The greatest layouts you never built (and perhaps now never will!)

[Captain Kernow]

7 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

My might-but-probably-never-will projects:

 

1. Finchley Central (LT) in about 1962, when steam-hauled freights were still running. My primary school backed on to the Edgware branch near Mill Hill East.

2. Hythe (RH&DR) in about 1963 when Dad first took us to visit.

3. The Isle of Wight system - all of it, so pre-1953.

4. Horsted Keynes (Bluebell Railway) either in 1968 when I first visited or 1963 before the Haywards Heath service finished.

5. Blythburgh (Southwold Railway). No point now since Peter Kazer built his magnificent model.

6. Watchet. A school mate and I planned to build this. It got as far as one Wills 2251, which I still own.

7. The Road to the Isles, an end-on junction between the NBR and HR at Kinloch Rannoch. The late Dave Walker and I had plans for this before he went to 0 gauge.

8. Bukit Timah (Malayan Railway) with a bit of modeller's licence with the Jurong branch (closed 1992) and the E&O express (started 1993).

 

Apart from that, nothing much.

Wow! That's quite a list.

 

So what are you going to do in the afternoon? 😉😉

 

[Captain Kernow]

15 hours ago, Not Jeremy said:

Oh that's easy, another colliery, more detailed than the last one

I was hoping you'd mention that, old bean.

 

Not Jeremy and I have a bit of a history in the layout pipe dreaming department...

 

One of the earliest schemes (apart from the school model railway society empire, that was prematurely disbanded), was a mid-1980s scheme to build a scale model in OO finescale of Bath Coop Siding on the S&D. This was a simple siding, serving a Cooperative creamery, halfway up Devonshire Bank, between Bath Junction and Devonshire Tunnel. Many expresses would have been double-headed, most freights banked. Very simple to operate, but if developed scenically to it's full potential, possibly rather a visual spectacle.

 

I can't quite remember what put paid to that scheme in the end, but it probably just fizzled out of our imaginations once we ran out of beer mats and we realised how big it could be....

 

Then there was the large OO cellar railway empire in Simon's cottage in Bath, which did actually get started. This was going to be a joint project involving him, me and our mutual friend Brian Clarke (he of the erstwhile Saltford Models). I seem to recall that Simon built some baseboards and laid some track. I was given an odd-shaped bit of thick ply (almost an inch thick, as I recall and very heavy!), on which I would build some kind of a branch terminus. Part of this actually got built (although I can't remember now if I ever wired it up). The baseboard was actually transported down to Devon, when I moved here with CTMK a few years later, but it was not developed any further and the track was eventually lifted and re-used on 'Engine Wood', when that was initially built in 1994.

 

A few years later, another (possibly more modest) project was mooted involving the three of us, something that I think I called 'Project Z'. Of course, nothing came of that either, but I actually built a point of two for it, one of which certainly ended up being used much more recently on 'Bethesda Sidings'.

 

[NHY 581]

Now then....I have a few. 

 

Edington Burtle on the dear old S&DJR. Pre closure of the Bridgewater branch so early '50s to allow branch passenger working. 

 

Lamb Regis  BLT-Based on Lyme Regis 1950s.. 'Nuff said. 

 

Something ex L&SWR Mainline set in mid 50s to mid 60s. Bulleids and King Arthurs etc. 

 

The Tanat Valley. No idea what exactly but definitely 1920s/30s.. 4 whl coaches and ex Cambrian 2.4.0Ts. Probably bits taken from the Mawddy railway, Kerry branch, in fact any of the ex Cambrian branches. 

 

Eastern Region- A BLT set in the mid to late 1960s. Diesel only featuring a mill. Class 15s, 24s as well as 03s,04s,10s along with Derby Lightweight DMUs and W&M Railbuses. 

 

Finally, not a grandiose scheme but I have a long held desire to build Lochside. This layout was featured in Railway Modeller in August and September 1980 and was the first of Ian Futers layouts I saw in print. I fancy a homage to this lovely little layout. Long overdue. 

 

Oh and something Czech. 1989 ish. Communist days BLT. 

 

I think that's it...........

 

Rob. 

[St Enodoc]

25 minutes ago, Captain Kernow said:

Wow! That's quite a list.

 

So what are you going to do in the afternoon? 😉😉

 

Have a rest, I think.

[burgundy]

For me, railway modelling is about exploring a period of history. My Brighton models are getting progressively earlier in the Victorian era. I scratched an itch for an American layout with Roswell Mill, set around the time of the civil war to US 5' gauge. If I were to try something completely different again, it might be Saxon 750mm, possible with a standard gauge Saxon/Austrian border station. Or it might be somewhere around the Hungarian/Galician border with an interchange to the broad gauge Russian South Western railway.

