Businessman spent eight YEARS and £250,000 to build Britain’s biggest model railways set
ONE-track minded Simon George finished Britain’s biggest model railway after spending eight years and £250,000 on the 200ft project in his cellar — and hiding it from his girlfriend Maria.
Simon recreated a 1.5-mile stretch of track at Heaton Lodge Junction, Mirfield, West Yorks, using 500 photos from 1983 — one of him and pals.
The ex-businessman, 53, feared Maria may dump him over his “dull” hobby.
Now engaged, he said: “Luckily she liked it.”
It is on display in Wakefield.
Simon said: “It all started because I used to spend a lot of time at Heaton Lodge as a 12-year-old kid watching the trains go by.
“I had happy memories of it all. I wasn’t even into railway models – it could have easily been a park or a corner shop I had memories of.
“It depicts the 1980s as it used to be with lots of coal trains before the miners’ strikes.
“When we’re children we have our own special places, but for me I used to come here as a child and spend so much time watching the freight trains go past.”