Nether Madder and Green Soudley Rly

[Martin S-C]

I've taken the plunge to open a layout construction thread though I have some misgivings because this layout will not be built entirely by my own hands. I have contracted one of the professional layout construction companies, the Little Layout Co, to do the build with me. I say "with" because I insist on being involved in all stages of the layout's creation and am most definitely not a person to write a cheque, put my feet up and sit in an armchair while its all done for me.

I consider myself a railway modeller in every sense and have been into the hobby since I was five years old when my father bought me and my brother our first second hand Tri-ang railway. However my woodworking skills are somewhat rusty and I have never been that great with electrics and the art of soldering has eluded me all my life.

The space I have at my disposal is a 24 foot by 8 foot garage and the amount of railway going into it had me pretty worried in terms of how long it might take and how well I could make it so, having recently retired and enjoying a fairly cosy cash sum, I chose to spend some of it on having the garage professionally converted into a railway room, and having the skills of others on hand to help me with the construction.

The scale is 4mm:1 foot and the gauge is 00. I have collected mostly RTR stock but also a good number of kits from all the well-known manufacturers in plastic as well as a few in whitemetal and brass. I have a soft spot for Victorian locos and rolling stock and my choice of setting means I can run a mixture of older vehicles and locos. Control will be DCC and I plan to have sound in all engines.

 

My great inspiration is the Madder Valley Railway of John Ahern, now restored at Pendon and this concept of the "small empire" layout appeals to me because it lifts a number of constraints that modelling a pure historical prototype would impose. My own railway will be based somewhere near the MVR and have an off-scene connection with it via a set of exchange sidings (aka fiddle yard but within the scenic area). I have a special fondness for the Forest of Dean and so have placed my own fictional railway in that area - or at least somewhere within the triangle bounded by Hereford, Gloucester and Chepstow with the River Severn on its eastern edge.

Attached is a layout plan. It is an end-to-end run with two termini and en-route two small through stations. One is a junction to a branch which has two small through stations and a terminus while the other is a junction with a line that falls to the exchange sidings and a connection to the MVR (off scene). There is a colliery at the second through station and I chose to site a single town centrally that forms a back scene to both terminus stations. For each station this is supposed to be a different town and with a height difference I intend and hope this scenic device will work at least tolerably well.



There are several industries served by the railway most of which are inspired by Forest industries such as coal mining, quarrying, brickworks, tinplate works and wood distilling.

The time chosen is 1919. I definitely wanted to go pre-grouping to provide the reason for three independent small railway companies to still exist, though by 1923 I expect these three would be absorbed into the Great Western... or possibly the LMS, given we are located towards the mid-Wales marches. As I said, there are three companies represented on the model. The Nether Madder Railway is the biggest and runs from the sizeable town of Nether Madder to the smaller town of Snarling. The Green Soudley Railway runs from the mid-sized town of Green Soudley to the small township of Puddlebrook which is near the Dean Sollers Colliery. Both lines were constructed in the 1880s after the broad gauge had lost its dominance. These two railways were then connected by a line, jointly built and funded that ran from Snarling to Puddlebrook. From Puddlebrook a junction line had already been laid to connect to the Madder Valley Railway, making an end-on connection at Gammon Magna on John Ahern's model (off scene). A branch railway, the Witts End Light Railway was also promoted and independently built from a junction at Snarling on the NMR, running about five miles through the hamlets of Coggles Causeway and Catspaw to the village of Witts End. Among the promoters of this line were the owners of two significant local industries, the Catspaw limestone quarries of Sir Charles Dadford and a wood distillation works owned by Thomas and James Sylliborne that processed cordwood from Crown land. Railway traffic to these two concerns is sufficient to make the WELR a viable concern. There are also race meetings and hunts held on the estate of Sir Charles at Witts End Grange which involves horse box specials along the branch on several occasions during the season.

At Nether Madder is a modest locomotive works and carriage and wagon shops, with carriage sheds and stock storage roads. There is also a timber merchants in the town as well as the wagon repair works of the brothers Charles and Henry Sargent. At Snarling Junction is a dairy, Pontefract's Creamery, and a flour mill astride the Little Madder River. At Puddlebrook is the Forest Stone Mason works owned by Adolphus Spheer and managed, appropriately, by Jeffery Hardston.