Best wishes

Eric

PS Correction - It would have to be the Galician/Romania border, as Hungary did not border the Russian Empire. Czernowitz would more or less fit the bill.

Edited December 26, 2022 by burgundy
Incorrect geography

[Kris]

I still have dreams of creating extensions to my Coombe viaduct layout through Saltash to connect it to the Plymouth side of the Tamar. I only need a shed about 20ft longer than the one I currently have, oh and a few feet wider as well. Maybe one day when we move I can find somewhere with a double garage I can nab. 

[CloggyDog]

In my dim and distant yoof, I planned to make a OO model of my then home station Brentwood, set circa 1955 with the full goods yard, 1.5Kv DC ohle, Simplex petrol shunter, etc. Did a whole bunch of research,which I still have filled away, but aside from buying a few items of suitable stock, it never progressed beyond a detailed plan and a long, long shopping list. I'd have needed about 70ft to do it properly.

 

One I will build (one day) is a larger US H0 switching layout, either the Harlem Transfer Terminal or the B&O's 26th St Terminal, both in NYC and set mid-50s.

 

 

Edited December 25, 2022 by CloggyDog

[F-UnitMad]

1 hour ago, NHY 581 said:

Finally, not a grandiose scheme but I have a long held desire to build Lochside. This layout was featured in Railway Modeller in August and September 1980 and was the first of Ian Futers layouts I saw in print. I fancy a homage to this lovely little layout. Long overdue. 

Oh yes, do it!! I can imagine your talent for scenic backwaters would make it a real feast for the eyes (not that the original wasn't)! 👍🙂

[AyJay]

As a child, I would drool over the most complex layout plan in the trackplan book and run my finger round all the swirling loops, while imagining this track-feast crammed into my bedroom.

Now, as an adult, I don't have anything specific in mind, but I would love to do something busy and urban, a busy suburban junction, track running in all directions, elevated above the crowded houses, factories and shops on brick viaducts.

My main interest right now is with making the buildings, so the big 'bucket list project' really has to be modelling the Mechanics Institute in Swindon.  A really beautiful Victorian building that has seen better days and the last time I saw it, was in a very sorry and unloved state.  Totally impractical though, It's massive and I wouldn't have the space for it.

 

[Wheatley]

I've started building mine, Newton Stewart (SW Scotland) in OO. I've been building/collecting stock for it for years but always been distracted by other things. Now I've started but I'm currently 14 years into a 10 year plan and making glacial progress  !

 

So it may or may not ever be finished...

[john new]

Mine got started before many things arrived to knock this NYMR in the garage project on the head. Boards were built for the Grosmont end that was going to be a reversing circle, located under Moorgates. The initial stopper to the project was realising what I wanted was incompatible (at the time), Spratt and Winkle auto uncoupling BUT with tighter radius curves than was possible. I then found problems in the garage with severe condensation damp. The final dilemma was did I build it for home use (view side central)  or occasional exhibiting with an outside view point? 
 

Sadly several years in storage later I found the boards had got woodworm. The condensation damp and mould in the garage problem still exists.

 

I then built and showed a H Dublo dealer demo style layout, until the boards, which were heavy, got difficult for me to manage.

 

One of these days I will get the garage rebuilt with an insulated roof and floor and build a split level roundy-roundy layout. Upper level scenic two-rail with a min of 3ft radius and the bottom layer somewhere to run my H Dublo collection.

 

The photos below were when I was stripping off the stored track and boards prior to a run to the dump.

Edited December 25, 2022 by john new
Repositioning of the images.

[RJS1977]

As a boy, I drafted all sorts of improbable layouts (as I'm sure many of us did).

Naturally, as I got older, these matured into what were generally more sensible mature schemes, designed to scale. 

 

Most were designed to fit a standard garage (since leaving my parents' home I have never lived anywhere with a garage, hence their never being built).

 

One I remember designing was a plan to fit the entire (post preservation) Festiniog Railway into a garage, with Portmadoc at the bottom and gradually climbing up the walls to Blaenau. There would have still been space to get a car in, provided that The Cob was built high enough up to clear the bonnet!

 

Another plan I came up with was "Edgware Street", essentially a "mini Circle Line", the main feature of which was a combination of Baker Street and the subsurface station at Edgware Road, but also including the Gloucester Road triangle and Aldgate, as well as a couple of other passing stations.

