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Andrew Cockburn

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  1. Andrew Cockburn
    After having spent several years indulging the delights of N Gauge, roundabout mid-2010 I decided to “return to my roots”, or more precisely, OO Gauge, the scale in which I commenced my model railway “career” many years ago. However, as space was limited (my reason for sampling N Gauge, which is undoubtedly a good space-saver), I was forced to keep things small-scale even in the larger gauge, and have thus constructed several minimum-space/”micro” layouts, based on my favourite theme of industrial shunting in the BR blue era of 1970’s/1980’s. One such offering is “Pipers Yard”, completely fictitious, and based around S. Piper, a manufacturer of rubber hoses/pipes for industry, and who is reliant mainly on rail transport for the import of raw materials/the distribution of finished products. In addition to this, a small goods/coal yard, warehouse & engine shed help add to operational interest, while at 4’ x 1’ (including a removable fiddle yard cartridge), the layout is rather compact/portable. Piper’s Yard took about four months to build, and I and I hope it may serve as a source of inspiration to any fellow modellers who may just experience a similar problem to myself, i.e. a lack of space!
    　
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    However tempting it may be, never rush and/or “cut corners” when constructing a layout, just for the sake of having something up and running in the shortest possible timescale. I myself have been guilty of this “sin” once or twice previously, rushing into things as opposed to taking my time, and while it was good to see trains running, the overall result was rather unsatisfactory. But as time progressed I became wiser for these experiences, and subsequently developed a “perfectionist” attitude, with the emphasis always on a project that not only works well, but looks the part too. And as such, I’d like to stress that its always better to think in terms of quality when constructing a layout, from start to finish, even if it means constructing a building or whatever several times over, the end result will be so much more satisfying, both in terms of appearance and operation.
  2. Andrew Cockburn
    I’ve long been a fan of “limited space” type layouts, dioramas etc., and as such BRM’s cakebox challenge seemed right up my street. But on a similar sort of theme, I previously came up with Clark’s Yard (so-called because it is built inside an old Clark’s shoebox), in an attempt to see how far I could push the “limited space” concept. The layout is fictitious, and in common with most of my other past/present layouts, follows my favourite theme of BR industrial operation, and features a private siding serving a factory and warehouse, also a small goods/coal yard. Track is from the Peco range, mounted on a wooden sub-base, which fits inside the box, this arrangement being necessary to facilitate the coal drops, while the track plan is in fact rather similar to the Inglenook Sidings configuration, and incorporates a small fiddle extension to the right, which makes the layout completely self-contained. The electrics are about as basic as you can get, with a single track power feed the sole electrical connection on the entire layout, most of the buildings and other structures are scratch built from the usual materials, i.e. balsa wood/plastic sheet/brick & stone sheet/paper, the only two exceptions are the small garage, which is a Hornby Lyddle End product, while the small row of terraced houses is from the Metcalfe range of kits. Others details such as cars, people etc., are from the Modelscene, Peco, and other contemporary ranges. Clark’s Yard took about a month to build, measures just over 1’ x 8”, and is this very compact and portable, and I hope that it may just serve as a source of inspiration for the railway modeller who is really space-starved, while a layout of similar size to “CY” may also make a good table-top “toy” for the business executive, either in the office, or possibly while travelling on a long distance train journey!
  3. Andrew Cockburn
    In the March 2017 issue of BRM I had an article entitled “Clean Sweep” featured in “Inbox”, which looked at how I constructed a OO gauge road sweeping vehicle, by kit-bashing a Langley Models Ford D lorry kit. I’ve also gone one better, or rather one (or several) smaller, by constructing similar vehicles in N Gauge, utilizing Dornaplas Ford Cargo flatbed lorry kits. The construction method is similar to that for my OO model, ie the chassis is shortened slightly, then assembled along with the cab as per the instructions, before a scratch-built rear body (this time formed from balsa/plasticard) was added, followed by small details such as pipes brushes etc. formed from scraps of plastic, balsa etc. The two pictures below show the models on my N Gauge layout Nutt & Bolton, one of the vehicles is “at work”, and actually features a working flashing light/LED (although its not actually flashing in this instance). In the other picture are two other sweepers, one with a raised body as it undergoes some routine maintenance, while a gulley emptier can also be seen, this was constructed using a similar principle to the sweepers. All-in-all then, something I feel is a little different/interesting , and which adds a new dimension of sorts to my layouts.
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