A house move a few months ago has meant that a space has become available for a new layout along one wall of a bedroom - I have been gifted a 4m long wall (a shade over 13 feet) and so plans have begun for a branch line terminus run by the fictional Great Southern Railway. As yet, only a few details of this railway company have been discovered, though as your author is writing a history of the line, more information should be forthcoming - follow this blog for any new revelations!

The track plan for the station has been drawn up, and signalling diagrams are in the works, but most of the work so far has been on rolling stock, of which a selection may be seen in photos below. Most of the stock has been kitbashed to greater or larger degrees from RTR stock with the odd kit, especially for rolling stock for adjoining lines (LB&SCR, SE&CR and possibly the LSWR, depending on where the final location of the layout is determined to be).

The locomotive livery of the railway is a dark blue, with black panel edging and red lining. The coaching stock is painted blue with white panels above the waist, while most goods stock is painted a dark grey and lettered "G S" or "G S R" depending on the design of wagon.

It all started off with an Electrotren 0-6-0 tank engine... which, after a few alterations to anglicise it (including removing the boiler-top sandbox, replacing the safety valve and whistle, and fitting new buffers to 4mm scale spacing), looked like this:

It has since been joined by a somewhat bashed-about Great British Locomotives static Wainwright C class, on a shortened Hornby Jinty chassis, which actually runs surprisingly well after some fiddling with the pickups, though is still awaiting lining and finishing up:

Coaching stock is made up of modified Triang/Hornby "short" clerestory coaches, with the original brake third and full first, two brake thirds spliced to provide a full third and a short bogie full brake, a corridor coach modified from a full first, and a couple more full thirds to be made up. A passenger train still on the painting bench can be seen below - I am cursing myself for choosing a panelled livery, but it *does* look rather smart...

Branch stock is 6-wheelers from the Bachmann US Thomas range, painted in plain blue. I really must get around to properly converting a brake to go with these:

Finally, goods stock is mostly modified Triang and Hornby wagons, mounted on slightly more up-to-date chassis. A Triang van (on a Hornby tank wagon chassis) and a Hornby Hull and Barnsley van with additional framing, mounted on a Dapol wooden-frame chassis are shown below:

While another H&B van with cross-framing, a 3-plank open and the goods brake (a very sliced-up Mainline LNER 20T brake van) can be seen here:

A few other wagons are in the pipeline, including a tanker from an Ertl Thomas tank wagon, a Mainline cattle wagon and a 5-plank drop-side wagon or two from the "Your Model Railway Village" partwork, which appears to have no real-life counterpart I can identify! More details on the modifications to these models will be written up at a later date, along with the construction of the layout as it progresses.