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Oldmoor Junction Model Railway - a fictional 00 gauge layout


Peter-C
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Hello everyone. I hope this is the right place to post this - please let me know if it isn't!

 

I've been reading others' layout threads and posts on here for quite a while now, and thought it might be worthwhile sharing my layout. It's a fictional 8'x'4' 00 gauge layout, based on the basic Hornby starter set 2nd and 3rd radius ovals. It's not a perfect Hornby starter set layout, though, as I've added a bit on the side and some bits in the middle.

 

I've made a couple of trackplans to show what the layout looks like as SCARM won't let me place enough pieces to do it all in one file. I hope it makes sense:

image.png.2a8ea466349ba4f1a14ada5df6c6d989.png

 

image.png.0b0bb63a3506406d667b6b13e2d70f0a.png

 

 

I've not built the Railway Centre yet, and there are a couple of bits of Oldmoor-on-Sea which need to be finished, but apart from those things the trackplan's finished.

 

Here are some photos of the layout - they show it's still early days but things are happening. They should also help in making sense of what's going on in the trackplans. Please let me know if you're still confused!

 

Little Piddling on-the-Wold - a small Cotswolds countryside station.

1648982305_LittlePiddlingon-the-Wold.jpeg.a3992f9ab4fe1dbede006a3dc5caab10.jpeg

 

Oldmoor Junction - looking towards the railway centre

887960522_OldmoorJunction.jpeg.e3119d9c04ee444d692f12ab2774fe2b.jpeg

 

Oldmoor Railway Centre - this photo shows how it's been planned out using paper

1740463602_OldmoorRailwayCentre.jpeg.38a9c665a1c7f6c656a95aa12ef604f2.jpeg

 

Oldmoor T&RSMD - the shed has been made out of cereal box card and isn't finished yet

1398152556_OldmoorTRSMD.jpeg.014b4fd5046a0406e9f7c61d135c4210.jpeg

 

Oldmoor-on-Sea (the station on the right)

Oldmoor-on-Sea.jpeg.512b96b1b5821a6e6cab17b0f3058d20.jpeg

 

I hope this is of interest to someone. :)

 

Thanks,

 

-Peter

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8 minutes ago, JeffP said:

You've made good use of your space.

Thanks very much - I've tried to get a balance between a train set with loads of track and a model railway with a fair bit of scenery in there too.

 

8 minutes ago, JeffP said:

I assume the Railway Centre will be for preserved stuff?

Yep: that's the plan. Mostly steam but with some diesel engines thrown in as well. :)

 

-Peter

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4 hours ago, JeffP said:

Don't forget the inevitable locos in bits.

Definitely - I can just imagine a few boilers sitting around on the floor or on flatbed wagons: one of the main things about a heritage railway for me is seeing those kind of projects in sidings so they'll be part of the layout for sure.

 

-Peter

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I've been looking into making a couple of changes to my layout over the past couple of days, and I'm hoping people on here might be able to help.

There are two main issues really: the main station ("Oldmoor Junction") and the depot. The former is a bit big and I'm not sure if the latter should move or not.

 

Starting with Oldmoor Junction:

The station currently has five platforms (two through platforms and three bays), which I think is probably a bit over-the-top for a station which is designed to be sort-of like Oxford in terms of service patterns and passenger figures. Oxford has four platforms (two through and two bay), with two lines passing through the middle without stopping at a platform. I can't recreate these 'fast' lines, but I can do something about the bay platforms at Oldmoor Junction.

Here's a plan I made in MS Paint and SCARM to show what I was thinking of doing:

image.png.802fccafc6a62a8283fd2c975c3d5d2c.png

 

My plan was to remove one of the platforms (the one shown by the orange box in that diagram) and then replace it with a siding. This would give four platforms and two sidings within the station, thus allowing for some more operational interest as stock/engines/units can be held in the sidings and therefore in the station without blocking a platform and looking unrealistic (I should add here that I'm not overly fussed about realism/being prototypical on my layout, but I do like things to make some sort of sense and I'm a fan of modelling things to look like places I've been to). In the diagram, I've added points and headshunts to both sidings and the two bay platforms, to allow for an engine to run around stock it brings in; as said on the picture, I probably wouldn't add these on the real thing as the run-around loops would only allow for one or two coaches maximum to be held in them.

This is an idea which I like and will probably make a reality on the layout - without the points/headshunts. Losing one platform isn't a major issue as I'd prefer to lose a platform and gain more track space over having a platform but fewer places to hold engines/stock. My current thinking with the layout is that I want to try and get as much into the space available as possible whilst still maintaining a reasonable amount of scenery space - I really enjoy the operational aspect of model railways and so having more space to operate trains in would be perfect.