The town of Green Soudley is a hive of industry with a brewery, grease works and tinplate works all adjoining the Wye and Aight Canal which waterway continues to carry freight to some of the more isolated industries of the region. Those who know the Madder Valley model will see that I've simply stolen the track plan of Madderport station for Green Soudley and replaced John Ahern's harbour and River Madder backdrop with the canal. I did this because... well, its just a great track plan put into an even greater scenic setting.

During the Great War, under the pressures of operating at an elevated level, the three railway companies merged into a joint company in early 1918, the Nether Madder and Green Soudley Railway. However war time pressures mean that the NMGSR still runs many pieces of rolling stock and locomotives bearing the liveries of their former owners. It is now 18 months later and the high summer of 1919. Peace has returned, the men are coming home from the war and many industries are working at maximum output to provide raw materials and manufactured products for a reviving economy.

There is a turning triangle at Nether Madder and a 50 foot turntable at the MVR exchange sidings so small tender engines may be run, though Green Soudley lacks turning facilities meaning that tender engines must travel tender first to Puddlebrook, then make a reversal down the Exchange Line in order to be turned and retrace their route to Green Soudley. There is absolutely no reason at all to do this other than it lets me run lots of light engine workings.

Work on the garage conversion has yet to begin but a site survey will be made on 6th August and I hope that building work can begin asap after that. Construction of the baseboards will commence in October. In the meantime I've been collecting stock, building kits, painting stuff and doing a lot of weathering. I'll be showcasing my attempts at kit-building and weathering on here until the real work commences.

 

Edited April 7, 2019 by Martin S-C
EDIT: Updated with current station names and industry owners

[woodenhead]

A lot of railway without a mainline in sight, looks very interesting and the location chosen lends itself well to your ideas.

 

The only other location could be South Wales to have several companies vying for trade.

[south_tyne]

This looks like it will be a fascinating project. Right up my street in atmosphere and feel. There are a lot of us Madder Valley and Ahern fans in these here parts so you are like to get lots of interest. Fantastic plan and idea.

 

Will be following your project with great interest

[Nearholmer]

Very interesting!

 

Nice complicated track plan to peruse, too.

 

I'm surprised that more people don't opt for 'short trains going somewhere', rather than 'long trains going nowhere', for garage conversion layouts.

[Martin S-C]

Thanks guys.

I have always enjoyed goods workings and like to actually play trains where I deliver empty wagons somewhere, load them up physically then take them somewhere else to deliver their loads. Hence my interest in the small empire design where you can do this within at least a moderately believable framework. You just have to imagine the railway is long and thin and the towns and stations are miles apart rather than folded over on themselves close together in the constraints of whatever small space we have to work in.

When I had G Scale in the garden I did the same thing. I used German style rolling stock from LGB and similar manufacturers but Anglicised it, repainting wagons, etc, and in this bigger scale the making of wagon loads was very easy. I even had a couple of Welshpool & Llanfair cattle wagons which I made the roofs removable on. I then made up small card bases and glued cows onto them, with added straw and muck and made sure these "loads" fitted both inside the wagons and inside the cattle pens. Lots of fun but somewhat more fiddly in 4mm scale.

I want to use some kind of waybill or ticket system to move wagons meaningfully around, though I don't want to attach actual markers to the models - that breaks the immersion. I shall probably make up a card for each wagon and slot a waybill into it showing load and destination.

There will be a passenger service of course but I haven't decided yet if they will be mixed trains. My coaching sets will mostly be pairs of Ratio 4-wheelers per train only, and I have a pair of Wisbech & Upwell tramway coaches (D&S kit) which will form the branch set. Hence why the station platforms are very short. Carrying passengers is a necessary evil in my book; it all gets in the way of earning proper revenue via freight carriage

Regarding the plan, the railway is built on several levels. Nether Madder is the right-hand terminus in the centre of the layout; the HQ of the railway system where the works are located. This is at +7.0" above datum. A 1-in-30 then falls to Snarling Junction in the NE corner which is at +4.5". From here the WELR branch falls at 1-in-30 to Coggles Causeway station which is at +3.5". The branch continues to fall at 1-in-50, passing under the two central termini to reach Piddling Parva with its quarry and wood distillation works (not a dye works as the plan shows, that was the old idea, now changed after reading up on more Forest industry history). Piddling Parva is at +2.0". The branch falls again at 1-in-30 to its terminus at Wits End on the N side of the room which is at 0 datum.

On the main line, the line from Snarling passes under both central termini, reaching Borrocks in the NW after a 1-in-30 fall. Borrocks is at +1.75". The colliery is at the same level. After passing the colliery the line them climbs at 1-in-48 up to Great Shafting. The terminus here is at +4.5" and the plan is that the height difference of 2.5" between the two central termini will be enough, with the addition of the scenic break of the town buildings, to give an impression of two stations that are not side-by-side but since the operators will face each other, communication should be easy.

