Brooks Junction

[EddScott]

Layout was called Harford Junction (I live in Haverfordwest and its shortened to Harford by the locals) so I've changed it.

 

On Thursday I passed an important milestone by getting all 4 of my main lines laid and in a position I'm happy with. I've changed my laying methods from the fiddle yard by laying the track before adding the droppers. It makes soldering a bit harder but at I get the table holes spot on in the right position so the track isn't pulled out of position by a slightly off-centre hole.

 

One thing that has always been in the back of my mind is that the lines make the layout look essentially like a big set. Once scened there won't be much in the way of hills for the trains to wonder through. The only large hillside will be in the south east corner to hide the fiddle entrance - there will be a small road bridge to allow access to the TMD car park. If theres enough room I'll put a farm building on the hill but I've been thinking of a small cameo by having a car rally being held on some dirt roads on the hillside. I've seen OO gauge Mitsubishi EVOs so these would lend well to the scene and painting network rail hi-vis jackets yellow would make for good marshalls.

 

I've been thinking of having a bridge disecting the south west curves entering the out of town station - as some do on other layouts to hide the sharp curves. However I may put the bridge in the other corner.

 

So for a complete tour of the layout:-

 

 

The rebuilt city station curves coming from the fiddleyard. There will be a big roadbridge here to hide the fiddle.

 

 

The city station will be three platforms. I have a plan to have the Faller modern image bridge which will be modified to suit the over-track city allowing passenger access to the platforms. The black marker line you can see is where the raised city section will be. One the right where my watch is will be the entrance line to the freight area. This will be fenced off from the station.

 

 

The curves leaving the city station. As mentioned before these will be covered by the cityscape. I will build the base of the cityscape once I'm ready to lay the frieght yard.

 

 

A view over the bridge. Still not decided what will be underneath the bridge, road or canal. I bought some Knightwing bridge supports and girders for a little play as to how its going to look.

 

 

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On the right of this picture will be the intermodal freight yard. Funnily enough, 4 mainlines passing by an intermodal yard is exactly what happens not to far away from my mothers house in cardiff.

 

From google maps:

 

 

 

The smaller station will again have three platforms on will have the TMD on the right. In the distance once the scenery is added the lines will go under a bridge into the hilside tunnels.

 

 

Here will be under the hillside - hence my rather lazy use of R3 curves for all four lines. At being R3 I shouldn't have any problems with stock. The sidings for the TMD would be visible in this shot if they were laid. Its all a bit tight down here so I may have to tweak the layout once I get to this stage. The concrete sleepered tracks that just stop are sidings for the fiddleyard.

 

 

The fiddleyard. 6 of the 9 lines are 250cm or more. There is a junction at the far end that will help with switching but could be dropped in favour of only using the main junction which would then allow 7 of the 9 lines to be over 250CM. the two lines on the right are shorter which I suspect is going to be a problem when it comes to having the layout run by PC. If the fiddle is used as a ladder then only two smaller trains - departmental workings or DMUs only will fit. I've considered linking the bottom right siding (in picture) to what is currently the headshunt for the TMD. This would allow the smallest line in the fiddle to be used as storage for small workings coming on scene via the TMD. [

 

 

 

I've also made a slight change to the plan is as much as I've added a third line to the wagon repair shop in the freight yard. Pikestuff do a 3 line shed that would suit well here.

 

I've also added the proposed link from TMD to fiddle. It doesn't look right to me so unlikely to be used but thoughts welcome.

 

 

Adding the point motors and droppers now and will be working on detectors and all the gubbins to make the layout PC controlled. Once thats done I can work on reliability and some scenery and finally see some trains rolling.

[Trainsrgr8]

Looks great! Wish i had the space for something like this.... hehe

 

Can't wait for further updates

 

Danny

[ECML180]

Looks interesting!

Got me hooked!