A "District Line" service would start its journey at Edgware Street, head anticlockwise on the Circle Line then fork right on the Gloucester Road triangle towards "Earl's Court". It would then disapear off-stage and reappear at Edware Street as an eastbound Hammersmith & City Line train. It would pass behind Aldgate (i.e. as if heading to Aldgate East and Barking) before reappearing as a District Line train from Upminster. It would then pass along the bottom of Gloucester Road triangle before reappearing at Edgware Street as a Metropolitan line train, and terminate at Aldgate before reversing its steps. Of course while all this was going on, two other units would be orbiting the Circle Line itself.

 

 

One plan I drew up has ended up being built (or something very similar to it) but not by me, and completley coincidentally.

The first time I attended the 009 Society Members' Day at Pewsey, I walked back to Bedwyn along the Kennet & Avon Canal towpath, and discovered the station sites at Savernake. These inspired me to draw up a layout plan based on the two stations, which I forgot about until I attended the Astolat show a couple of years later. (This was the final year when they were exhibiting at the school in the middle of Guildford before moving to the Sports Park and changing to a Sunday show - church commitments mean I haven't been able to attend since). On display were a set of plans for a new layout they intended to build based on Savernake, which was almost indistinguishable from the plan I had drawn up (the only major difference was that I had intended some narrow boats to be operating on the same principle as the Faller Car System.

Whilst I have not been able to attend the show since, one of the first model railway events I attended after the pandemic was an open day at the Astolat Circle's clubrooms at Dapdune Wharf. Some baseboards from the layout were on display - pretty much as I had envisaged them!

 

 

 

 

 

[MyRule1]

If this query had been raised three years ago I would have certainly listed my two long term dream layouts. After eight, work related moves, in 40 years, we were about to exchange contracts on a property for our retirement, which had  plenty of mid-sized rooms but nothing suitable for my long planned 20 foot long layout  At the last minutes solicitors managed found an issue that would cost too much to correct so the purchase fell through. Project seemed dead.

 

We then purchased a house that was about a third the size of the one that fell through but the price difference gave us the finance for much additional space, including an out building with a single space 25 foot by 18 foot.

 

Thus my two dream layouts, the "OO"  20 foot long East Anglian layout based in 1945 and a N gauge are modern image freelance model  are both on the way to being built.

 

These two layouts are the reason for my user name and current avatar. 

 

So I am firmly in the "never say never" and don't let your dreams die camp.

[melmoth]

All my moribund ideas are based around a collection of N gauge diesel hydraulics and Mk1 coaches that just sort of grew. So any of Box, Uffington or Burbage Wharf assuming that they'd stayed open until the early 70s.

 

 

[Enterprisingwestern]

3 hours ago, AyJay said:

, It's massive and I wouldn't have the space for it.

 

I would, just do it!

 

Mike.

[johndon]

My current project may well take me the rest of time but the 'great project' would be Newcastle Central Station in the mid 70s with the bridges across the room to Gateshead shed on the other side, all in P4...

Edited December 26, 2022 by johndon

[Engineer]

2 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

Another plan I came up with was "Edgware Street", essentially a "mini Circle Line", the main feature of which was a combination of Baker Street and the subsurface station at Edgware Road, but also including the Gloucester Road triangle and Aldgate, as well as a couple of other passing stations.

A "District Line" service would start its journey at Edgware Street, head anticlockwise on the Circle Line then fork right on the Gloucester Road triangle towards "Earl's Court". It would then disapear off-stage and reappear at Edware Street as an eastbound Hammersmith & City Line train. It would pass behind Aldgate (i.e. as if heading to Aldgate East and Barking) before reappearing as a District Line train from Upminster. It would then pass along the bottom of Gloucester Road triangle before reappearing at Edgware Street as a Metropolitan line train, and terminate at Aldgate before reversing its steps. Of course while all this was going on, two other units would be orbiting the Circle Line itself.

 

Very impressed by this concept, congratulations.  It gives me new ideas and is not far from an unrealised modelling scheme close to home that never became operable.  My father, late to model railways and perhaps inspired a little by Minories began a set-track 00 'layout' in the mid-1960s that represented Baker Street and could have included all six platforms at sub-surface level.  This offered a basic equivalent of the prototype moves but with middle terminating roads and outer through roads/burrowing connection from the Inner Rail Circle (an aspiration that the Metropolitan provided for in its early 20th century station rebuild, and was retained as a never-used scheme in early LT years).  A Met electric loco body was built on Tri-ang 2-Bil bogies, as there wouldn't ever be an RTR version ...

