nebnoswal

Well, this the 1st entry on the forum about my N gauge layout. I'll get around to transferring from the old site, once its up and running again. I started this project officially, back in August 2008, well that??�s when we started making the baseboards. Some would argue that the idea was first hatched back in 2000 when I first saw the track diagram for Stur. Over the preceding year I did some researching and lots of reading. Having to spend some of my valuable time flying round the sands of Iraq did cut into my time. The layout is built on 2 open frame baseboards, both measuring 2080 mm x 1100mm. It is made form rolled C-section light steel, as used for shop-fitting, and has 7mm plywood tops. The design is same as 2 other N gauge layout to be found downunder; Grassington and Thresfield by Greg Goodchild and St Albans by fellow forum member Sithlord75, aka Kevin Knight. You could kind of call it a modular layout, as you can connect 2 layouts up to a 10 track 2m long traverser, which can hold upwards of 20 trains. When taken to an exhibition it has a frontage of 6m, and it hold all of our running stock for a weekend. My version for Stur differs slightly from the prototype, but it??�s my hobby and rule No.1 applies. Firstly, Stur was single line working with a passing loop. Moving North to Stalbridge or South to Shillingstone require a token. Having the want to run trains, I??�ve expanded to this have both up and down lines, ie. more trains. Also to avoid having to put points on the baseboard join, I shoved them further to the left by a scale 50 feet, this means the station platforms and good yards are an extra scale 50 feet long. Research, especially from 20000 km away, has had its moments, but the internet is a wonderful thing. There are too many names to mention from the S+D trust, S+D heritage trust, the Sturminster museum and members of this very forum. So where is Sturminster Newton? It is located in Northern Dorset. Up until the 1980??�s it was a large market town, and was host to the largest livestock markets in the UK, held every Monday. This market was served by the S+DJR/LMS/BR until its closure in 1966. It was also home to some famous poets in the 19th century.

Good to see you've made the transistion, hopefully I'll get my across in the next week or so