From Borrocks the junction line to the MVR Exchange Sidings falls at 1-in-62 until the sidings are reached behind Piddling Parva station at 0 datum. The Exchange Sidings will therefore be modelled in a shallow depression behind the wooden platform of the halt which I hope will give an impression of more distance.

The ruling radius is 24" and at only one place, the curve leaving Great Shafting did I have problems. I had to ease this curve (past the engine shed) right to the baseboard edge. This meant it has to pass under the line that runs to the carriage shed and so I had to lift this line up a little to provide clearance. About 18" of severe 1-in-20 raises the carriage works approach line about 0.75".
 

I *think* it will all fit and give enough clearance.

Edited July 17, 2018 by Martin S-C

[Corbs]

Wow, this is going to be epic.

Looking forward to seeing how you get on, mini empires appeal to me an awful lot, one day when I have the space I'll make one too!

 

If you haven't seen it before, smaller than yours but also perfectly formed is Tweedale, have a look as it provides lots of inspiration.

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1827-tweedale-layout-blog/

[Zomboid]

That's pretty much how I would try to use the space, too. It surprises me a bit that system layouts seem to be exclusively home setups. You could do quite a lot of "system" with the space taken up by a large exhibition layout.

[Martin S-C]

I think system layouts, by definition, seem to be intense due to having to model, in compressed form, almost every aspect of a railway company's empire. By their nature things have to be abbreviated or shown in a fairly abstract format. In my case I had to depict the main workshops of a minor railway and setups like Boston Lodge and the works of the WC&PR were studied, as well as some of Col. Stephens lines. A colliery was an absolute must in the design but try as I might, I couldn't get in all the features I wanted. I ended up with a compressed version of Ackthorpe but with no headshunt line to propel the wagons under the screens - they'll have to be shunted from the empties sidings end. Compromise, compromise.

You end up having to take a pretty personal view of things and what works for one modeller may not work for another and for that reason they might make quite poor exhibition layouts. Sometimes not much may happen except for a bloke shunting a wayside station for 30 minutes and unless he's happy to chat to the punters, or the modelling standards are in the Pendon category to hold a viewers interest, these types of layout can make fairly dull viewing. Think of 4 or 5 BLTs stuck together in effect.

I think small empire layouts are great fun for those operating them who are absorbed in the fiction but probably a lot less so for a viewer who may be ignorant of the background details.

 

An alternative would be a modular system layout, built by a group. I see no reason why that would not work.

Edited July 17, 2018 by Martin S-C

[Stubby47]

As others have said, this is also definitely my sort of layout.  Freight trains / wagons go from somewhere to somewhere, for a purpose. In between, passenger trains flit between platforms. Wagons get shunted, locos get serviced.  Brilliant stuff - hope your layout matches your dreams.

 

Some of the inclines do sound a little steep, but maybe with short trains they won't be a problem.

[Nearholmer]

When I first glimpsed the plan, I thought "009", or better still 00n3, and I think it will be a challenge to prevent it becoming twee in 00, but I think it will be possible, by being artful in all senses.

Edited July 17, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Northroader]

Looking at the plan, the only moan I’d have, being an old twerp with a suspect back, is working the line single handed, as I’d be continually ducking under the bit in the middle to get from terminus A to terminus B, and back again. I hope you’re a spry young fellow for the years to come.

[runs as required]

Looking at the plan, the only moan I’d have, being an old twerp with a suspect back, is working the line single handed, as I’d be continually ducking under the bit in the middle to get from terminus A to terminus B, and back again. I hope you’re a spry young fellow for the years to come.

Thinking about 'old twerps back' (now there's an ideal name for some kind of hill feature looming over the back of part of the layout).

If you are in process of carrying out alterations to the garage/railway room - have you thought of 'future proofing' against emerging arthritic probs (in decades to come) by using some of the retirement cash to excavate 'an underpass' down throught the floor slab?

