Allow me to introduce myself, as this will be the first in what I hope will be a series of posts as I learn from you all and experience the trials and tribulations of building my first layout.

I’m Captain Biggles, I’m 32, and I’m considering building the first layout of my adult life. I’m an engineer by day but by night and occasionally at the w/e I’m a closet geek, as my wife calls me. I last started a layout aged 14 (that never got finished as I discovered first women, then beer, then beer & women. And a bit of sport. Anyway…

That’s me, sort of, but what else do you need to know? Some facts:

• What? I’m going to model Padstow station, that’s a given. In the latter years of its life, say 1950-65. I’d like it to be close to prototypical, but I also recognise that we model, not miniaturise, so I’m prepared for some artistic licence to be used. This is a skill I’m going to need your help to learn anyway.
  
• Experience? I’m effectively starting from scratch. I have no stock, no boards, no track, nothing but a tool box & a head full of dreams. Over the past few years I’ve built an 0 gauge G6 in brass and some wagons, that go around the tree at Christmas, but that’s about it.
  
• Gauge? 00 would be my gauge of choice. But space may dictate otherwise (more on this later).
  
• Space? I have a space down one side of the garage that is maybe 10’ x 3’ MAX. Ideally it’d be smaller, and I’d like to perhaps take the layout to a few local shows if it’s any good, so I’d like it to be portable too. Maybe breaking down into 2 sections, 5’ x 3’ max, which should just about fit in the back of my car (Audi Q5).?
  
• Timescale? I have another life. I have a house that needs doing up and although there are no Jr Ensign Biggleses yet, I’m sure kids will come along in the not-too-distant future. Mrs Captain Biggles is tolerant, but not encouraging, of my subversive activities, and all other demands on my time come first. I don’t expect to finish anything off rapidly then, but I’m looking forward to learning and playing along the way. It’s a hobby, and I treat it as such.
  

So, where am I at with this “project” then?

I have found a couple of plans of Padstow, and this particularly useful website here: http://www.northcornwallrailway.co.uk/route.html (which I think is the work of RMwebber Piskey). I’ve got as far as laying out Peco templates on wallpaper lining paper and I started in 00, but without foreshortening the platform length significantly (I think it should accommodate 5 coaches min, from what I have read) and having no room for a fiddle-yard it was never going to fit in the space available. I did consider using a spiral to have a fiddle-yard above or below the layout, but this would add to the width too. So I’m leaning towards N, as the attached photos show. It is currently 9’ x 2’6”, with a fiddle-yard behind the cliffs I’ll use at the back of the station, connected by an off-scene 180deg bend.

Please do let me know your thoughts, and at this stage, I have two questions / concerns:

Firstly, never having modelled in N, is is the space going to look too sparse in this scale? It’s a large area, and will obviously include docks and boats and fish sheds and so on, but will I be able to make an aesthetically pleasing model and add enough “clutter” to give the eye something to look at. I notice that most people’s N-gauge termini tend to be 1-1’6” and this is much wider. Am I right to have this concern?

Secondly, how do I hide the 180deg bend at one end? Padstow is famous for the iron girder bridge over Little Petherick Creek, and I’m wondering if I can use this to my advantage. I’ve sketched it up (close-up photo below) so that both tracks enter the right-hand section, but the rear line then curves off-scene, with a dummy bit of track appearing to carry on over the other two sections of the bridge along with the headshunt. I’m considering using 3 bridge girder-assemblies per section of the bridge, with the middle of the right-hand section being blanked off so the train disappears from view. The middle and left-hand sections of the bridge are fully see-through, and have a backscene behind. Confused? Yes, so am I.

I’m looking forward to this project, and who knows what’ll happen. But I do know from having been a closet forum-lurker for some time that there’ll be no end of help available on these pages. I hope that in time, people will find my ramblings and failings of interest to themselves too.

Chuff’s away!

Cap’n Biggles

April 2013