Saxham Saint Mary

[RobM]

Layout Description

Size: 8 feet by 1 ½ feet

Baseboards: 9mm marine ply surface with 3mm ply sandwich edging and 50mm x 25mm bracing

Other: Cassette off-layout storage

Scale: 4mm

Track Gauge: OO finescale

Track: C&L on cork base

Control: Uhlenbrock Daisy II DCC System

Modelled Period: 1987-91

Modelled Location: Fictitious market town on Essex/Suffolk border, East Anglia

Rolling Stock: Kit-built and detailed/modified/hacked-about rtr

 

Layout Background

The actual building of the layout began with the purchase of the baseboard materials in early 2007 with the baseboard construction running through 2007 to 2009 – to give an impression of the very restricted amount of time I have available, it took me nearly 30 months to build two 4 feet-long baseboards! The baseboards were then consigned to the loft where they remained, untouched, ever since until a house move in October 2013 and then again in August 2014, when they were then moved to storage in the garage for a change. 2009 was also about the last time I posted anything on the old version RMWeb! Been lurking as a very occasional ‘Guest’ since then …

 

Turnouts were commissioned to Norman Saunders of Just Tracks during 2009 and received in early 2010. C&L plain track was also purchased in early 2010 and both have remained untouched in their boxes ever since. Oops!

In the meantime, I have been continuing to work on rolling stock (building kits, detailing and modifying rtr) while staying in hotels when travelling extensively with work. This is one of the main reasons why there has been so little layout progress over the last however-many-years.

 

So, finally managed to set aside some time to make a start on the layout (following lots of prompting from my 6-year old son after every visit to a model railway show!) and have now started in earnest. I also decided to chart my (very slow) progress on RMWeb – although please be aware that this will definitely not be a regularly or frequently updated thread! So, I took the opportunity with the sunshine out last weekend to finally make a start, and progress is shown later on in this post.

 

The track plan itself takes inspiration from a number of real locations (principally Framlingham, but with bits Harwich Town, Sudbury and Braintree (to name a few) thrown in too) with the aim of portraying a BLT in the late 1980s on the fringes of the Network SouthEast area in East Anglia. The geographical location is deemed to be a reasonably sized market town on the Essex / Suffolk border, deep in agricultural territory. The name is one I came up with after trying out plenty of other options (I’ve had plenty of time!) and is very appropriate to the area – there is a Little Saxham, Great Saxham and lots of Saint Mary’s churches but not a Saxham Saint Mary; ‘FIngerford’ was an early contender, particularly when our son was much younger and starting to eat solids which got referred to as ‘finger-food’. There is a small rail-fed grain terminal run by the local farmers co-operative which generates sufficient traffic to warrant retaining the line open. The grain traffic is also supplemented by seasonal sugar beet traffic and also inbound fertiliser. A small domestic coal yard is also present with an infrequent rail service to replenish the coal bunkers for the surrounding communities. This provides plenty of opportunities for the use of the Stratford class 31s, 37s and 47s I’ve been accumulating and detailing. The single-line branch also feeds a manufacturing site off-scene, thereby allowing the inclusion of a variety of other wagon traffic for reversal and occasional spot-loads (that ever-useful, traffic-justification, catch-all). Pushing the geographic boundaries a little bit, the weekly Sizewell nuclear flask train will also reverse at Saxham Saint Mary for no prototypical reason other than it’s a nice short train to model, and justifies those RETB-fitted 37/0s!

 

The station remains open with a passenger service linking to the mainline somewhere between Colchester and Manningtree. The line will be electrified (a la Braintree branch) to permit running of a 3-car 305/1 (model is based on the Southern Pride kit) – I always liked the look of the larger windowed 305/1 sub-class, despite the fact that they were used pretty exclusively on the Enfield/Epping/Chingford ‘Jazz’ services out of Liverpool Street and very rarely (if ever) made it too far along the GEML. Together with the fact it is only a 3-car unit and fits perfectly onto the cassette works very nicely! The passenger service also makes use of diesel units (classes 101, 105 and sometimes a Sprinter ‘borrowed’ from one of the inter-regional services to/from Ipswich & Harwich) together with an occasional locomotive substitution service for variety (47/4 + 2 coaches). The IMTS rule is being strongly enforced here!

 

The principle requirement was to retain a feeling of spaciousness in the track plan and to avoid the look of too much track crammed onto the baseboards. Having said that, the physical size of the baseboards does constrain the scenic area to that which lies within the railway boundary, although some effort will be made to at least hint at what lies beyond. This is particularly true along the backscene on the station board, where I aim to include some low-relief buildings. Vegetation is going to remain fairly limited – concentrating on grass, bushes, shrubs, weeds, etc., although I would certainly like to include a tree or two somehow. Time of year is going to be early autumn (leaves turning from green to orange/red/brown), with evidence of an earlier rain shower (puddles and wet surfaces).