A local garage has had to undergo an insurance rebuild (after the beauty parlour next door set both afire) and constructed a neat few steps down and then up again to access their MOT pit - with a neat rail around to prevent falling down when thinking of other things. Such a scheme would work best with a chest high setting of layout rails at the underpass point

I.d llike to join with others in admiration of your project.

dh

[Martin S-C]

Yes, the age vs duck-under thing has been in my mind. I'm mobile at the moment but in five or ten or fifteen years who can say? The door to the garage is opposite Borrocks station in the W part of the N edge. It could be possible to have a lifting flap here, though it would intersect the platforms - it is do-able though with an exterior-opening door. The right hand end of the garage is currently the main car door and this is to be removed and replaced with a permanent wall. It had crossed my mind to build in a second door here with a second lifting flap in the region of the water mill. This would allow stand-up access to both operating wells but would on the downside mean two lifting flaps and the cost of a second door. To get from one operating well to the other though would mean a walk outside around the building - on rainy days hardly ideal.

The more serious con to the right hand door is that this end faces the driveway with access along the side of the house. Its the least secure part of the building and a door here might be a security risk.

And I am shamelessly going to steal the magnificent moniker of "Old Twerps Back" and make it a nearby ridge with an iron age hill fort on top; a local beauty spot. The young couples go there for their trysts and the schoolboys climb up there to watch the trains chuff along the valley while drinking ginger beer and munching their corned beef sandwiches.

[PaulRhB]

Yes, the age vs duck-under thing has been in my mind. I'm mobile at the moment but in five or ten or fifteen years who can say? The door to the garage is opposite Borrocks station in the W part of the N edge.

 

How about having the height as a duckunder now but have a wheeled chair you can sit on and slide across as a 'nod under' too if mobility is restricted later?

 

 

 

That's pretty much how I would try to use the space, too. It surprises me a bit that system layouts seem to be exclusively home setups. You could do quite a lot of "system" with the space taken up by a large exhibition layout.

What like this?  5 stations altogether although two only the operators can see.

Edited July 17, 2018 by PaulRhB

[Dave John]

Loads of operating potential there.

 

Bear with me while I make an odd suggestion, following on from "runs as required" s idea.  I don't know how high the "ceiling" of your garage will be  but lets say 8 feet. So think down not up. Lets say you want 2 foot above the highest point of the layout for a backscene and lighting. Since you are building a multi level layout lets say the layout depth is 1 foot. So thats the bottom of the layout at 5 foot. . Build a couple of plinths a foot high the size of the operating areas and you are viewing the layout at a comfy height and the duckunders are not backbreaking. Also you have the space round the plinths to work comfortably under the layout. Rough measurements, adjust to suit.

 

A fag packet sketch ;

 

 

 

 

Not a completely original idea , some big layouts do it this way, but might save your back a bit. 

[Martin S-C]

Yes, that's not a bad idea at all. Certainly cheaper than lifting flaps and extra doors. My only concern might be forgetting I'm on a pedestal and stepping off - flailing out with my arms to stop my fall and destroying an entire village or something.

 

Alternatively raise the entire floor of the operating well so all the operators are standing on a level 1 foot above the floor, with just a step or two down below the duck-under. Same principal as runs as required proposed without lots of digging away of concrete floors.

That also keeps the operators feet well away from the concrete floor which would be an issue in winter.

[PaulRhB]

You can even use the raised floor as a series of storage boxes with lifting floor panels to access it, just drill one inch holes in the panels to use as finger grabs, you can even glue carpet tiles to the panels

[Martin S-C]

Ah, an above floor wine cellar you mean?

[woodenhead]

Ah, an above floor wine cellar you mean?

Now you're talking!!

[Zomboid]

What like this? 5 stations altogether although two only the operators can see.

2018-04-07 NGS.jpg

Well yes, though we are both in the "modules are great" club.

[Martin S-C]

So while I am awaiting commencement of the garage conversion I have of course not been idle. Here's a few wagons I purloined via e-Bay, mostly Ratio and POWsides kits, most of them already built. I had a session of TLC on them, replacing lost and re-gluing any wobbly bits, added Bachmann couplings and changed a few numbers then had a go at weathering. This was my first attempt at weathering railway models for a very long time, though before this I'd done some a long time ago and in the interim have done a lot of weathering of wargame models (tanks, trucks, horse drawn transport and such).

 

 

 

 

 

 

[St Enodoc]

I've taken the plunge to open a layout construction thread though I have some misgivings because this layout will not be built entirely by my own hands. I have contracted one of the professional layout construction companies, the Little Layout Co, to do the build with me. I say "with" because I insist on being involved in all stages of the layout's creation and am most definitely not a person to write a cheque, put my feet up and sit in an armchair while its all done for me.

