I'm in the process of pinning down the subject of my first real OO gauge layout, which I plan to build this summer. As it will be a small sort of shelf layout, I'm leaning towards a steam era BLT - the classic rural kind, located in the middle of nowhere, with cattle docks and coal staithes and nothing in the background but bucolic countryside.
I want to build something with reasonable accuracy to the prototype, but as I am a student with a young person's budget and modelling experience, I'd also like to stick to locomotives and stock which are both RTR and not too pricey.
My dilemma is this: I come across nice little locos (mostly the recent influx of Bachmann LMS types) with vague descriptions of being "branch line" engines, but when I try to find prototypical information on the net about where specifically they worked, I come up with very little. So I'm turning to the RMweb brain trust for any information about locomotives like the Midland 1F, the 3F & 4F 0-6-0s, the Coal Tank, the Lanky 2-4-2T, and the 64xx. Did any of these run on the sort of rural branches I'm looking at, or were they more limited to industrial branches or longer cross-country routes?
Info about specific branches (or even better, pictures!) would be especially welcome, if anything springs to mind, but whatever information you can share is appreciated.
Branch Line Motive Power
in UK Prototype Questions
Posted
I'm in the process of pinning down the subject of my first real OO gauge layout, which I plan to build this summer. As it will be a small sort of shelf layout, I'm leaning towards a steam era BLT - the classic rural kind, located in the middle of nowhere, with cattle docks and coal staithes and nothing in the background but bucolic countryside.
I want to build something with reasonable accuracy to the prototype, but as I am a student with a young person's budget and modelling experience, I'd also like to stick to locomotives and stock which are both RTR and not too pricey.
My dilemma is this: I come across nice little locos (mostly the recent influx of Bachmann LMS types) with vague descriptions of being "branch line" engines, but when I try to find prototypical information on the net about where specifically they worked, I come up with very little. So I'm turning to the RMweb brain trust for any information about locomotives like the Midland 1F, the 3F & 4F 0-6-0s, the Coal Tank, the Lanky 2-4-2T, and the 64xx. Did any of these run on the sort of rural branches I'm looking at, or were they more limited to industrial branches or longer cross-country routes?
Info about specific branches (or even better, pictures!) would be especially welcome, if anything springs to mind, but whatever information you can share is appreciated.