About Us

Clifton Model Rail (CMR) was founded by Ben Dalton from Sydney, Australia, and is named after his great uncle Jack Clifton.

Over a period of decades Jack hand built an amazing O scale layout in his backyard shed.
Jack's layout was featured as 'Railway of The Month' in the influential UK publication Railway Modeller in September 1976.
This was very unusual, and it is rare even today for a layout outside of the UK to be featured.
This huge and complex layout was a source of inspiration for Ben. 

When Ben was 7 years old, Uncle Jack refurbished a layout made years previously for his cousins.
The multi-level, dual oval track was the source of many days (years!) of entertainment and creativity. 

Decades later Ben made numerous model rail layouts for his nephews and daughters when they turned 7 years old, just as Jack had done for him.
Here is a link to some more info and photos of them.

While satisfying, Ben found that building model rail layouts for the family was frustrating, time consuming and very demanding.
This led him to think there must be a better way to maintain motivation and get trains running.

He also had the realisation if he found building a layout challenging even with all of his experience and resources, it must be almost impossible for anyone just starting out.

Thus Clifton Model Rail was born, with the over-arching goal of helping more people get into the hobby and stay in it so they can have as much fun and creative entertainment as Ben and his family have had.

Clifton Model Rail aims to provide people with the essentials, taking care of the initial setup that can take so long and cost so much.
We provide an ‘out of the box’ layout that people can quickly build upon and add their own creativity to.