Whittington Junction

[bluebottle_uk]

I had been toying with an idea of modelling the Royal Aircraft Establishment railway which ran (until 1968) between Farnborough Main Station and the RAE site and unusually passed down a residential street as it made its way from the sidings of the BR station to the secure area within the Establishment.

 

However, as I considered the space available and the nature of what I could legitimately run I decided against it.

 

Instead I plan to build a "what might have been" layout set in the north west Shropshire area around Whittington. This village had two unconnected railway stations, one serving the line running broadly East-West from Whitchurch to Oswestry and the other running broadly North-South from Shrewsbury in the south up through Wrexham and on to Chester etc.

Nearby was an army training camp (Park Hall) and a hospital built to treat troops during the First World War.

 

The premise of the layout is this: after the Great War, the authorities decide to retain Park Hall camp and the associated hospital and to expand the use of both since they are in a sparsely populated rural area, away from the potential for prying eyes and there is land available. Apart from training troops it is decided to utilise the camp as a proving ground for new military equipment; this will allow for the occasional shipment of tanks, guns and so on and provide an excuse for upgrading of the track to take greater weight - I have a King class from childhood that I want to run!

To serve this expanded installation it is proposed to build a single track branchline and a new station on the London mainline. This station will, like Shrewsbury, afford running rights to the GWR and LMS.

 

 

Above is the first draft of the station, north to the right.

 

The top two lines are the mainlines which are going to be a continuous loop around my loft. The branchline is the left hand most of the three which curve round to the bottom of the plan and will simply continue through some scenery to a fiddle yard.

 

The two small sidings to the right of centre are for an engine shed for the station pilot and a coal/water point. The two long sidings bottom left will allow for loading/unloading of materiel.

 

To be built in Peco Code 75 00 gauge and I will mostly be running RTR locos and stock - although I am undertaking a foray into brass kits for a couple of brake vans and a Hawthorn Leslie 0-4-0 private owner pilot for the yard and branch (as there was at the RAE).

 

I'd really appreciate any thoughts, advice on prototypical workings and so on please.

[Pete the Elaner]

I don't know much about the specifics you are asking about, but your way of thinking sounds good to me.

You seem to have thought about what trains/services you want to run & designed the layout to accommodate this.

The real railway develops the same way.

 

The other way of thinking is to start out intending to fit certain things in then work out how to run your trains on it. I have fallen into this trap before & find it less satisfying than the way you have started.

[Chimer]

I'm working on a plan involving something basically similar, i.e. single track branch joining a double track mainline.  I think for best operational interest you need to be able to run trains directly from the main to the branch and vice versa.  As things stand, you can only do this very awkwardly, via the bay platform.  So I would suggest taking the branch across the inner main to the outer using a single slip (to avoid creating a facing crossover), maybe with a trailing crossover further down the line to the left to allow run-rounds if necessary.

 

I'll draw a quick pic tomorrow if you like, if I've not made myself clear.

 

Cheers

 

Chris

[bluebottle_uk]

Well, time has flown, I have moved house and still the layout is no more than a few boxes of kit and a lot of rough sketches.

The idea has been revised, an evolution of the 1926 track plan for Whittington Low Level I found online. I now need to gather evidence about standard working in the 1920s/30s in north Shropshire on the GWR as it took over Cambrian... any tips on books etc gratefully received. I can imagine a lot of short tank engine hauled mixed traffic stuff pretending to be from Shrewsbury or Wrexham delivering goods and a couple of 4 or 6 wheel coaches perhaps?