A Brief History of BHME

The next job was to lay the 7¼" ground level track. This was laid outside the elevated track and was about six hundred and forty feet in length, again aluminium was used. Locomotives started to appear, mostly 3½" gauge. These at the time were considered to be quite large. 

Douglas was busy building a 7¼" Duchess to be named “Duchess of Brighouse”. To raise funds for these projects a portable track was made and used at local Galas and other outside events. We still use a portable track to this day to raise money for the society.

It was not until the grounds were considered safe that public open days were started. The admission charge at the time was 3d old money and 3d per ride. There was considerable interest in model boats at this time, so it was agreed to build a boating pond.  This was a great success at the time as all the local children could sail their boats on open days. 

Finally the great day arrived to officially open the pond. Douglas made a ramp to launch his large boat down and, as a crowd formed around the pond and the boat was launched by the Mayor amid great cheering: The resulting tidal wave unfortunately soaked anyone who was on the opposite side to the boat! 

The Society has prospered over the years but the pond had to go. It developed a severe leak which would have been very expensive to repair. Also the boating members were by this time into radio control and required a much larger stretch of water. The membership fell as a result of the ponds demise, from around 120 to 80. 

The elevated track has been lelaid three or four times over the years. In the last build we used reclaimed plastic for the longitudinal spars and sleepers and hope that these will last a long time. The steaming up area for the raised track had a brand new canopy fitted in the early 2020's.

The ground level track has been extended over the years and is now over one thousand feet long including a dedicated tunnel, a station concourse with two platforms under cover and a passing loop, a second (balloon) loop over a bridge along with associated loco and carriage storage facilities.

The freehold was purchased in 1966 on the death of the founder and President, so we are among the few societies in the country who have the luxury and security of owning the land, even so we of course need to generate some income to maintain the facility we have.

We are now in our ninetieth year and the grounds are much more developed than in 1948 when we started our journey, but the vision remains the same - to share the joy's (and disappointments) of model locomotives and other engineering projects with like minded members. 

We also enjoy sharing our facility with the public, and in doing so, hope to inspire future generations of model engineers.