tractionman

Bangor NI

I'm really into the LMS scene, especially ex LNWR, LYR and MR lines in the 1930s-40s. It's an era too I am drawn to for the LNER and SR, and perhaps ought to settle one way or another on one of the three! I also have D&E interests, having grown up with BR blue traction. I do a lot of reading on narrow gauge, industrial and light railways, and have long visited lost lines as part of the hobby. All round railway nut really.

My modelling is mainly OO, but I dabble with 009, 5.5mm, and Gn15, and have just begun a small 0 gauge project too. A few years ago, after a long lull in railway modelling, I started experimenting by creating a small 'plank' layout called Spencer Park, which began life as a 1970s BR stabling point, and has since morphed into something NCB based set 'somewhere in the Midlands' (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/49742-spencer-park-from-1970s-br-to-1970s-ncb-somewhere-in-the-midlands/). At the same time, I was occupied, on and off, with a long-term loft layout project called Westburnham (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/50227-westburnham-1970s-80s-1930s-40s-combo-loft-layout/), but a house move has given me the opportunity to rethink things.

I have a much better loft space now than before, 21 feet by 8, floored and walled with a velux window and proper stairs access, so planning is under way for a roundy-roundy but split into two separate eras... The current plan for the layout is to have along one (long) side something that is 1930s-1940s, set somewhere in the Midlands for my LMS-period rolling stock especially. For this I am thinking of using Four Oaks as a model for a suburban terminus station located alongside a through station. On the opposite (long) side will be 1960s-80s D&E, with a time-span flexible enough to accommodate transition liveries of the late '60s, right through to c.1986, and the end of the dominance of BR Blue, so spanning the era of my early years. This 'Modern image' (for me!) part of the layout will have a stabling point and a station and parcels facility, some structures for which I already have built as kits.

That's the plan, a work in progress. We'll see!