 

I've remained aware of the ethical reality that family matters (10+ years as carer), work and study should, and did, have first call on my time.  Nevertheless, I retain concepts of my own to create several modular dioramas for 00 and H0 trams (my topmost interest).  There's also some acquired N-gauge stock and track that could become a GWR terminus in its final years, to be run as faithfully as practicable to the published service timetable.  Maybe a 'diorama' to display Metropolitan trains in all their fascinating variety would be nice, too.  All these subject to life's responsibilities getting due priority.

 

My ethical compromise in recent years, to mitigate the long-term itching, has been to use the marginal spare time around commitments for archive research on trams, the Metropolitan and other heritage topics, some of which is bearing good fruit and leaving the way open for an interesting future.

[The Johnster]

Another of my ‘never builts’ was Ynyslas Harbour, a small port on the banks of the Afon Leri where it runs into the Dovey estuary, served off the Cambrian.  Think run-down corrugated iron workshops/small businesses painted black, and everything half-buried in wind-blown sand, rotting fishing boats and decomposing jetties/wharves, the shipping trade long gone in the early 60s, a general air of at least partial abandonment, the Cambrian main line Leri bridge at one end.  Anything from Machynlleth shed would turn up on the daily trip.  It wouldn’t have had enough operational interest for me. 
 

Then there was Llanrhidian.  I actually built this in the 80s, an LNWR/GWR extension of the Penclawdd branch on the north Gower coast, a more or less standard largish BLT in the Kingswear mode, commuter trains from Swansea Victoria and High St, and cockle specials bringing tender engines, Hymeks, and Westerns into play.  The never-built version was to be the junction terminus of the West Gower Light Railway, a ramshackle Col. Stephens-ish affair serving Port Eynon and Rhossili, surviving on account of a Limestone quarry and tourist daytripper traffic from Swansea. There were at one time proposals to build something not dissimilar as an extension to the Mumbles railway off it’s Clydach colliery branch, later part of the LNW, so it could even have been electrified.

 

A ‘more likely to have been built’ that didn’t make the cut was Draethen, on the Brecon & Merthyr’s never built Lower Rhymni Valley route to Cardiff from Machen via Cefn Mably.  The backstory to this was

that it was a through station that had become a terminus following the destruction of the viaduct by which the line crossed the valley southeast of Machen by a stray German bomb jettisoned from a stricken HE111 damaged by anti aircraft fire.  There was a branch serving the quarries at Rudry, and it would have been a good stomping ground for East Dock’s pre-grouping museum pieces. 

 

[Peter Kazmierczak]

My "perfect" layout, which will never happen, would be a model of Spondon, on the ex-Midland line between Trent and Derby. Set in the 1960s with a range of steam and diesel traction, including the Midland Pullman passing through, it would take me back to my childhood. They're be a 4mm scale model of me sitting on the railings of the footbridge, watching the comings-and-goings. Heaven...

[Clive Mortimore]

1 hour ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

My "perfect" layout, which will never happen, would be a model of Spondon, on the ex-Midland line between Trent and Derby. Set in the 1960s with a range of steam and diesel traction, including the Midland Pullman passing through, it would take me back to my childhood. They're be a 4mm scale model of me sitting on the railings of the footbridge, watching the comings-and-goings. Heaven...

I can recall a certain Peter someone doing articles on Spondon in the Model Railway Destructor. Same geezer caused me years of dreaming about two locations in one of his articles, one was Ranelagh Bridge stabling point, which I did start but owing to house move abandoned. The other being this place, well the stabling point but the only way I could figure out how to and why locos would go there was to build the whole station. 

Using the above section of OS map I hand drew (pre Templot) the station throat. I worked out how many locos, DMUs and coaches I needed to work the May 1969 working time table. I cheered very loudly when Bachmann announced the Cravens DMU. I done several field trips to photograph the buildings. I was even chased by a policeman when I was taking pictures above the tunnel, I was on the wrong side of the fence. Space was a problem but I worked out I could build and work the visible bit in my then garage using a loco and one coach. The problem was designing a fiddle yard where the departing suburban trains could cross the mainlines to get to the other side to become arriving trains. And the the Moorgate fiddle yard, had its own deign issues. Had I built it there would have been far less viewing area than that taken up by the fiddle yards and station roof. One day reality hit me so years of enjoyable research was placed to one side.

 

Not all is lost. Sheffield Exchange does have elements of the 1977 rebuilding of the throat.

 

 

Blue lines are what I took out and red lines are what I added.

 

 

There have been other layouts but most only got to the scribbled track plan stage.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Clive Mortimore

[PaulRhB]

Well I have quite a few . . .