 

I consider myself a railway modeller in every sense and have been into the hobby since I was five years old when my father bought me and my brother our first second hand Tri-ang railway. However my woodworking skills are somewhat rusty and I have never been that great with electrics and the art of soldering has eluded me all my life.

 

The space I have at my disposal is a 24 foot by 8 foot garage and the amount of railway going into it had me pretty worried in terms of how long it might take and how well I could make it so, having recently retired and enjoying a fairly cosy cash sum, I chose to spend some of it on having the garage professionally converted into a railway room, and having the skills of others on hand to help me with the construction.

 

The scale is 4mm:1 foot and the gauge is 00. I have collected mostly RTR stock but also a good number of kits from all the well-known manufacturers in plastic as well as a few in whitemetal and brass. I have a soft spot for Victorian locos and rolling stock and my choice of setting means I can run a mixture of older vehicles and locos. Control will be DCC and I plan to have sound in all engines.

 

Dsc00266.jpg

 

My great inspiration is the Madder Valley Railway of John Ahern, now restored at Pendon and this concept of the "small empire" layout appeals to me because it lifts a number of constraints that modelling a pure historical prototype would impose. My own railway will be based somewhere near the MVR and have an off-scene connection with it via a set of exchange sidings (aka fiddle yard but within the scenic area). I have a special fondness for the Forest of Dean and so have placed my own fictional railway in that area - or at least somewhere within the triangle bounded by Hereford, Gloucester and Chepstow with the River Severn on its eastern edge.

 

Attached is a layout plan. It is an end-to-end run with two termini and en-route two small through stations. One is a junction to a branch which has two small through stations and a terminus while the other is a junction with a line that falls to the exchange sidings and a connection to the MVR (off scene). There is a colliery at the second through station and I chose to site a single town centrally that forms a back scene to both terminus stations. For each station this is supposed to be a different town and with a height difference I intend and hope this scenic device will work at least tolerably well.

 

Plan_Nine_30-05-2018.jpg

 

There are several industries served by the railway most of which are inspired by Forest industries such as coal mining, quarrying, brickworks, tinplate works and wood distilling.

 

The time chosen is 1919. I definitely wanted to go pre-grouping to provide the reason for three independent small railway companies to still exist, though by 1923 I expect these three would be absorbed into the Great Western... or possibly the LMS, given we are located towards the mid-Wales marches. As I said, there are three companies represented on the model. The Nether Madder Railway is the biggest and runs from the sizeable town of Nether Madder to the smaller town of Snarling. The Great Shafting Railway runs from the mid-sized town of Great Shafting to the small township of Borrocks which is near the Deep Shafting Colliery. Both lines were constructed in the 1880s after the broad gauge had lost its dominance. These two railways were then connected by a line, jointly built and funded that ran from Snarling to Borrocks. From Borrocks a junction line had already been laid to connect to the Madder Valley Railway, making an end-on connection at Gammon Magna on John Ahern's model (off scene). A branch railway, the Wits End Light Railway was also promoted and independently built from a junction at Snarling on the NMR, running about five miles through the hamlets of Coggles Causeway and Piddling Parva to the village of Wits End. Among the promoters of this line were the owners of two significant local industries, the limestone quarry of Sir Charles Dadford and a wood distillation works owned by Thomas and James Sylliborne that processed cordwood from Crown land. Railway traffic to these two concerns is sufficient to make the WELR a viable concern. There are also race meetings and hunts held on the estate of Sir Charles at Wits End Grange which involves horse box specials along the branch on several occasions during the season.

 

At Nether Madder is a modest locomotive works and carriage and wagon shops, with carriage sheds and stock storage roads. There is also a timber merchants in the town as well as the wagon repair works of one George Cradduck & Sons. At Snarling Junction is a dairy, Pontefract's Creamery, and a flour mill astride the Little Madder River. At Borrocks is a small brickworks and ceramics works owned and operated, appropriately, by Frederick Potter.

 

The town of Great Shafting is a hive of industry with a brewery, grease works and tinplate works all adjoining the Wye and Madderport Canal which waterway continues to carry freight to some of the more isolated industries of the region. Those who know the Madder Valley model will see that I've simply stolen the track plan of Madderport station for Great Shafting and replaced John Ahern's harbour and River Madder backdrop with the canal. I did this because... well, its just a great track plan put into an even greater scenic setting.

 

During the Great War, under the pressures of operating at an elevated level, the three railway companies merged into a joint company in early 1918, the Nether Madder and Great Shafting Railway. However war time pressures mean that the NMGSR still runs many pieces of rolling stock and locomotives bearing the liveries of their former owners. It is now 18 months later and the high summer of 1919. Peace has returned, the men have come home from the war and many industries are working at maximum output to provide raw materials and manufactured products for a reviving economy.

