Brownwich - freelance Southern Railway branch line terminus in 00 gauge

[Peter Lord]

The premise:

My first documented layout build, the object of the exercise is to build a portable terminus layout on a door! I am slightly outside of my comfort zone here which should add to the fun although the standard of modelling will not reach the exalted heights that many of this parish achieve. 

 

The specifications:

The dimensions of this project are determined by my self-imposed challenge of fitting the entire scenic area onto a door. The layout is to be the terminus of a rural branch line with one main and one bay platform. There must be scope for at least two parallel movements but the whole layout must not appear cluttered. If remotely possible, the station will serve as a junction between the branchline and a secondary branch.

 

The setting:

This layout will be strictly freelance but aims to create the "feel" of a very particular part of the country. I grew up in the village of Titchfield on the Solent and, although the village was never served by a railway, some of the features of the area may be incorporated. Inspiration will be taken from the Lee-on-Solent branch, the Hayling Island branch and the Isle of Wight railways. The idea is that a viewer would immediately know that the layout was set in the south of Hampshire without it being a model of a real station. This part of the country was immortalised by Howard's Way and I did consider calling the station Tarrant. In the end, that seemed a little confusing as there is a real Tarrant in Dorset! Similarly, I did consider Meon as the mouth of the Meon joins the sea at Titchfield; this name was also ruled out due to the real villages with Meon in the name which were once served by the line from Wickham to Alton. In the end, I settled for Brownwich, the name of an area of farmland by the sea. 

[Peter Lord]

The rolling stock:

Due to the geographical location I seek to invoke, terriers are de rigueur. LBSCR locomotives will be be the principle motive power but my era is Southern so I have a certain amount of leeway.

 

Longer trains of short bogie coaches can be pulled by one of these...

[Peter Lord]

My main passenger trains will be handled by terriers which I intend to run around trains as well as bringing pull-push trains into the bay platform.

[Peter Lord]

SECR and LSWR visitors will make an appearance under rule 1. Although tender locomotive-hauled trains will be incredibly rare, I will allow enough room for a T9 to around the platform loop.

[Peter Lord]

A delivery has arrived, courtesy of the splendid people at Gaugemaster: a long-bunker terrier. This will retain its identity for the time being but will eventually be renumbered to the mainland numbering system to represent one of the terriers that was repatriated. I am aware that some re-writing of history may be necessary here but it is, after all, a fictional layout.

[Peter Lord]

As my layout is inspired by features of the Isle of Wight and Hayling Island, I felt that a long-bunker terrier was thoroughly justified. My understanding of the history of Hayling locomotives is that the long-bunker terriers that came over from the island did so in BR days. I will therefore use some modellers licence in one of two ways:

1) Imagine that one of the terriers that really ran in long-bunker form to Hayling Island was repatriated earlier in its career so can run in Olive Green.

 

2) Imagine that one of the terriers that ran in Olive Green to Hayling Island did so in long-bunker form.

 

On the other hand, if anybody has pictoral evidence of a long-bunker terrier, in Southern Green, numbered in the mainland system, I would be delighted to purloin its identity.

Edited January 25, 2021 by Peter Lord
Correcting auto-correct