 

The second issue is that of the depot (T&RSMD). At the moment, the depot is a three-track affair at the bottom of the layout in this diagram:

image.png.380d23b14901b0e458554aa341209ae7.png

 

I was wondering the other day if the space currently used for the depot would be better-suited to some sort of freight area, with the section marked "Railway Centre" on this diagram being split in half - half for the railway centre, and half for the mainline depot. The only issue is that I'm struggling with trackplans for this sort of set-up. Ideally, there would be three or four roads for the mainline depot and similar for the railway centre side of things, but I can't work out a design which would fit that into this space. If anyone's found a trackplan which might be able to help me with this, then please let me know. I understand this is a bit vague but I'm a bit stumped when it comes to what to do!

 

Thanks,

 

-Peter :)

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I've been making some progress on the layout in terms of trackplans and designs over the past few days. I wasn't happy with the way things were set out with the depot and the railway centre and so I've moved them about. Here's what I've done:

image.png.d12bae7b6fbed3f36bc70ea18c336e23.png

 

Essentially I've just swapped the railway centre and the T&RSMD. This allows for a sizable mainline depot and a compact yet useful railway centre. This is what the railway centre looks like now:

image.png.c4bde28641c67d05df2717d6b98c03f8.png

The railway centre has retained the Metcalfe goods shed and some of the other buildings, including the small Hornby signalbox, water tower, and Metcalfe coal merchant's building. The level crossing is a Bachmann model I received as a present a few years ago: it's being used to provide an entrance to the railway centre for visitors, with the small signalbox acting as a small kiosk - like at Didcot Railway Centre, which is where I got the idea for a railway centre on my layout from.

 

The T&RSMD is just to the top-left of the above photo: you can see the top of the scratchbuilt engine shed I made for it sometime last year too. I won't share photos of it yet as there's no track put down for it (I've been planning it all out with bits of paper shaped to look like Hornby track). It will definitely be an improvement over the original depot, as it will be able to hold somewhere between ten and fifteen engines (as opposed to the eight or nine in the old T&RSMD design).

Talking of the depot, there's a question I'm hoping people on here will be able to help me with. Because of the trackplan of the depot, the engine shed I've already built fits over the sidings I've placed it over but it also stands over a set of points linking to the next siding. My question is, how common would it have been for depots/engine sheds to have had junctions/points within the shed itself, or directly outside? I expect the answer's probably going to be it never happened, but knowing the railways there'll be some random edge-case which throws everything on its head. 

 

Thanks,

 

-Peter

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I've designed the final trackplan for the railway centre - here it is:

image.png.a6e45d875ef01c0414704362450ca61a.png

 

This trackplan is the final version as ballasting work has started on some of the sidings. It acts as its own shunting puzzle to a certain extent, although to shunt trains into and out of all of the sidings requires running trains onto the loops which form the backbone of the layout.

 

 

The main point of interest in this design is the track running behind the row of terraced houses. I've made a history for this bit of track and I'll share it here.

 

This row of houses faces the road on the layout, which runs from the top left-hand corner of the board to the middle and through to Oldmoor Junction station. Next to the houses is a Hornby insurance offices resin building: an odd building in Oldmoor considering all of the other buildings are smaller and older. The idea behind this building being there is that the location was once occupied by a small brewery, and there was a rail connection built between the brewery and the railway centre (which was originally, in this history, a normal goods yard - hence the goods shed). The brewery exported all products via the railway and owned its own engine to transport wagons between the goods yard and the brewery site.

 

This engine was a Ruston 48DS. The reason why the industry is a brewery in this description is because the model I've got of a Ruston 48DS is the Hornby "Queen Anne" version: because the idea for this bit of track originally came from the Leiston Works Railway's stretch of track between houses, and the engine which opened that line was a Ruston 48DS, combining the two was always going to happen and having a brewery as the location seemed perfect.

 

The brewery line was separated from the entrance to the goods yard by a brick wall. This wall had been built by the GWR when the goods yard was constructed to provide a barrier between the terraced houses and the railway. When the brewery line was built, a new wall was put up right behind the terraced houses to provide a barrier between the railway and the houses, but the original wall wasn't removed. This created an interesting quirk of the line whereby trains running down to the brewery appeared to 'hide' between the walls as it ran along.

 

The brewery eventually closed, and the railway closed with it. The goods yard closed some years later, and was bought by a preservation group with the goal of turning it into a railway centre/railway museum. When the preservation group purchased the site, they also gained ownership of the brewery trackbed. The way I'm planning to detail this short bit of track will make it look like it's recently been restored by the preservation group, so it won't have really weathered track and the area around it will be fairly devoid of rubbish. The line will be closed in by three walls: the two on either side and one at the end to prevent trains crashing into the insurance offices.

 

---

 

The platform in the railway centre will be designed to look like a GWR halt. It's going to be mainly a cosmetic part of the layout, and won't serve much of a purpose in normal service, but there will be a semi-regular mainline passenger service (operated by a Class 153) running into the station during the Summer, so people can get there from further away than they normally would. Because there are going to be diesel engines stored and maintained in the railway centre, there will be more modern facilities for newer units but these probably wouldn't be used by a mainline service: it would be refuelled at the T&RSMD.

 

I hope this is of some interest.

 

-Peter :D

 

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