Lewis C

Arriving at mid February I now had almost all of the two main running lines in and wired up to the bus all the way around. I've wired droppers to most pieces of track, but not quite all of them, so far this seems to have worked well as I'm yet to find any dead zones. I must also confess that an oversight was made at this point, I had failed to drill holes for point motors as at this point I was unsure whether I would fit them or not. After later realising how much leaning/stretching over the layout would be required to change some of the points I then decided point motors would be necessary, but that's a story for another time. My next task was to complete the outer running line on the left section of the layout and to start tackling Butterley yard. Butterley yard was a fun challenge to fit into the space I had. One thing I'd found when laying this side of the layout was that I'd been able to use a slightly larger radius of curve on the inside running line but this meant there was slightly less straight running line on the Butterley side. I didn't mind this compromise as I would also gain some space in the yard thanks to a 3-way point that was not on my SCARM plan. This matches the real track layout so it was a nice bonus. Overall I'm pleased with how the yard turned out, it's a shame that the sidings where the DMU shed are essentially all on 3rd radius curves but I'm glad I've managed to fit the whole yard in, it'll give some good playability for moving stock around. One drawback I do anticipate is I doubt I'll be able to fit a shed in on the curved sidings, in reality the DMU workshop is here, but due to the nature of the curves I think these may have to be open sidings on my layout. Some small progress was made on the Swanwick side too, I fitted the small siding that comes off of platform 4, which is seen populated with a few wagons. I also took delivery of a Peco Y point which has replaced the small right hand express point I originally intended to use. I did this as from the second photo you can see the gap between the roof support beams that I'm going to have to curve the track around to get into Swanwick yard. Using a Y point gave me a nice start on the curve radius required here and is actually closer to the point used in reality. This marked my first foray into electro frog points, having now tried them I wish I'd used them for all of my Peco express points, alas the benefit of hindsight! The following week saw the first real work on Swanwick yard as well as the delivery of a key new building which had been very hard to find! It was quite a productive day, I'd managed to lay track for the two carriage and wagon works sidings which are the ones closest to the running lines and filled with a mix match of old stock. In reality there's 3 sidings and a shed at the end, but due to the space available I've decided to only have 2 sidings and omit the shed. I also laid the track into the loco preparation area (the 3 sidings where the Bachmann 37 and old Hornby Hogwarts Castle are sat). These have been shortened significantly but offer enough space for a couple of locos to fit, which will be plenty for operational purposes. You can just make out the return line to Swanwick diesel depot too. The 3 curved points were wired droppers and pinned to the boards, as well as the straight section of line where the Bachmann 47 is sat. This is a bit of a narrow fit between the roof support beams but there's adequate clearance for stock. I'm pleased with the space utilisation too and really looked forward to being able to shuttle locos up and down Swanwick yard while trains pass on the running lines in the background. So onto the new addition for this week... this had been hard to come across on eBay but I finally managed to find myself a Skaledale Butterley station building. I'm very pleased with the model, it's in excellent condition and is absolutely perfect for the layout. It really adds some character and makes it much easier to imagine this looking like the real Butterley. It occupies the space very nicely. The only slight shame is that I'll generally only ever see the back of the building due to the orientation on the layout, ah well never mind!

So continuing the development of the layout we move into February. The first weekend of Feb saw the outer running line fitted for all but a small section on the left side of the boards: Slow and steady progress! The following weekend had a similar level of progress, the outer running line was finished and the tracks for Platform 4 at Swanwick were fitted, the line into Swanwick yard was also replaced and the track for Platform 1 realigned: Butterley also saw the first part of the yard laid and a temporary mock up of how the station will look: A couple of new additions are to be spotted here; a Bachmann RMB and a Hornby BSO. I'm trying to match the real carriages on the line as much as possible for my Mk1 stock. That takes us to the middle of February, things start to kick on a bit in the latter half of the month, but I'll post that another time.

