It just goes to show what a diverse hobby railway modelling is. There really is something to suit everyone. I've always been steam era as I'm just old enough to remember the last days of steam on the NZ Government Railways. Diesels have never done a thing for me, though some early electric locos will quicken my interest.
I started out modelling the Midland Railway and later the London, Midland and Scottish in 00 and then when finescale scratch building took my fancy I modelled the Furness Railway in finescale 'S' scale. No photos survive from this time unfortunately.
When I started having problems with aging eyesight and pains in my hands from the years I'd spent as a heavy truck mechanic I moved up a size again to '0' gauge working in old fashioned coarse scale. This time it was the London & South Western Railway that captured my interest. After working in finescale old fashioned coarse scale was a revelation and I soon discovered i was having fun instead of spending hours and hours shaping tiny pieces of brass accurately and soldering them together with tiny tools.
I had to sell a lot of my '0' gauge stuff when I became ill, but I have kept back some vintage pieces which I'm hoping to be able to set up as a layout again.
'In the spirit of' LS&WR loco I built from a pile of left over distressed tinplate loco parts, robotics gears & motor and cast fittings. This little loco is able to haul a surprising number of not very free rolling tinplate goods wagons. The handbuilt wooden coach is very old and is a treasure that I was very lucky to find. I have other handbuilt wooden models from this era as well. The coach bogie in the foreground is also made from scrap bits and is for an as yet unfinished project.
My first tinplate loco (as a grown up person). I built this up from a badly crushed Hornby clockwork that somebody must've stepped on. I painted it in London Midland & Scottish colours for old time's sake.
When I first moved to the wee rural town where I now live I had thoughts of building a railway in the garden which I figured was one way to prod myself into taking an interest in gardening. My health was better then so I was very optimistic about the project. I wanted to model a timber tramway in the spirit of the timber industry tramways that were so common in the district where I live.
Because I didn't have much money I built all these large scale models using parts from toy trainsets, cardboard and wood. The cardboard came from cereal boxes and the wood came from the kindling box beside the wood heater in the lounge.
'Emily' - built from wood and cardboard on a toy loco chassis.
A typical tramway side tip wagon. I'd caught the whimsy bug so my helpful staff was mostly Playmobil people. 
A mobile workshop/tool van. It's not at all obvious in the picture but this is a Ewings monorail system item of rolling stock
Ewings monorail loco under construction. Go ahead and Google the Ewings system it's fascinating.
I think that will be enough from me for now
