Famous Trains

Famous Trains Model Railway, based in Markeaton Park Derby, welcomed their 80,000th visitor on Saturday, 8th August 2026. The Smithurst family were persuaded, by their three-year-old youngster, to visit. The whole family are into model railways with an American HO and a “N” gauge layout in the parents garage and grandparent’s attic. Kat Smithurst and family are Derby locals with the grandfather who worked on the APT, which was developed in Derby, in the same building as a former Famous Trains member.
Markeaton Park, where Famous Trains Model Railway is based, is the only municipal park in England to have a model railway attraction. Famous Trains has been at Markeaton Park since April 2014 and they have several layouts, of various scales, in their exhibition hall. The biggest layout is of “OO” scale and is of Chinley, which is in north Derbyshire, and set in 1960. The trains running on Chinley are changed every eight weeks to show different types of locomotives and train formations.
Famous Trains Model Railway is open every Saturday, Sunday and Monday from 11.00am to 4.00pm. Entrance fees apply £3.50 for adults; £1.50 for children and £7.00 for a family ticket (two adults and children).

Member of the Year 2026
On Monday our president Colin Boocock had the pleasure of presenting member Stephen Rooke with a certificate nominating Stephen as Member of the Year 2026. Colin told the members present that this was to commemorate Stephen's dedicated work underneath the basboards of the Chinley OO model railway at Famous Trains.
Stephen has been repairing the electric circuits feeding the tracks of our largest layout. This has involved him in countless hours working in confined spaces underneath the baseboards of the big model railway. The result is more reliable operation of trains through the scale model of Chinley station.
Visitors to Markeaton Park in Derby can come into the Famous Trains building and enjoy watching many trains pass through our Chinley station models (there are two - we also have a smaller scale model railway (N gauge) showing what the modern Chinley station looks like today.
Our picture shows Stephen holding his certificate; Colin Boocock, president of Famous Trains, is on the leet of the picture and David Jones on the right is the layout manager for under-baseboard equipment.

Visitors to Famous Trains at present can see trains running on our big OO gauge Chinley model railway that represent the types of trains and locomotives seen there in the 1959s and 1960s. Later in May the theme will switch slightly to using models of diesels where we are currently running steam. Each theme period lasts about two months. In the summer we shall run a theme called 'holiday trains'.

There are sixteen trains currentlyon the layout, so you will see plenty of variety!

Happy New Year to all! We at Famous Trains hope you are all recovering well this morning after last night. And for any families wondering how to fill today, a reminder that we are open today from 11am till 4pm🎉

A great cause and a chance to win some great prise. Even with our friends at the Rudyard Lake Railway....

48 hours and we are smashing it! So far we are over 200 tickets sold! Every ticket you buy will directly support Prostate Cancer UK ❤️ fans and beyond your support is very much appreciated!

As part of our on-going efforts to raise money for Prostate Cancer UK we are pleased to give our followers the opportunity to buy tickets in our Charity Raffle. Generously donated prizes from traders that are attending our show this year means that the prize pot has prizes ranging from £25-£500

Tickets are;
£10 for 1 Ticket or
£20 for 3 Tickets

The Raffle will be drawn on the Sunday of the Exhibition at Crewe
Don't worry if you win and don't attend the show we'll simply post the items out to you.

To purchase tickets simply follow the link below: 100% of your ticket value will be donated to the charity.

https://www.zeffy.com/en-GB/ticketing/modern-image-o-gauge-raffle-in-aid-of-prostate-cancer-uk--2025

A full list of prizes can be found at the above link - we'd like to thank all of the traders for providing wonderful raffle prizes

HELJAN A/S, PR Model Railway Products - PRMRP, Buzz Models, Ellis Clark Trains, George Dent at Model Rail, Easybuild, Peter Clark Models, Durham Trains Of Stanley, Rudyard Lake Railway, Telford Steam Railway, Gary Smith, Rails of Sheffield, Northumbrian Painting Services, GM Transport Books, Footplate of Kidderminster & Tower Models

⚠️ STOLEN GOODS ALERT ⚠️

We are saddened to hear that The Deltic Preservation Society have had their entire stock of Accurascale Class 55 Deltic 'Tulyar' Models stolen from their base.

Please share this to make these models too hot to handle - and please contact the Deltic Preservation Society if you have any information that may help them track them down!

With the 27th September 1825 marking the day that the Stockton & Darlington Railway, Famous Trains has recently been running a Railway200 theme. To help our volunteers and members celebrate the 200 years, through October we are running no particular theme but are instead letting our staff run wild and put on whatever locomotives and trains tickle their fancy on the layout, show casing all that Famous Trains has hidden away in our drawers and what our members bring in from home.

Our theme change of the year...
We have now changed theme to Railway200.

Featuring iconic locomotives and trains from across the eras. From some of the first locomotives such as Rocket, up to modern multiple units like the GWR Class 800.

We are running some locomotives you may have seen us run before but also some brand new ones such as our headliner for this theme, our all new Sound Fitted Avanti West Coast Class 390 Pendolino!

And that's the end of The Greatest Gathering. What an event, something that will not be seen again for another 50 years at least. Thank you to all who came to visit us, we hope you enjoyed Peaky Bluff and Croft Mills.
Only got a chance to pen bomb one layout today as it felt so fast and busy today.