{"id":33705,"date":"2025-05-10T19:09:54","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T18:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=33705"},"modified":"2025-05-10T19:09:54","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T18:09:54","slug":"this-weekend-at-the-royal-british-legion-abingdon-overlord-model-railway-layout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=33705","title":{"rendered":"This Weekend at the Royal British Legion, Abingdon: &#8220;Overlord&#8221; Model Railway Layout"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/2025051002.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nThis weekend, visitors to the Royal British Legion in Abingdon can view the impressive &#8220;Overlord&#8221; model railway layout, created by Chris Mead. Transported from Wakefield, the layout is so large that it has to be displayed in two sections to fit the available space.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Overlord&#8221; depicts a busy dockside scene, inspired by the wartime ports of Southampton and Portsmouth. Grey naval ships \u2014 landing craft and destroyers \u2014 are moored in resin water. On the quayside, military trains connect the docks to the inland supply routes, while tanks and troops prepare for embarkation.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/2025051010.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nThe layout represents the build-up to Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. Among the many details are a captured German U-boat repurposed by the Allies, the PLUTO pipeline (used to supply fuel across the Channel), and sections of the floating Mulberry harbours that were vital to the landings.<\/p>\n<p>This video gives a tour first of the Royal British Legion club with bunting and poppies and then the railway layout:<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Operation Overlord Railway Layout at Royal British Legion Abingdon\" width=\"625\" height=\"352\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ETKopqzzUPs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This weekend, visitors to the Royal British Legion in Abingdon can view the impressive &#8220;Overlord&#8221; model railway layout, created by Chris Mead. Transported from Wakefield, the layout is so large that it has to be displayed in two sections to fit the available space. &#8220;Overlord&#8221; depicts a busy dockside scene, inspired by the wartime ports [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}