I had a very busy day today. I finally added a ply top to the aluminum frame which my parents brought up to me in June. The ply came from school - I had my eye on the off cut bit for a while but had to wait until the end of term to "obtain" it from the scrap bin. So it came home last week and today permission was granted to fit the bits together.
So having drilled and riveted it all together (for those counting rivets there were 26), it received a coat of undercoat and this evening, rather than hitting the work bench, I spent a couple of hours drawing, erasing, redrawing, swearing, cleaning the whole board and starting again until I got something which feels prototypical, has operational interest and while challenging, won't put me off.
The baseboard measures a little under 2 meters long by 10 inches wide. I know this is mixing measurements but that is what you get for a layout which is 2mm to the foot!! I have allowed 400mm for cassettes - this holds a Class 73, 5 of the new Farish 5 plank wagons and a new Farish LMS Brakevan. It also easily holds a 57xx and B Set.
Entry is between some trees and past the headshunt/coal merchants siding. Straight on takes you to the yard, the platform road deviates to the back (I am not planning on a backscene but Amity says there must be a front and a back or she will get confused. The Cassette Bay is on the RH end for the purposes of this exercise). The platform doesn't have run around facilities - trains requiring same will have to set back to the trees, head into the yard, perform the run around and then head back to the platform. Adds to the operational interest.
The yard is fairly basic - goods shed, cattle dock, crane and coal merchant. The crane will probably be on the cattle line separate to the goods shed. While the layout is neat and orderly it is a bit cramped and this will mean somewhere else to drop a wagon.
The captions hopefully will give you a fairly good idea. Now that I have a track plan in 1:1 scale (relatively speaking!) I will draw it up tomorrow and post.
Photo 1 - looking over the coal merchant/head shunt towards the trees which will hide the entry/exit.
Photo 2 - The 57xx and B Set are in the platform road. The 882xxx is in the arrival/departure road in the yard. Scalescenes free goods shed making up the feel to the left.
Photo 3 - taken from the cassette bay end looking towards the buffer stops in the distance.
Photo 4 - Railways from the Air! The bottom track is the cattle dock's location. The length of track next to the 5 plank wagons is roughly the distance between the points on the run around section.
Photo 5 - another shot of the entry/exit end of the layout.
Photo 6 - the whole lot. The line marking the entry/exit can just be seen to the right of the trees.
So far (assuming you, the reader, have gotten this far!) the layout doesn't have a name. Amity suggested Shortreach or Thompson Sidings as having links to where we live (the river is the Thompson - and the town is built on the long reach of said river...). My current favourite is Coruscant - although it isn't built up enough. Suggestions would be welcome - living so far from the UK we don't have a good handle on place names. Just a word of caution - we are looking for something generic. This layout will have LBSCR Terriers, LNWR Coal Tanks, 57xx's, Class 14's and LNER J70's running on it from time to time (although with only two trains fitting there is no chance (ha ha) of all these happening at once) so a name which screams West Country or Black Country or Wales or Scotland won't help.
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