Fairport

[47137]

"Fairport" is a diorama with a tiny single line terminus in the corner of my room. This makes a new destination for trains on "Shelf Island", and takes the run on the whole layout up to about 14 feet for a 1-foot long train.

 

The scenic section is a piece of expanded polystyrene (the sort sold for building insulation), glued onto a piece of 2mm MDF with a strip of alloy angle at the back.

 

The scenic section fits onto the baseboard with steel dowels (cut-down wagon axles)

 

I made the cottage in the summer of 1978 and this is its first layout - these things take time!

 

I made the cottage for 4mm scale so I've fitted into a rebate in the foam board to make it look better with H0 scale trains behind it. It still looks reasonable with 00 trains too.

 

I am currently working in British H0. The bus stop lets me add a 1:76 or 1:87 bus (when I can find one) to help reinforce the "scale of the day". This is a Fleischmann H0 coach on SMP 00 track.

 

Hoping some of this is of interest.

 

- Richard.

[47137]

I have added fences and more undergrowth, so I think this model is now "finished":

 

I think this sort of model highlights the different needs of a layout for home and a layout for exhibition - it fits into the corner of my room nicely and it gives me a destination for trains from a larger layout; but for an exhibition it would look a bit lost.

 

Credits: birch tree by Jacqui "the tree lady" (Ceynix), bus stop by Peco from the old Merit range, station fencing by Ratio, other fencing from a US supplier for H0, platform edge by Peco. Road surface is "Fab Foam" sold by Hobbycraft, drain covers in etched brass by Langley.

 

- Richard.

[CourthsVeil]

...

 

Hoping some of this is of interest.

 

- Richard.

 

Hi Richard,

sure "this is of interest" - a nice addition to your "main" layout.

Regards

   Armin

[Sun VI]

I do like the look of your layout, I like its simplicity and minimalist approach, thank you.

[47137]

I do like the look of your layout, I like its simplicity and minimalist approach, thank you.

Thanks for this.

 

I'm pleased with the model, not so much as for what it is in its own right but for the way it adds a brief section of "main line" and a new destination for trains to my existing layout. I have tried to describe this in my blog entry for the baseboard and railway parts of the extension.

 

I now have a compact layout (under 11 feet of total scenic area) with four destinations for trains, a fiddle yard, and potential to add two more scenic extensions and possibly a set of staging sidings as well. If I can manage six distinct destinations for trains, I think this will have a great deal of potential for operating interest, even though the trains will be very short. I am happy with progress so far, this arrangement does a more for me than a terminus-fiddle yard or roundy-roundy-set up, at least in a home setting.

 

Looking to the future, one of the extensions could be a modest branch line terminus for British H0, perhaps a "might have been" Southern region scheme, compact enough to carry to shows by train as well as by car. I have always built the core 'Shelf Island' model with exhibition in mind, but it is rather long (74 inches) because I could never have made it in two sections, and this was just short enough to go through a doorway and still long enough to make the gradients workable with 24 inch turnouts. It doesn't align with the deck of any estate car or car-derived van I know.

 

I do think, connecting micros together is a nice way to build a layout.

 

- Richard.