Finally Starting a layout!
So this is it, my first personal blog! On here will be my thoughts, plans and (hopefully) executions for a number of ideas I have had buzzing round my mind for the last few years. Over the last few years my modelling attention has centred on our club??™s layouts ??“ which are covered in the Liphook & District MRC thread, as I have been unable to pursue my own interests at home.
Now the excuses??¦
I have not had a personal layout for over 15 years; a combination of no cash, permanent abode or space. My previous house was a tiny two-bedroom terrace house with barely space the swing a dormouse, let alone a cat, so the chances of a layout ??“ even a really titchy one was ruled out by household authorities.
Now, finally, we have plenty of space ??“ a nice four-bedroom house with a 12??™ x 12??™ shed immediately beside. What is more, I have finally been given permission to build a layout!
So, what to do??¦ I have been granted half the shed, and have two very different plans for development ??“ both N Gauge ??“ (with scope for perhaps a further shelf-type layout), which represent my two loves; Japan and the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway.
With the prospect of a large Japanese urban layout in the offing for a club layout, I wanted something a little smaller covering my interest in the Chuo line ??“ the inland route between Tokyo and Osaka. I have the stock ??“ Azusa (Super, Kaiji and standard) and Chuo liner sets along with EH200 and EF64-0s, and a germ of an idea ??“ a plan will appear on here sometime in the future.
The other project will need far more work, and will cover the majority of this blog.
I have always had a great interest in the LBSCR, and had a long-held desire to produce a small country-town terminus in the 19th century. The idea has always been a fictional line in a real place ??“ a lightly laid 2 mile branch from Petworth station to the town itself. I am fortunate enough to have lived in Petworth for most of my life, and still live about 5 miles away, so prototype research is relatively straight-forward. All buildings would be scratch-built, either from non-railway buildings at the chosen site of the station, or suitable railway structures spread out along the old LBSCR line to Midhurst.
Motive power? That??™s easy; from about 1880 until the early 1890??™s the Midhurst branches were dominated by the Terrier tanks, until Stroudley D1s took over. This, in conjunction with the fact that any line of this nature would have been lightly laid, meant that happily only Terriers would have been seen at this station until minor strengthening standardised motive power to the D1 class.
Actual work cannot commence until I get power to the shed, which won??™t be until next year, however the research for Petworth Town is already under way, much of which will appear on here over the coming months??¦
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