 

Other scenic work will be on the station platform, coal yard and grain terminal with the aim to create as authentic a look as I can manage. For example, I want to definitely include the subtle sloping of platform, road and pavement surfaces to highlight the drainage aspects and camber as well as leaving depressions in the surfaces to allow puddles to form – although often modelled as a completely flat surface, this is very rarely the case in reality. The main structures on the layout are going to be the station building, coal yard office and the grain terminal (elevators, bins, storage, loading chutes, etc.). Being just within the NSE area, this allows me the option of doing a ‘Chris Green-effect’ on the station – a liberal coating of red paint on lamp-posts, seats, bins, NSE flashes on station signs, etc.

 

So, with the sunshine out over the last weekend I got the track laid on the main boards, and held down with some packing tape.

 

Firstly, an overall view from the grain terminal end with the domestic coal siding on the left, the old cattle-dock and end-loading platform where the 47 is parked and the station will be to the right of the carriages:

 

 

And then from the station end:

 

 

Making use of a single-slip to save some space, plus wanted to include a trap-point from the coal siding as I think they look really good, although rarely modelled. And I realise that the end of the cassette area looks to be at a very strange angle in the above pic - it is not, it is perfectly level; whereas the fence behind is on a definite slope.

 

 

I wanted the trackwork to flow and not just be a set of straight lines. There is also plenty of empty space for scenery to go in. The class 47 and carriages were simply the first ones that came out of the storage box, but served the purpose very well for checking clearances and spacings.

 

There is still a long list of things to be done, including fitting the cork, drilling lots of holes, adding droppers, fitting point motors, etc. … but all in due course.

[stivesnick]

Hi Rob

 

I did a 1980s GE Branch in N many years ago so will be watching this with interest. I ended up building a Class 302 parcels unit for extra traffic ( they actually ran on the LTS rather than the GE)

 

It might be too late, but I would try to lengthen the passing loop if, perhaps by integrating any pointwork into the fiddle yard. At present it looks very short and unrealistic.

 

Regards

 

Nick

[NickBrad]

This is looking very interesting, I love the cut out in the board for the cassette, very nicely done.

[RobM]

Well, it's been a very long-time since the first post (almost a year!), so worth adding a very long-overdue entry!

 

I have been finding the odd bit of time over the last year to get bits and pieces sorted out on the layout, although progress is still extremely slow. Firstly, to answer some of the questions and points that got raised after the initial post - apologies for taking so long to reply to these!

 

Hi Rob

 

I did a 1980s GE Branch in N many years ago so will be watching this with interest. I ended up building a Class 302 parcels unit for extra traffic ( they actually ran on the LTS rather than the GE)

 

It might be too late, but I would try to lengthen the passing loop if, perhaps by integrating any pointwork into the fiddle yard. At present it looks very short and unrealistic.

 

Regards

 

Nick

I would have loved to be able to make the passing loop longer, but the length of the boards restricted the total loop to 5 feet including the points, which means it is much shorter than it would be in real life, however it does work with the 3 feet maximum train length imposed for the cassettes. In order to construct a BLT properly to scale would probably require something in the region of 20 feet in order to do it justice, so it is a compromise in order to have something workable.

 

This is looking very interesting, I love the cut out in the board for the cassette, very nicely done.

I decided to go for this approach in order to keep the overall footprint of the layout manageable - it would have been great to add another 4 feet for a fiddle yard, which in turn would have allowed more space for a longer run round

 

So, the trackwork is all fully wired up and the cork underlay is down - track is not yet secured to the underlay with the exception of a few strategic track pins and some tape! That will get done as part of the ballasting stage. I've got all the point motors (Cobalt Digital IPs) in place and all working without a problem; I initially was getting short circuits on the single slip until I discovered I needed to cross feed the frog returns to the opposite Cobalt and also reverse one of the power feeds into one of the Cobalts. I've now also set-up some routes to ensure that the single slip and the lead-in points all throw in the correct way to avoid short circuits and ensure no conflicting moves are possible. This wiring activity took up until around January this year to get completed.

 

Following that, I ordered a platform kit from CD3D Models (http://www.cd3dmodelmaking.co.uk/platforms), which has been configured to fit the available space - I now need to add the platform surface and then detailing. The photos below show the platform as both "work-in-progress" and in it's current state. The station buildings are the Hornby Skaledale terminus buildings from several years ago which will need some modifying and detailing too.

 

I have just recent;y completed the bufferstops, although these are not yet fitted to the layout. These are a mixture of Lanarkshire Models kits and a couple of the DCC Concepts illuminated buffer stops. I need to weather the layout track before adding the bufferstops, and can then add more track detailing before the ballasting stage.

