BOD Oakforth

[Moggs Eye]

A few months ago I was invited to join a Micro Layout group on Facebook. Faced with some of the excellent work on there and considering the challenge of fitting something into their limits for OO I have come up with a corner of a military stores facility, Base Ordnance Depot Oakforth, to expend some creativity upon.

It's set sometime in the late 1980s and features the loco facility and wagon repair workshop for an ordnance depot with an internal railway network connecting a series of stores sheds with the outside world.

 

 

That's the complete scenic section, looking vaguely Southwest.

From right to left we have the following line/sidings;

The depot narrow gauge line - early in the planning process I found a video clip from the Eastriggs munitions depot in Scotland which had narrow and standard gauge networks. I've never worked in 009 before and the idea was too tempting to resist, particularly when I found some of the excellent Tillig HO/009 track.

The next track from the right is the depot running line which crosses the narrow gauge then has a siding off to the right. This siding will disappear into a Bicester style, low relief stores shed while the running line will continue into a small fiddle yard.

Then we have another narrow gauge line. This leads to a junction then two sidings. One will go into the loco shed, which will be a joint narrow and standard gauge building.

The next standard gauge line splits into four sidings - the right hand pair for the locomotives (one under cover and one outside) the other pair for wagons (one undercover and one outside again).

Finally on the far left is the remains of a Midland Railway cross country route now reduced to single line branchline leading to Oakforth station.

 

This is the viewing side and I working on the scenery from front to back. To the left is a rudimentary halt serving the depot's South gate, which will sit between the signalbox and platform. As space is tight the depot's perimeter fence runs along the back of the platform.

The signalbox, Black Cat Junction, is a much abused Ratio kit which owes its survival to an imagined junction just to the right. A platform for token exchanges has been added to its steps.

The layout will use the MoD shunters from my other military themed layout, Cottleston with a mixture of MoD internal user wagons and the kind of airbraked stock that would have been brought to the depot via Speedlink.

I envisage using a card based operating system to generate shunting moves for the wagon workshop, loco shed, narrow gauge, running line and main line to keep the operators bickering and getting in each other's way at exhibitions.

The 'main' lines will have a class 108 and 121 shuttling backwards and forwards with the occasional very short freight going to the agricultural merchants sidings at Oakforth.

 

 

 

[Simon stewart]

Like the look of that Ben, good excuse to build some more VEA vanwides too.