BACKGROUND INFORMATION

How did it all start? is a question which has been asked on numerous occassions, so, here's how it happened.

His wife having fallen in love with the Blackpool trams, Len used his skills as a railway modeller to construct the original diorama in an old TV set plus several trams to run on it as a Christmas present for her. Consisting of two circles of track with a backscene and side scenes of structures on Blackpool promenade the layout had a certain novelty value - although it has to be admitted that after a relatively short while the novelty of seeing the same trams running round and round faded somewhat.

At the request of a friend the diorama was exhibited "to fill a blank space" at a model railway exhibition in 1991. It attracted a surprising amount of interest - out of all proportion to its size. It was then realised that the spectacle created by a realistic miniature reproduction of Blackpool's famous illuminations would overcome the rapid fading of the novelty value.The uniquely original concept of the layout utilising lighting effects as an essentially integral part of the primary "scenery", has proved a source of great interest to young and old alike.

The decision made, it was soon discovered that it was much easier said than done!!! There have been a large number of attempts over the years to produce a model tramway layout featuring the famous Blackpool illuminations. Convincing reproductions have been difficult to produce as available light sources have usually been too large to match the scale of the model tram layout. Miniature Christmas tree bulbs, grain of wheat bulbs and grain of rice bulbs have all proved to be too large. Another problem was to replicate the pattern of flashing lights used in the prototype. The advent of electronically controlled Christmas tree light bulbs provided a means of reproducing the displays, however the bulbs were far too large and there were insufficient bulbs in each set to match the number of bulbs in the prototype, typically several hundred in the frontage of a single building.

Then came Len's discovery of fibre optic strands and these overcame the problem of having the correct size "bulbs" on the layout. There were still a number of outstanding problems to be solved before commencing work. Having overcome the majority of these the work was undertaken and the layout was reintroduced to the model railway exhibition circuit in 1994.

Whilst leaving an exhibition in Middlesex the layout was dropped and sufferred what was at first thought irrepairable damage.During the repairs the layout appeared at two exhibitions in a partially rebuilt state, a full return being made in 1996.

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