Toni Armitage is determined to put old buffers into the sidings as she pursues her unusual hobby.

She prefers building bogies to baking cakes and using an electric drill rather than the food mixer at her Keighley home.

For Toni, 37, a health and safety officer, is one of only four women in the country in the EM Society, an organisation for people who build 18mm-gauge model railways.

And she has been raising eyebrows by making a name for herself in a world that is traditionally male.

"There's a lot of male chauvinism which I've had to put up with, but it's getting better,'' said Toni, who has been building model railways for five years, having been encouraged to take up the hobby by her husband Neil.

"I've had comments like 'You didn't make this - your husband must have done it.' And when I ask people questions about their layouts, they turn round and answer my husband, ignoring me.''

Toni has taught herself to build engines and carriages, how to lay out the track, build scenery, wire up the layout and use soldering equipment.

Her bedroom workshop is an Aladdin's cave of model railways. It is packed with boxes of screws, axles, engine and carriage kits. It is bulging with books on model railways and the walls are covered with saws, spirit levels, pliers and soldering irons. "There are still a lot of anoraks about - we call them rivet-counters because they have to have everything exactly right," she said. "But I try to bring a bit of fun into my layouts and I like to encourage the children."

Her layout, which represents a time in the late 1950s and early 1960s, contains comic cameos of everyday life and minute model animals which she challenges youngsters to find.

She became interested in the hobby about five years ago after she told Neil his engines looked good but his scenery was rubbish. He challenged her to do better - and she hasn't looked back.

Now she is preparing to take part in the biggest model railway exhibition in the country, the Warley National Model Railway Exhibition at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, on Saturday and Sunday, October 9 and 10.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.