The inspiration for this exhibit came from a book describing the part played by the port of Southampton in the D-Day Landings of 1944 (codename "Overlord" - hence the title). It also provided an opportunity to combine the interests of railway, military and nautical modelling.
The layout is meant to represent the hectic preparations for the invasion at a dockside somewhere on the South coast of England. Much of the variety and confusion of the moment are displayed. The tanks awaiting loading to the landing craft; an American Infantry column searching for its embarkation point; the specialist vehicles such as bridge layers, rocket launchers, mine clearers and amphibious tanks needed to ensure the success of the landings. There is the vital naval support of escorting destroyers, launches and torpedo boats preparing to put to sea. And finally there are the tea-ladies of the NAAFI, providing a continuous supply of drinks to the nervous troops.
The buildings and cranes are loosely based on prototypes at Southampton, Liverpool and Sharpeness Docks, and are constructed from mounting card and plasticard.The vehicles (over eighty of them at the last count) are mostly standard Airfix and Matchbox kits although the more unusual tanks etc come from wargaming specialists. Displayed in the frames around the layout are reproductions of ships badges from the period, either from ships on the layout, or from those with family connections. The model ships themselves are a mixture of kits and scratchbuilt items. The torpeodo boats and rescue launch are again Airfix, the corvette H.M.S. Bluebell is the old Matchbox model, and the landing craft was scratchbuilt from plans and first-hand memories by Reg Walker. The centrepiece is the destroyer, H.M.S. Grenville. The ship took John Mead nearly 2 years to complete, and is not only used on the layout, as it is a fully working radio-controlled model which can often be seen ploughing across the waters of the local boating lake.
We are constantly trying to improve and add to Overlord, so if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to ask.
The following picture shows the entrance to Southampton Docks with its arch gateway. Our plan is to extend the current layout and use the gateway as a feature - we would welcome any further information on the gate such as pictures or plans.
Voted ‘Best Layout in Show’ at Modrail 2006 in Swindon
