Weymouth General

[kaiwhara]

Hi All.

 

Having tried getting a sketch of Basingstoke to work in the space available, and coming to the realisation that it simply will not fit ( ), Ive been having a wee play in Anyrail concept sketching ideas for a layout based on Weymouth - sort of. I have twisted history a little. Our mate Beeching never came to power and as such branches to Abbotsbury, Portland and Easton and Bridport are still open, as is possibly the line through Ringwood, as is the line through Verwood to Salisbury. Additionally, the SWML to Bournemouth had been electrified (undecided as yet as to whether Ringwood was as well), the Dorchester to Moreton section was never singled, and the station did not get rebuilt as it is today, although the platform layout had changed slightly. Weymouth itself was a little bigger and commercialised that it actually was/is (to try to justify traffic to Weymouth, rather than from).

 

History lesson over, the plan so far:

 

 

Still quite a lot of work to get done as can be seen. The board size (at this stage, subject to change slightly depending on convincing the other half to have a little bit more room) is 1200mm x 4800mm (I am in New Zealand, feet and inches are a bit foreign), made up of 2 equal sized boards - the purple line marks the join. The layout isn't intended to be portable as such, but able to be moved should we move house (New Zealand standard garages are able to accomodate a layout this size). The unfinished section to the left is intended to house the truncated Jersey electric sidings (kinda reversed to face south instead of north, so that outside curve on the left is really a backshunt part hidden), and if room permits, a smallish TMD for the Diesel Units on the Dorset Locals and services to Bristol and beyond. Fiddle yard is fairly flexible as long as it can hold a reasonable level of stock - the scenery not being intended to be very deep.

 

The station itself is made up of 5 terminal platforms, a Middle Road, 2 Red Star Roads (parcels didn't decline), and two through platforms for Portland. To the right of the platforms after the scissors crossover, the inside curve is intended to form the Weymouth Tramway (primarily Speedlink Freight and a couple of boat trains), and the outside the Portland Branch. Two platforms in my mind were required to allow crossing local services for Easton from Abbotsbury (forming the Weymouth Local service). Freight Traffic down the Portland and Easton branch would be a mix of MOD (and fuel for the docks), and Stone coming out.

 

Still very early stages, and really drawn purely to make a permanent record of the ideas floating around in my head. Let me know what you think, any suggestions or tweaks you have, anything I may have missed etc.

 

Cheers!

 

Andrew

[petethemole]

You say there are 2 platfoms for the Portland/Easton Branch but I only see 1. The scissors crossovers provide access for the single platform, no problem, but you mention the local service crossing. Do you mean both would be in the station together? That would be a problem, but I don't see that they have to be. I'm interested, as your idea of how to get the branch and tramway past the station are similar to my intentions, and I'm wondering if such an arrangement would pass muster prototypically. I wouldn't be crossing trains at that platform though, as I'll work the Abbotsbury and other locals in the Up direction from different roads. I'm developing a plan based on the mid-30s track layout, before they built the vast arrays of sidings.

 

Thanks for posting, I'll follow with interest,

Pete

[kaiwhara]

Hi Pete.

 

You are right that there is only one Branch Platform at the station, but that is purely because I havn't drawn the other one yet which will be on the Baseboard Edge. I would imagine that the platform adjoining the rest of the station would be better furnished as the other platform would only be used when there are opposing trains are in the platform at the same time.

 

In terms of how the Quay and Portland Branches head out from the station, that hard left hand turn is due to running out of board mainly - as such that section of track would likely be hidden from view, probably behind low relief housing or something similar.

 

With the local services, I was really thinking about how those services would have operated in the late 80's / early 90's had those services continued running. As such I figured that a short run like Abbotsbury would have been through-routed to somewhere like Easton (Probably 101's, 108's or similar - these would belong to Regional Railways rather than NSE), Bridport would have a similar service with similar stock but leaving from the Terminal Platforms, services to Swanage would form the stopping service as far as Wareham where they would reverse and trundle down the branch to Swanage (Services up the coast or to London would be Semi or Fast to Wareham) - possibly NSE but will operate probably using 101's or 108's until I can source or fudge up a Thumper to run this, services to Bristol would probably be 150's and maybe a 153 - although I think the 153 could be useful for a Westbury short working, 156's and/or 158's to Cardiff and possibly Gloucester or Birmingham, and Salisbury via Wareham, Broadstone Junction, Wimbourne, West Moors and Breamore probably using a 33 and TC - made redundant by the recent electrification of the SWML. Services towards Southampton and beyond would be the usual Wessex Electric and Slam Door stock, with Cross Country services extended from Poole to Weymouth using HST's and 47's - along with a Sleeper from Glasgow. Parcels services would run periodically from Waterloo and various other places.

 

Hope that give an idea for the flavour of the layout.

 

Andrew

[petethemole]

That's an intensive service, it will keep you busy operating; probably even more intensive than the 30s services, which had fewer trains on/via the SR. Services to the Midlands/North went via GWR and Bristol. My two branches will also do a sharp turn due to space limits, but to the right, to a Fiddle yard.

Pete