Blog- The Molehill - Worcester Midland Shed (21E) - the plan

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Good morning all.

 

After thinking about my plans (and changing them a few times) over the last few months, I have finally come up with a rough design that I am happy with for my first ever layout. First, a little background to my plans.

 

My desire to have a layout has been there since I first saw a model railway aged about 3 or 4. Life, space and mainly video gaming always ended up getting in the way and it just never happened. Since getting a job at a model railway shop in June, I started thinking seriously about actually doing my dream of a layout. When I started in the shop, there was an amazing scratch-built 6 road shed in a display cabinet. I could not keep my eyes off it so ended up purchasing it with the intention of making it the centre piece of a MPD layout. I will be doing a blog post on the shed itself sometime over the next two weeks.

 

As my forum name makes clear, it was always going to end up being a Midland Railway shed. I originally decided to set the layout in Birmingham, near Lawley Street goods shed, around 1919/20. I drew a rough plan, did background research, found loads of pictures....and then I discovered something that turned it all on it's head. Trawling the forum I discovered a thread about the MR shed at Worcester, a shed that to my great embarrassment I had NO idea even existed.....

 

So that was that, I absolutely had to have my layout set in my local city. Now I just had to find a way to justify Worcester having a shed twice the size of the one it actually had.

 

Point of divergence

 

The year is 1860 and the Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton railway is absorbed into the ever growing Midland Railway system. In order to stamp their new authority over the line, Worcester Shrub Hill station is rebuilt in 1863 and renamed Worcester Midland to further distinguish it from Worcester Foregate Street, that has just been taken over by the GWR. With the greatly increased traffic over the line to both the West Country and now to Oxford, the MR decide to build a large MPD south of the station and goods depot that will be home to both express and goods engines. The GWR open a small shed near the triangle where their line meets the Midland mainline heading north to Kidderminster and Birmingham.

 

By 1937, the GWR has closed it's shed and just keep a handful of locomotives on shed at the LMS MPD. Worcester Midland shed is still home to a healthy mix of express passenger designs and goods engines.

 

By late 1962 the shed is starting to show it's age but is still holding on. More diesels are appearing but it is still mainly steam. The Midland Region controls the area but a few WR locos are still spotted on shed now and then.

 

And that is my (probably slightly dodgy) history behind my "what if" layout. It will be DCC controlled, multi period set during early winter 1921, 1937 & 1962. And now for the (equally dodgy) plan:

 

(terrible, I know...)
Using the OS map of the site, this gives a rough idea of what I am going for.

• The large arrows show lines/points to be moved to give more room or less severe curves.
• The black bars on the tracks are inspection pits.
• The small squares are water columns
• I have had to invent a bridge that was never there to hide where the scenic section meets the fiddle yard.
• The small arrows on the bridge show what lines go to the fiddle yard.

The fiddle yard will be cassettes or a loco lift. as I'm not running rolling stock I don't need a fiddle yard any longer than my longest loco. The front 5 lines will be my running lines and will be connected to the fiddle yard. The 6th line is a siding and will also double as my DCC programming track. 90% of the time this will just have a selection of wagons appropriate to whatever period I am doing. The rear 2 lines (the actual main line) will be for show only and will not run off the scenic area.

 

There will be certain items on the layout that can be changed depending on the period I am running at that time. The signal box by the main line, the signals and the water columns will be changed. The area between the shed and the coaling stage will swap between a repair area during 1921/1937 and a small diesel depot during 1962. Pretty much everything else will stay the same. Railway workers generally looked the same from the 1920s to the 1960s so figures are not an issue. What few road vehicles I have will be changed as well.

 

Just to give you an idea to what I changed, this is the actual OS map:

 

So there it is, my plan. Please feel free to give any advice/criticism. I will take on board any suggestions.

 

- Alex

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