Croft Spa

A new N Gauge layout from Les Richardson (Hawthorn Dene, No Place, Furtwangen Ost)

Size 10’ by 2’9”, needs access to both ends.  Footprint 12’6 by 8’ including space for a stock table.  Needs one power point.  Has own lighting rig and RCD.

Travels by car (two on Sunday or if away from home).   Four operators. Overnight accommodation please over 50 miles from Newark on Trent.

Croft Spa is a small wayside station on the East Coast Main Line at the Southern tip of County Durham.  It is unusual for never having had a goods yard- this was because Croft Goods was served by the Stockton & Darlington Railway’s Croft branch which ran parallel to the East Coast line about 400 yards away and at a lower level. 

The only stopping passenger services at Croft Spa were trains to and from the Richmond branch.  Croft Spa was the place where Charles Lutwig Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) spent some of his formative years.  Look out for the tribute to Lewis Carrol.

The station buildings are the final set of structures made by the late Trevor Webster, and include almost everything known to have been there, though not all of the buildings were there at the same time.  Elsewhere there is a mixture of kitbuilt, scratchbuilt and ready to plant to create the flavour of the location at the time.

Set in 1960, the station sees the usual East Coast diet of expresses including the Flying Scotsman and Tees Tyne Pullman,  fast freight and the occasional slower goods train.  Motive power for these is drawn from the ex-LNER fleet of 202 Pacifics, the 184 V2s and 409 B1s, while locals are in the equally capable hands of WDs and ex- NER and LNER 0-6-0s.  The branch passenger trains include Darlington’s mongrel 2-car DMU set.   One feature train is an 8-coach troop express hauled by a tender-first V2 while a Class 33 works a tanker train off the Southern- they sometimes got as far as Tyne Yard, 30 miles further up the line.

The layout is DCC controlled using NCE Power Cabs.  Prototypically the only signals in sight are ground signals. Points are controlled manually.

NOT with Hawthorn Dene, Rise Park or NO PLACE (shares operating team)