I drew this up 24 years ago for 009 after a group of us built the ‘Isle of St George’, (now about 50% of the Tarrant Valley Rly in 009)

 

 

It was intended to be based on the Isle of Mann but in 2ft gauge just off the coast in St George’s Channel. 
It went through a few ideas

 

 

Life, small humans etc distracted various members of the group and indeed these never got built but one persistent chap did do part of the fictional line. 

 

The drawings for the next section Bodmin are in my round tuit pile again for Tim so technically no I never got round to it!

 

The locos are done thanks to Paul Windle

 

 

There’s more . . .

[PaulRhB]

Then there was On30 and this was actually two layouts joined together so they could be built one at a time then exhibited with three options. 
The left side is the mainline but with a branch climbing up to a mine. 
Add the right hand side ‘Bonsai Lumber Co.’ for the full layout. It was designed so a train could circulate each part while a third trundled up and down the branch between the two. 

 

I’ve sold off all the stock so this definitely won’t happen but it did get a smaller more realistic proposal too inspired by Paul Scoles ‘Pelican Bay’ Sn3 layout. 
 

 

 

Edited December 25, 2022 by PaulRhB

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

My "perfect" layout, which will never happen, would be a model of Spondon, on the ex-Midland line between Trent and Derby. Set in the 1960s with a range of steam and diesel traction, including the Midland Pullman passing through, it would take me back to my childhood. They're be a 4mm scale model of me sitting on the railings of the footbridge, watching the comings-and-goings. Heaven...

Complete with Looms' scrapyard and the smell from the Celanese factory?

Edited December 25, 2022 by St Enodoc
apostrophe wandered out of place

[manna]

G'Day Folks

 

Being a young trainspotter in Wood Green, North London, a favorite location for me was behind a Greengrocers shop that overlooked Bounds Green carriage sidings, which included great views of the flying junction to Hertford and the Kyber Pass. Plenty of Down express's suddenly  appeared from under the bridge at the North end of Wood Green station (Buckingham Rd ??)  Wood Green tunnel being a natural scenic break to the North. Will it ever happen, I don't know, but I may be in the market for a 12/15 meter shed soon, if all goes well.

 

manna

[Steamport Southport]

13 hours ago, NHY 581 said:

Now then....I have a few. 

 

Edington Burtle on the dear old S&DJR. Pre closure of the Bridgewater branch so early '50s to allow branch passenger working. 

 

Lamb Regis  BLT-Based on Lyme Regis 1950s.. 'Nuff said. 

 

Something ex L&SWR Mainline set in mid 50s to mid 60s. Bulleids and King Arthurs etc. 

 

The Tanat Valley. No idea what exactly but definitely 1920s/30s.. 4 whl coaches and ex Cambrian 2.4.0Ts. Probably bits taken from the Mawddy railway, Kerry branch, in fact any of the ex Cambrian branches. 

 

Eastern Region- A BLT set in the mid to late 1960s. Diesel only featuring a mill. Class 15s, 24s as well as 03s,04s,10s along with Derby Lightweight DMUs and W&M Railbuses. 

 

Finally, not a grandiose scheme but I have a long held desire to build Lochside. This layout was featured in Railway Modeller in August and September 1980 and was the first of Ian Futers layouts I saw in print. I fancy a homage to this lovely little layout. Long overdue. 

 

Oh and something Czech. 1989 ish. Communist days BLT. 

 

I think that's it...........

 

Rob. 

 

Have you been looking at my lists?!  🤣

 

Or is it just the fact that they are all good suggestions....

 

 

Tanat Valley. Got the three main engines (two bought cheaply second hand). One nearly completed until I found out there was a lot of differences between them, so put on pause until I can work them out. Started due to an article in Model Rail about ten years ago. Now thinking about getting that cute tank engine that sometimes appears in adverts on the forum.

 

https://www.nbrasslocos.co.uk/yoo4402.html

 

 

Ex GER Branchline. Bought some of those LNER things such as J15s and J70, the non corridor coaches and some early diesels. Waiting to see what the new 04 is like.

 

1950s Ex SR Mainline. Also being buying bits when on offer. Maunsell and Bulleid coaches especially. Got a few locos already. 

 

Thought about the ex S&DJR when I modelled in O gauge. Got a Jinty and 4F. Don't think I've got the space for anything more than a small layout for those now. But since the Jinty was altered to one Up North then it won't be S&DJR.

 

 

Always considered Welsh narrow gauge as well. I do wish they would stop tempting me.......

 

 

Jason