the metal fence and made my way down the embankment to sit under that favourite oak tree. I sometimes took a book, sometimes pen and paper and sometimes just myself, calmed by the thing I love the most, watching, absorbing the complete experience. At one.

Paxton Road isn’t just about playing with N gauge trains, nor is just about collecting models that remind me of the end of the Railfreight Speedlink era. It is a balm and a blend of memory and imagination and through telling this story, itself a blend of memories, I am trying to share a little more of what it means to me, today, to have it here in my home: I love model railways.

Until next time, more soon…

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