The Home Pages of The Platelayers
The term 'platelayer' was the name used in Britain for the men who laid and maintained the "plateways" that were primarily used for coal haulage in the early 19th century. With the coming of the first railroad and then railways, the word "platelayer" continued to be used to describe those workers.                             ("railroad"  was originally a British term before becoming American vernacular) 
Despite our name, we do more than just lay and maintain model railway track. Not all our members are modelers or have the facilities to construct a model railway layout, but we all enjoy that aspect of the hobby. Some members have extensive layouts. Some have end-to-end layouts. Other members are interested in the historical aspects of British Railways.
Our members have interests covering all of the popular British scales which include N gauge, OO/4mm gauge and O gauge. Some members also model  2mm, the various forms of 4mm=1ft (00, EM. P4/S4), S scale, coarse O Gauge and Gauge 1 (usually LGB). Narrow gauge is also popular.
Although many of our members have an interest in the railways in Britain, it is probably more accurate to say that, as a group, we have an interest in non-North American railways. For example, at past Great British Train Shows, we have featured displays of the Bombay, Baroda & Central India Railway, and the Darjeeling & Himalayan Railway. 
This website was decided upon in the mid-1990's by the Executive, as a means of providing British modelers in the Greater Toronto Area with a resource and information on current trends and tips. It was also hoped that a website presence would encourage new members. Mike Watts was the first webmaster and designer of the site. The current webmaster took over from Mike, and has maintained the basic design because it does the job for which it exists. It may not be pretty, but it works.

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August 2010