Falkland Yard 1980's Railfreight

[aasmall]

Hello All,

 

I thought it was time that I should share progress on my first layout in 20 years. The last layout I had was when I was 14 at my parents house but was never finished for various reasons. During the past 20 years to my modelling interests have come and gone and changed from aircraft to wagons to eventually settling on the later Speedlink 1985 to 1991 era.

 

After grand plans of building roundy roundy Ardlui with helixes at each end, then a multi level Fort William before eventually settling on building a fictitious rural fife Railfreight terminal which could be completed in a reasonable about of time. I has taken me around 8 months to get to this point on and off and learning as I go. I've enjoyed it so far and am looking forward to completing the scenery adding lights etc.

 

One thing that I did before I started was to rationalise and refine my collection as I had collected various items of rolling stock from various eras, by selling what I didn't need I could focus more or what I wanted the layout to be in addition to raising funds to complete the build.

 

Background

 

Shamelessly based on similar layouts such as Ringburn Yard, Springburn Yard and Deanside Transit, Falkland Yard is based near the village of Falkland in rural Fife. The yard handles transitional wagonload freight toward the end of railfreight speedlink between 1985 and 1991.

 

The twice daily pick-up freight is the mainstay of operations which serves as a feeder to the Mossend / Millerhill to Immingham and Mossend / Millerhill to Aberdeen Speedlink services. A variety of goods are delivered in vans to the newly built intermodal facility. Motive power is typically provided from Eastfield, although visitors from Inverness and further afield are not uncommon.

 

Due to the lack of a run around facility at Falkland Yard, the resident 08 shunted is kept busy shunting the arriving and departing wagons whilst the main line locomotives idle in the headshunt, or run around further down the line. Occasional engineering traffic is stabled in the yard also.

 

Construction

 

The baseboards are laser cut from Tim Horn and primed and painted satin black giving a scenic area of 6ft and a fiddle yard of 4ft. 

 

Control is provided via an NCE Power Cab with Cobalt IP DCC Point Motors. Track is Peco Code 75 with electrofrog points weathered with Halfords Camoflage Brown. The ongoing ballasting comprises is WWS fine gray. Buildings are limited to Walthers Buds trucking, Knightwing Portakabin and some other to be bought low relief buildings. The polystrene blocks represent the start of the scenery and the over bridge at the exit to the fiddleyard.

 

Locos and Rolling Stock

 

The fleet comprises mostly Bachmann locos with a few 37s a single 08 and a Heljan 26 and 27. I hope to weather and detail all the locos and stock in due course.  The rolling stock is typical of speedlink services with a few visitors from other regions. I have numerous ongoing wagon projects Cambian kits, conversions etc. that I need to begin to finish but the priority is to get the layout into a reasonable state before continuing with these.

 

If any one has any comments, or suggestions etc I would be grateful for feedback.

 

Regarding the track plan if anyone knows where I should place ground signals I would appreciate the advice as I would like to get some DCC Concepts ones.

 

Any ideas on suitable 1980s trucks which would have been seen in Fife would also be appreciated

 

More updates as things progress.

 

[aasmall]

Some more pictures...

[Andrew P]

This looks very good, I'll follow with interest, as I am just forward dating my Mason Street to the same period to incorporate Railfreight and Speedlink movements.

My Loch Leven worked on a similar principal to this and was always fun to operate.

 

Good luck and keep the pics coming.

[saxokid]

Looks rather interesting little end to end this...

[ess1uk]

looking good

like a Speedlink layout