 

So a few photos of the current state of the layout, taken over the last couple of months while testing the running and making slight adjustments to my poor tracklaying and alignment skills! Glad to say things are running a lot smoother now than they were at the beginning of the year, but there are a couple of further adjustments I will need to make, including re-aligning the outer siding at the grain terminal to straighten it out and not having it run parallel to the second siding.

 

A view looking along the layout from the station, with a NSE Class 101 drawing into the under-construction platform

 

Stratford's 37055 at the head of some Grainflow PAAs ready to set off on their trip to Ipswich

 

08407 in the middle of some complex shunting manoeuvres - not quite sure how a Bromine tank ended up on this line!

 

A view of the part finished station platform and buildings in position

 

Stratford's RfD-liveried 37252 (I know it's missing the cast double-arrows from this cab-side ...) at the head of a delivery of ballast

 

The next steps are to continue spending a bit of time "playing trains". I need to start fitting additional sleepers into the gaps in the trackwork. Further work is required to finish off the track jions over the board joint and onto the cassettes, then onto fitting further track detailing and weathering, before ballasting.

 

Rob

 

[RobM]

So, just over 3 months later and I've managed to pull together another post of my infrequent developments on the layout.

 

Ballasting is still to be done, although I have done quite a bit of work on detailing and weathering the track, as can be seen in the following pictures. Also managed to find time to fit the bufferstops - a combination of Lanarkshire Models kits plus two DCC Concepts illuminated bufferstops. This has been complemented by adding dummy point motors and some manual point levers and rodding - took the decision to make the crossover and the trap-point to be controlled from a lever frame, including a facing-point lock on the crossover as it's used by passenger trains. A further lever frame has been included for the point in the grain terminal. I also took the opportunity to re-align one of the sidings in the grain terminal in order to allow more space between the tracks - I had initially laid them a bit too close together and not left enough clearance at the mouth of the sidings to pass a full siding of wagons.

 

I have fitted into position, but not yet wired-up a signal from Absolute Aspects - a 2-aspect home, with position light - at the end of the platform (which has had the edging fitted, but still awaiting the purchase of suitable material for the platform surface.

 

As pictures probably show far better than I can describe in words, here they come:

 

The signal is numbered CO822, as it would be controlled from Colchester but was unsure of what signal numbers were actually in use, so just picked one I thought would be high enough that it could be justified.

 

Peco dummy point motors with some additional detailing - not weathered yet!

 

View along the platform, from above, showing the point rodding and lever frame. I will also add a telephone post for communication with the signal-box.

 

Unfortunately, the lighting doesn't really highlight the bufferstops very well from this angle, or indeed the weathering on the platform brickwork!

 

At the other end, the weathered Lanarkshire bufferstops look pretty good - I mixed a couple of designs, with an old LNER and BR styles rusting away. Once all the ballast, ash, weeds and other detritus is eventually added (!), they will blend in nicely.

 

In the meantime, I have also been working on a cut&shut job on a Hornby 3-car class 101, to convert it to one of Norwich's RETB-fitted sets - meant converting the DMBS to a second DMCL and the trailer car to a TBS. Just need to paint some passengers and crew to sit inside and then fit a decoder, before that can begin service.

 

[Edited for spelling mistake ..]

 

Rob

Edited August 11, 2017 by RobM

[Wayne 37901]

Hi Rob!

 

I've just come across this and it looks like it'll be an excellent project. I see it hasn't been update for quite a time so I hope this one still exists?

 

Cheers,

Wayne

[dj_crisp]

Hi Rob

I've also just discovered this. Looks excellent.

 

As I'm about to head off to work and stay in hotels I know what you mean about lack of time!

Cheers

Will 

Edited August 5, 2019 by dj_crisp
Typo

[Wayne 37901]

2 hours ago, dj_crisp said:

Hi Rob

I've also just discovered this. Loos excellent.

 

As I'm about to head off to work and stay in hotels I know what you mean about lack of time!

Cheers

Will 

 

Very true Will!

 

I don't stay in hotels often but I work shifts and that also impacts on modelling time.

[justin1985]

Really enjoying this layout so far. I love the concept you've come up with - to me it captures a kind of "best of both" sense of East Anglian branch lines in the 80s/90s - the rambling layout and grain facilities of the cross country routes from Cambridge to Ipswich / Norwich; and the glamorous touch of NSE branding and electrics on outer suburbans. One of my longer term plans is a "might have been" layout in N drawing together elements from the Cambridge-Bury-Ipswich line, but with electrification - very similar, I think!

 

The attention to detail in your trackwork and the feel of space between the sidings etc looks really great. I'm looking forward to seeing it develop!

 

I'd love to see more of the stock you're going to use on this layout too.

[Wayne 37901]

Just came back to check for further progress here, I hope the layout still exists?

 

Cheers.