It's been a very longtime since I posted on here but with the changes that I've made I thought I'd explain in person.
As Mark stated above , I did a rebuild by removing the upper section of Pendeford Yard, this was partly due to operating issues and also trying to find the spark I had when I first built the layout all those years ago. After the rebuild I was frankly still looking for that "buzz" and after a month or two the penny dropped that I still wasn't satisfied with the "new" layout.
I come from North Staffordshire and have always had an interest in my local lines, seeing that someone produces North Staffordshire Rly signal boxes over on shapeways got me thinking. Back in the early 90's I'd attempted to recreate Milton Junction as it was in the early seventies, it's always struck me as an interesting location for anyone with an interest in freight. The layout died during birth but the idea always stayed with me. Finding that someone produces Knotty boxes kickstarted my Milton Jcn layout idea.
The layout would be set during the 1974 period, some compression with the track layout would have to be made. To add extra interest Leek station was saved and retained an hourly service to Stoke station. The Bullers industrial insulator factory just to the North of Milton station, which had used Rail, was still using the railway to transport in china clay and export it's finished products. Likewise, the old British Aluminium site across Redhills road that had been taken over by, I think Johnson Brothers, also used the railway to export it's finished products, giving me a reason to run a tripper to Milton and undertake some shunting in-between running trains through the layout.
So after formulating a plan and some sketched plans, I went to Mark and told him of my idea, then it was to see the Boss to get her blessing. Once I'd done that, it was a month of track lifting and scraping the baseboards. It was sad to see Pendeford Yard go but after 10 years I felt like a change of era and location.
I will get round to posting some pictures on here to show what's been done but for those of you on FB here is my new page Down the Junction | Facebook