Hello and welcome to the start of my slowly developing OO gauge layout. This is my first serious attempt at building my own model railway so do treat me as a beginner! The aim of this layout is to replicate Butterley and Swanwick Junction from the preserved Midland Railway - Butterley line in Derbyshire. I chose this basis for a couple of reasons, firstly it is my local preserved railway and I have many fond memories of visiting the line over the years. Secondly the line generally runs 4-5 coach trains which requires less space to look prototypical and therefore works nicely in the space I have available. Lastly Hornby actually produced a number of models in the Skaledale range based directly on buildings from Butterley - which is a big help for someone with no scratch building experience. The layout really began in the run up to Christmas last year, after watching numerous model railways on YouTube for some time I gained inspiration to build something of my own. I'd previously bought a few Bachmann BR Blue diesels, two boxes of Peco Code 100 flexi track and various points during Covid in 2020 with the intention of building a fictional layout. However before I'd made any significant progress I moved out of my parents house leaving my model railway behind. In the 4 years that have passed I am yet to have my own space for a model railway so everything has lain dormant up the loft at my folks place. Fortunately I don't live far away from my parents so I started thinking about the possibility of restarting the model railway on a temporary-ish basis until I can buy a house of my own. This would mean I could only really work on the layout once a week at the weekend, but I do have space at home for small modelling projects so I figured I can work on stock and buildings during the week ready for visiting the layout on a Sunday. The next step was to devise a plan, I decided on Butterley fairly early on as I knew this would suit a lot of the Bachmann diesels I already owned and would give me direction which I might otherwise lack with a freelance design. So one weekend in early January I went up the loft and measured up my old boards. Upon returning home that evening I built the space on SCARM, including the support beams, and began messing around with track to see what I could fit. After a week of tinkering, and then with a little bit of drawing on top in Photoshop we had the below plan: I was pleased with the final result and felt it was busy without being too much track. To the top of the plan we have Swanwick Junction, the station fits nicely in the space available and is only shortened ever so slightly compared to reality. An interesting feature of the layout boards is the wide section on the left, this lent itself perfectly to Swanwick yard and gave me the opportunity to recreate the way you have to go in and then reverse to get to the diesel depot. I've reduced the number of sidings that would sit in front of the Matthew Kirtley Exhibition Hall due to space and all of these are much shorter than in reality, but all will still fit at least a loco or coach on them which is good enough for me. This then leads to the bottom of the board where we have Butterley station and yard. The yard is slightly compromised due to being on a 4th radius curve. The end of the platform at Butterley has also had to be curved. I'd have loved to have a section of the reservoir on the right hand side of the layout but alas the boards have not been built with that in mind so it was a no go. Instead I'll aim for some rolling countryside. A big feature of the layout is that I've double tracked the whole thing, in reality the line is mostly single track, but for my own enjoyment I've gone for double track all the way around as I much prefer being able to set 2 trains off running around the layout. Operation of the layout will take place from the middle, I'm using DCC so intend to have all track live. Points will use normal Peco point motors connected up to toggle switches mounted to a panel. With a plan now in place the next step was to get building! So on the final weekend of January things were ready to begin. I started with Swanwick Junction as getting all of these points in the correct place was going to be the most crucial element. By the end of the first day I'd laid the inside line with a few token pieces of track showing where the other lines were going to sit. You can see the remains of my previous failed layout in the background with the retaining wall. Eventually this will go. Butterley was just as bare but also included various bits of clutter on the boards (an ongoing theme for the first few weeks was the need to tidy up old models from the past iteration of my layout). Here we can also see a few of my first specific additions for this project, Bachmann Jinty No. 23 (47327) in SDJR blue had arrived that week. This is one of the locos at the real line and has most recently worn this livery. We can also see my first purchases of Bachmann Mk1s behind an old Hornby Hogwarts Express Mk1. We have an FK, RMB, SO and BG. All carriage types at the real line. Lastly for this post we have a posed shot of Swanwick at the end of the day. The Jinty has brought the last train up from Riddings whilst another new purchase sits on display in Platform 1, 45041 "The Royal Tank Regiment". Again this is a loco based at Butterley so was perfect for the layout. In this shot you can also see the scatterings of Skaledale and Scenecraft buildings I had started to acquire for the layout. I was particularly pleased to have gotten hold of a model of Swanwick (Broom Junction) Waiting Room which sits on platform 3/4. The platforms here are temporary, I plan on building my own at some point in the near future. That will do for this opening post and takes us to the end of January. Next time we'll see how track laying continued in February.