Bleadon
7mm Scale - North Road Railway Club
Bleadon is an imaginary station located on a possible, but never constructed, southward extension of the Weston, Clevedon and Portishead Railway (WCPR) to a junction with the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway. The village of Bleadon does exist and is situated a short distance to the south of Weston-super-Mare in Somerset. Traffic on the Railway was minimal and the extension, if ever it had been built, would have carried little traffic traversing what was, and to a degree, still is a largely rural area.
The WCPR formed a part of the Colonel Stephens’ light railway empire and, as with his other railways, operated on a shoestring budget using second-hand equipment. Bleadon is operated using a mix of models of locomotives and stock which actually operated on the WCPR and a selection of others which suit the character of the model.
Bleadon was constructed by Steve Sims of Plymouth in 1996 and represents his interpretation of rural Somerset in the period leading up to the Second World War when the railway ceased operation. Some of the stock is suitably decrepit and the track has been modelled to reflect the poor condition of the WCPR at that time. The track is hand-built using timber sleepers with the rails spiked down. The farm buildings and the cottage are constructed using the Linka system.