Boxfile layout ideas

[hornbyandbf3fan]

My stock more suites to a boxfile layout is BR, with one LMS. I was thinking of using more than one boxfile as I have no tank engines or diesel shunter, at least until bachmanns 1f or maybe Hornby's sentinel shunter. One option I had considered was using a tarmac sentinel to use as an MOD shunter by removing the tarmac decals? Is prefer freight as my coaching stock is mainline double bogie ones. I am liking the idea of an East Anglia layout utilising a Bachmann J11 and a Heljan rail us, but as you correctly said funds are limited due to my age. I will be getting a J11 anyway but the rail us is a bit too much just to use on one, very small layout.

 

Thanks

[Hesperus]

With the new Heljan railbus available I bet a few motorised Airfix/Dapol Park Royal railbus's will turn up secondhand.  I can't remember if they are accurate for the ER though.

[hornbyandbf3fan]

With the new Heljan railbus available I bet a few motorised Airfix/Dapol Park Royal railbus's will turn up secondhand.  I can't remember if they are accurate for the ER though.

I suppose, but then I don't think I'd be happy with it; hence why I try to get the better locos rather than railroad

[Saddletank]

Here's a simple 2 box idea I scribbled out, it's not much of a looker but hopefully conveys my meaning. So, this is a small shunting layout in 2 boxfiles permanently attached together end on and set in an MoD armaments storage depot. Stock used would be the Sentinel shunter in MoD green (around 12cm) plus Railfreight distribution grey or speedlink red/grey VBAs, weighing in at about 15cm long. The plan uses 16cm long points, I presume these are OOs standard setrack size?

 

 

The scheme is a simple runaround loop using the fiddle yard (a sector plate), then a headshunt accessed bunker within which the vans would safely unload, potentially into waiting army 4Tonner lorries. Only one van can be shunted at a time as the sector plate, loop and headshunt are 27cm exactly. There is a second unloading bay shown but I don't know whether there would be space for this in practice (though this would literally double the capacity for vans as you could bring in a 'full' one and take the 'empty' one away off scene).

 

Couldn't fit in a loco shed, however I don't think an engine would be parked in the armaments area anyway. Operation of points would be by wire in tube including a method to move the sector plate. Some butchery of the facing points would be required to interlace them like this, in order to make the headshunt long enough, but this is easy to achieve.

 

 

Landscape is a very simple system of berms (grass embankments to contain the lateral force of an explosion and direct it upwards) which being army property would likely be immaculately kept. The sector plate is hidden by a high berm or thick concrete wall as the standard bridge/tunnel/pipe bridge wouldn't exist somewhere like this. The structure to the bottom left is another bunker like the rail accessed one, in the style of the picture below. All you'd normally see is grassy hills but you could make the tops removable to detail for an interesting cameo.

 

 

Funnily enough, some MoD properties have agreements in place with local farmers to allow livestock to graze these grassed areas on top of bunkers in order to manage the grass naturally, and I've had to rescue goats a couple of times after they fell off the top of an old fort within a particular naval establishment.

 

This is about as good as I can do wholly within two boxes on the armaments theme. Have you thought about MoD shunters employed elsewhere though? There are two bright yellow shunters stationed in Devonport for moving nuclear flasks through the dockyard from the exchange sidings to the submarine refit complex. No idea what type the shunters are, walked past them daily but wasn't into railway stuff enough to go and find out at that time. They're just parked in a siding out the way, no shed or facilities I could see apart from the occasional top up by fuel tanker.