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Harriton - WCML 2016-19, The last years of Virgin


SprinterMan30
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Hi everyone, my name is Ed and welcome to my thread dedicated to my Layout based somewhere around the North West Area of the present day West Coast Mainline

 

The Layout is 18 x 6ft in size  features a double track mainline which grows into medium size Station, Harriton, that is the main focus of the Layout. The Station will have 5 platforms, Bay platform 1, Up platform 2, platforms 3 and 4 and Down Platform 5 with an avoider line to allow freight trains to pass through without using the station's platform's.

 

The Station serves a large citadel town and is served by a variety of different operators such Virgin West Coast Pendolino/ Voyager Services as well as Commuter Services operated by Transport for Wales/ Arriva Trains Wales, London North Western Railway, East Midlands Trains, some Northern Services and possibly Cross Country and of course various freight and engineering trains passing through as well.

 

I started the layout back in late 2017, shortly after completing a much smaller project, progress on the layout is slow due to living away from home, however after recently taking some time off from work and getting most of the wiring and other long and hard jobs completed I now expect the layout to advance more quickly onto its next stages of development.

 

Naturally all progress made will be posted on here, please stay tuned!

 

But for now here are some pictures of the Layout in it's current form and Workbench developments...

 

 

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Edited by SprinterMan30
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Hi 

 

Interesting concept - looking at the track photos, I am trying to work out how it all works.

 

There appears to be parallel tracks that appear to add little to the operation , whilst the plan does not appear allow trains to arrive and depart from platforms 2 and 3 at the same time which would be useful. 

 

Nick

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Just found some more pictures of the recent work I have done on the layout. Aside from all the electrical work taking place on the layout itself, on the workbench work on what will become the main Station building has been advancing well.

 

As I wanted the main station building to be a big, grand and old looking building similiar to that of Carlisle for example, I quickly realised that I wasn't going to find a ready made resin building  big enough or suitable enough to replicate this.

 

Shortly afterwards I came to conclusion that a Vollmer Baden Station Kit I bought and made up years before was the best bet and after a dusting off and a coat of primer, two coats of humbrol enamel 121 pale stone and weathering composed of a thinned wash of a mixture green, grey and black paint this is what the building has been transformed into and I must say I am quite satisfied with the results.

 

There still is some work to be done on it before it is ready to install on the layout, some new window frames and glazing have to be added as sadly when I was in the process of preparing the building for priming I had the break some of the frames in order to remove the glazing ( looking back in retrospect I wish had used Humbrol maskell as it would have saved me some time and extra work, but hey ho).

 

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Automatic Sliding doors will also be added to the main entrance, whilst the other side of the building will be modified to have three sets of steps that will lead to the platforms below, once this has been completed, weathering will be applied to this side and after that the building will be ready to placed into it's final position on the layout.

Edited by SprinterMan30
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  • 1 month later...

Work on the layout has been pretty quiet over the last six weeks, but following my latest visit back home that has now changed.

 

Having had a second look at the trackwork on approach into the station where it turns from two lines into five, I have started the addition of two extra running lines from this area to the fiddle yard on the otherside of the layout.

 

Although it looked okay I felt it made this part of the layout look a bit "Train Set-ish" in appearance and less like a serious layout of a mainline location.  It also limited train movements into and out of station which was not ideal either. Now with two extra lines it looks and should operate a lot better

 

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Edited by SprinterMan30
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After this the next course of action was a no brainer. Bored with looking  at bare baseboard constantly, I finally decided it was time to start some scenic work on this area.

 

The tight curvature on this corner of the layout was always going to hidden underneath a tunnel, so naturally I was more than happy to construct a two level board to accomodate a raised section above track level.

 

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Edited by SprinterMan30
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With ideas that had been stewing in my mind for a few months now, I have quickly settled on this scene being something along the lines of the main road in/out of the town running through a 'well to do' residential area nearing the outskirts/on the outskirts of town which will blend in nicely with open countryside from the Canal onwards

 

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Edited by SprinterMan30
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  • 1 month later...

Again not much to report in terms of work on the layout over the last month, but my workbench has been busy and will continue to be over the next couple of weeks with some new additions to my loco fleet.

 

One of a few I have just finished working on has been the eagerly awaited Class 90 from Bachmann, after nearly 5 years in the making I think it's fair to say it was definitely worth the wait . The level of detail is truly stunning and I'd say Bachmann have well and truly raised the bar with this Model. My only criticism would be Bachmann's decision to fit a servo operated pantagraph, which I think adds little to the model and it is a bit gimmicky and toy like, not as unforgiveable as Hornby's opening cab doors and spinning roof fans etc , but its certainly a feature that isn't really that useful, but that aside I can't fault the Model on a anything else it's simply excellent.

 

 

Edited by SprinterMan30
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Being a WCML modeller it's no surprise that after Class 66's, pairs of Class 90's will handle the majority of intermodel and automotive workings on my layout and with this in my mind I've purchased four of them so far, 90042 in Freightliner Powerhaul Livery and three of the version in RFD Livery with the plan being to repaint these into loco's into earlier version's of Freightliner Livery and DBS Red and EWS/unbranded EWS Liveries as I don't really trust Bachmann to get these liveries out onto the market in less than 5 years if the length of time it has taken to release this run is anything to go by.

 

With this mind I got to work on one of the RFD Loco's to convert it into 90044 in Freightliner triple grey to run with 90042 when it arrives within the next couple of days, not much effort was involved considering that after removing the RFD Logo's and running numbers with T-Cut, 60% of the work was already done!

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Thank you - I myself am rather chuffed with how they like too as I studied pictures of the real loco and nocticed that there were noticeable patches where Freightliner have removed/ painted over the BR Double Arrow and Depot Plaques and I felt it was worth trying to replicate and comparing the Model with the real Loco I think I have pulled it off rather nicely.  Can't wait to see what it looks like when it is weathered

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