STARTING TO TAKE SHAPE

Welcome to this week’s blog, you join me having spent a day track laying and electrics. Now I’ll be the first to admit that electrics ain’t my strong point but thankfully modelling in DCC it’s fairly streight forward. This will be covered in a future blog so let’s move on to todays blog.

Last time we looked at the track plan for SHIREBROOK YARD so today we’ll look at the other three in the range.

SHIREBROOK STATION.

Every railway it seems has a station and mine is no exception. Offcourse being a micro layout space is my issue (again).

I plumped for a small village branch line with goods as well as passengers. Not only does this reflect a real life situation as it allows for passenger and goods traffic but from an operational point of view it gives plenty of scope for shunting.

As you can see it’s a fairly simple branch line with a run around loop to allow the engine to run around the train and shunt the goods wagons too and from the goods shed and siding.

SHIREBROOK COAL.

My third layout is a different slant on the engine shed in SHIREBROOK YARD. This time as well as a single track shed there is also a raised coal Shute and water tower. The first thing to say is that the upper track to the coal Shute not only gives operational features but also brings an upper level thus adding a new dimension to the layout.

Once the engine had re fuelled it then come back on itself for water before parking up ready for the next service.

SHIREBROOK GOODS.

The fourth in the series is a simple goods yard allowing for those of us who like to shunt to our hearts content to do just that. Shunting was a very important part of the daily running of any yard, getting the wagons in the correct order so that they can be delivered to the right place was paramount.

So there you have it, 4 layouts put to paper but offcourse the proof of the pudding is in the eating so next we need to get from paper to baseboard.

As you can see there’s really only one way and that’s to draw you plan out on your base board and see if it fits.

Offcourse not only am I talking about track but also any buildings you may have and not forgetting scenery. By scenery I mean the world on which your layout lives, cuttings, fields, tunnels, waterways etc.

Talking of the world the layout is based in let’s just look at back scenes or back boards as some call them. These are what defines the sides of your layout.

You may choose to paint your own and indeed if your painting skills are good then it will look good however, mine aren’t so I go with Peco back drops that are put on with double sided tape (glue bubbles).

As you can see the back board is and industrial scene which at the moment doesn’t look too bad, however when you join them together they don’t always run into each other. At this stage this is not a problem because when I come to putting in hills and trees this will be hidden, more of which in a later blog.

Well that’s it for this blog, next week it’s track weathering, track laying and electrics. This means offcourse that we’re getting to that magic moment when a train moves on our layout!

Cheers Alan.