 

There is a turning triangle at Nether Madder and a 50 foot turntable at the MVR exchange sidings so small tender engines may be run, though Great Shafting lacks turning facilities meaning that tender engines must travel tender first to Borrocks, then make a reversal down the Exchange Line in order to be turned and retrace their route to Great Shafting. There is absolutely no reason at all to do this other than it lets me run lots of light engine workings.

 

Work on the garage conversion has yet to begin but a site survey will be made on 6th August and I hope that building work can begin asap after that. Construction of the baseboards will commence in October. In the meantime I've been collecting stock, building kits, painting stuff and doing a lot of weathering. I'll be showcasing my attempts at kit-building and weathering on here until the real work commences.

 

Dsc00836.jpg

I followed Nearholmer's tip to come here and I'm glad I did. I like this very much. The plan puts me in mind of one of CJF's ideas from the 1970s for a branch complex.

[Martin S-C]

Ah... you mean plan L11 on Page 13 of Peco's "Plans for Larger Layouts?" (1973 printing)

 

I have been rumbled!

I have all of CJFs booklets and recall fondly studying his "Plan of the Month" in very old RMs. I dreamed many of his plans would one day become reality in one of my many places of residence over the decades. I always found his art style very clear and helpful and so I wanted to see if I could use some of his ideas. I had a garage to fill and lo and behold, here was a plan called "Filling the Garage". I didn't like the out and back system and the rationale he used to explain it and instead wanted end-to-end but the plan had a lot I liked about it, especially what I could turn into a loco works and stock sheds based around a triangle, a track formation I've always liked but which you rarely see in Britain due to our lack of space in urban areas.

Edited January 28, 2019 by Martin S-C
Copyright material removed.

[St Enodoc]

Ha, ha... you mean this one?

 

Filling_the_Garage_Lge.jpg

 

I have been rumbled!

 

I have all of CJFs booklets and recall fondly studying his "Plan of the Month" in very old RMs. I dreamed many of his plans would one day become reality in one of my many places of residence over the decades. I always found his art style very clear and helpful and so I wanted to see if I could use some of his ideas. I had a garage to fill and lo and behold, here was a plan called "Filling the Garage". I didn't like the out and back system and the rationale he used to explain it and instead wanted end-to-end but the plan had a lot I liked about it, especially what I could turn into a loco works and stock sheds based around a triangle, a track formation I've always liked but which you rarely see in Britain due to our lack of space in urban areas.

Yes, that's the one I had in mind Martin. We seem to be like-minded souls.

[south_tyne]

The more I look at this the more I like it! It's certainly highly ambitious but is exactly my mind of thing. I think we have lost much of the creativity and fun in 21st century modelling.... certainly hope early pioneers (such as Ahern) had to be resourceful due toavailable materials and resources but hey also had great imagination.

 

A 'system' layout, running from A to B is truly the pinnacle for me. Operating like a real railway, with a purpose is the dream scenario. Certainly beats the minimal shunting plank that most of us are stuck with (or in my case cannot even achieve!!) nowadays.

 

Love a bit of Colonel Stephen's atmosphere and the 4-wheelers and tramway coaches will no doubt be a delight. Will the line have its own livered wagons or utilise mainline and private owner stock? I always like the idea of the former (again living a bit of ingenuity and creativity!). I've always had a dream of doing something similar, modelling a whole independent light railway. A couple of locos, three or four 4-coaches and a couple of dozen wagons, with a layout running from one terminus to another ... one day!!

 

I am going to really enjoy following this - inspiring ideas!!

 

Ha, ha... you mean this one?

 

Filling_the_Garage_Lge.jpg

 

I have been rumbled!

 

I have all of CJFs booklets and recall fondly studying his "Plan of the Month" in very old RMs. I dreamed many of his plans would one day become reality in one of my many places of residence over the decades. I always found his art style very clear and helpful and so I wanted to see if I could use some of his ideas. I had a garage to fill and lo and behold, here was a plan called "Filling the Garage". I didn't like the out and back system and the rationale he used to explain it and instead wanted end-to-end but the plan had a lot I liked about it, especially what I could turn into a loco works and stock sheds based around a triangle, a track formation I've always liked but which you rarely see in Britain due to our lack of space in urban areas.

PS - love that plan! Edited July 17, 2018 by south_tyne