This layout is keeping alive the tradition of a series of previous ones of the same name beginning in 1967 with the first built by Eric Fox and featured in Model Railway News in January of that year.

Exhibited for the first time at The Warley National Model Railway Exhibition in 1999, this layout follows the ethos of the original FT&O. A circular layout, topped by a multi-coloured umbrella, together with coloured lighting, it attracted a constant stream of admirers, with plenty that remembered the original.

All stock and scenery is based on the imaginative and humorous drawings of Rowland Emmett which reflect the eccentricities of British rural railways of the early to mid 20th Century. Fortunately some of the original 32 year old stock from that first and subsequent layouts still exists in the collection of Warley MRC. This stock has been renovated to operate on the layout and benefits from some nineties technology , along with recently constructed complementary rolling stock items which have been built.

It has recently returned from a summer at The National Railway Museum, York.