My interest in Tram and Tramway modelling is relatively recent, I was a collector of die cast models but I digressed into Corgi 1/64th trams after a visit to the National Tramway Museum (now Crich Tramway Village) in 1991. I decided that I could do a more accurate job of repainting Sunderland (my local system) trams than Corgi were doing at that time. I had honed my airbrushing and masking skills by restoring a number of old Dinky and Corgi toys so when some time later, at a toyfair, I met someone who could produce bespoke transfers for the various Sunderland Tram liveries, I had all I needed to start my Sunderland fleet.

Of course, when I had produced seven or eight, I was often asked if I was going to motorise them, after saying no for a while, the rot had set in and I motorised No 86, the official last tram. Having done that, I needed somewhere to run my new toy. As I had no knowledge of tramway building I decided a good move would be to join the Tramway and Light Railway Society in the hope that there would be some other tramway modellers in the area.

This proved to be the case and in 1999 the North East Area group was formed with me as its Secretary. This group was very successful and met at Durham each month until 2009 when, due to falling numbers attending, regular meetings at Durham ceased in favour of occasional meetings at members homes. This eventually led to my decision to build "Sunderland Tramways" for my own amusement and for exhibition at local Model Railway Shows.

As I decided to build the model tramway for exhibition, it had to be a maximum size of 48 inches long and 18 inches deep for easy transport, light enough to be carried by one person (Me), run Corgi 4 wheeled trams (which I already had), have live overhead (as per the prototype), and both automatic and manual control. It also had to be a complete townscape where the trams were a small but vital part of the whole scene. Because of the size restrictions the track is laid as end-to-end double track as used by Sunderland Corporation.

Sunderland Corporation Tramways had an unusual terminus on its Grangetown route where the trams turned off the road (the A19 which then ran through the town) and stopped at the rear of the pavement. I used this as a location on which to base my model, which although not prototypical also includes a depot.