The decision on the layout's historical placement had to allow me to justify some of the locos I really wanted, some of which are already owned and painted in post-27 GWR green.. I wanted to be able to run Churchward's Stars (x1) and Saints (x2) and perhaps a heavy freight 28xx together with Collett's Castles (x2) and Halls (original, x2). At a more local level, some prairies, a Collett 2251 or two and at least one pannier. That pretty well set the period as somewhere around 1929 - 1932. I feel that the route restrictions applying to Kings, and the fact that they were only designated for the very best of express turns at that time, dictates against including one of these.

My next conundrum was that of geographical location. I was tempted by Kingswear - where at least I could run the odd Castle - or that simple but effective station that is often modelled: Penzance. In either case, I was looking for a design that would allow a tender loco and six or seven 57' top-lights. With one shed wall of 3.4m, it seemed a shame not to use the length to best effect. So with those two options I knew I needed four platforms and at least one at 1900mm length. So now I had passenger traffic, what else would I need? Well, tender locos would need turning and I had followed a thread in which another RMWebber (Dah)) built an SE Finecast turntable so I bought one of those. In addition to passengers, I settled on livestock (to match the rolling fields surrounding the approaches to the station) with a cattle dock alongside the station, coal (because practically every mid-sized or larger station had some form of coal handling) and a brewery (only to justify a private siding and a Metcalfe's kit).

The next issue was to try and avoid tight curves that would easily reduce the overall effect. At this point, a draft layout was posted on RMWeb and some really great help came from Jon_1066 to arrive at a potentially working arrangement with curved turnouts. It is surprising how tight things become even with a shed of these dimensions and I really didn't want a roundy-roundy - it had to be a terminus and trains had to arrive and depart for a destination. So now there was a plan. It involved 26 turnouts, only one crossing and almost 50m of track. Once I costed that, I had to draw in a (very) sharp breath.

Alongside this, I had decided that I would use stall type motors to drive the turnouts. Cobalt seemed to be the route but then I had a chat to a supplier of these at one of the shows and was guided towards the Tortoise device. As these are a reasonable amount less than Cobalts, that suited my budget even though they are perhaps a little more bulky. As I already have a number of Peco, SEEP and old H&M solenoid type points motors (although some may be duff), and having seen some excellent layout videos with operating signals, I want to incorporate these. So, if working signals are to be included, they had to be correctly located and of the right type. Additionally, this would decide the size of the signal box. So, I know precious little about signaling but, with the resources of RMWeb, "I know a man who does" and the plan was sent to the oracle that is The Stationmaster. Several suggestions from him resulted in further track changes and one more turnout to achieve a really workable layout.

Gradients are incorporated because the departing trains ultimately have to return and some measure of storage is necessary to "hold" trains so they don't just go straight forward and back but this does not need much description or even displaying - actually that is clearer since some of these loop under the main station boards. Suffice to say that he ruling gradient is 2%, another advantage of a spacious track plan. As yet, I don't know how well my locos will perform on that but I am optimistic that I can install enough weight over any drivers on the few r-t-r locos I have, the rest have white-metal bodies so have inherently more traction.

Enough for now, planning the baseboards is the next step and that will expose more issues!