Moor Road - 1960's in the NW

[Jason T]

Hi, a newbie here, although I did post on one of the earlier versions of RMWeb. Anyway, as way of an introduction, I was a keen modeller right up until my early teens and then slipped away from it until now, approaching my 40's rapidly. A house with a nicely done out attic and a curious glance at Railway Modeller for old times sake was all I needed to spur me on to build my modest representation of a station and goods yard, somewhere in the North West, towards the end of steam. Now obviously I don't remember steam and it was a toss-up between this period and BR Blue but steam won because it's just a damned sight more interesting.

 

Anyway, it doesn't really have a name per se, but I have taken to calling it Moor Road which is a bit generic but means I don't have to pick an actual town, or County for that matter. Story is that this is a secondary route to the town and through services have been truncated here. There is a branch which feeds into it to allow more passenger traffic, as well as a number of industries further down the line which require running round at Moor Road. The station consists of two platforms; through and bay, as well as an additional bay to serve the town's postal sorting office. The goods yard is small and rather run down, although there is still a couple of freights a day, as well as those which run round and return up the line. Additionally, there is a turntable and basic engine servicing facilities but no shed.

The line exits to the fiddle yard under a road bridge and into a single tunnel.

 

Buildings and other structures are a mixture of off-the-shelf, kit built and scratchbuilt (station building, goods shed, factories, parcels loading facilities, couple of the houses, etc) and this was very much a learning curve. First I ever built was the goods shed, hence the uneven roof and lack of gutters (I didn't know you could get tiles in plasticard form so cut about 10,000,000,000 of them out and glued them on individually. D'oh!). I am pretty happy with the station if I do say so myself.

 

The locos are all RTR (usual suspects), carriages the same, and freight a mixture of RTR and kit built. I have tried to weather all stock and hope it gives a good enough representation of run-down stock at the end of steam.

 

Anyway, here are some photos. Sorry for the poor quality but I am a crap photographer, the camera is crap and the lighting up here in the attic leaves a lot to be desired.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jason T]

Layout is an L shape end-to-end, with the longest leg being 13' x 3' and the fiddle yard leg 9' x 2' . Boards are Sundeala and they have warped terribly - at some point I will tear the lot up and start again with ply but I didn't know better at the time. Track is all Peco Code 75, point motors Peco, control is DCC using Dynamis, scenery (greenery?) made using card formers, strips of thinner card over it and then plaster bandage, coated with lashings of green paint and various scatters.

 

A few more photos:

 

 

 

(Really should learn how to focus and take better pics)

[Jason T]

Last one for now - the pub is calling.

 

Factory / warehouse I knocked together recently. Not too happy with the boiler house / machine room as it looks a bit out of scale to the main factory but it'll do. If the roof looks a bit odd angled, it is because the building is half-relief to fit in a corner. Took some working out how to get the roof to fit !

 

[birdseyecircus]

Welcome back to the hobby. The layout looks very nice. The first batch of pictures seem to show the layout has plenty of space and depth to it.

 

Paul

[Jason T]

Thanks. I wanted the viewing part of the layout to feel well spaced out rather than cram everything in. Due to the 'L' shape of the boards, the curve into the station is quite wide and as such, rather than build up the hills, etc., at the back of the layout, they are done as if you are looking down on it from a gentle hill, with the contours rising towards the entrance to the fiddle yard and continuing round into the back corner. I tried to add the (admittedly cheap looking) backscene lower than it was actually printed, to give the impression that the ground continues to fall away beyond the railway.

 

This is an overview looking from above the goods shed. The cutout in the hill is where the Dynamis sits

[Clagmeister]

I like this layout, plenty of space round it. It would be better though in my opinion if you gave us the workings of the layout too. I mean cos I'm sad and like things like timetables, diagrams, where the locos are shedded, type of workings and that sort of thing. A fantastic model as it is would then be brought to life for us reading about it.

 

I particuarly like the fact you have not put a shed on it. This is a big mistake people make, not every station had sheds.

 

Look forward to more

 

Claggy

[signalmaintainer]

Welcome back to the hobby and RMWeb! Nice to have another Northwest of England modeler here.

 

You've a nice-looking, spacious layout, and I hope we get to see more of it.

 

Dont' sweat the photos: I'm no ace with the digital stuff yet either. Tungsten film and 3200K lights were my means many years ago, and now technology requires me to leap up to the bar -- but in my own good time!

[Jason T]

Hi. It's been a while and I haven't done much to the layout but I was just messing around with my iPhone taking photos of a mock-up warehouse and thought I'd take a couple of trains actually moving. Most (if not all) were crap but I quite liked this one of a 26 on parcels. A bit grainy but I'm quite happy with it so thought I would share it.

 

[westerner]

I must say that final pic has the look of a still taken from a 60's super 8 cine film.