dave55uk

As you are using colour light signals, then one of the Eckon ground signals would be ideal. Again, the one in the tunnel wouldn't be seen so need not actually be there - if you get my drift :-)

IMO, it would be better if the track plan at the station throat was altered a little as per the following diagram. However, either way, your main line signals are ok with the exception of the one leading out of the sidings. This would be better as a ground signal (the light blue open circle) AND adding in a trap point to protect the main lines. The signal in the tunnel on the approach to the station should have a route indicator to show which route was set - 1 or 2 for the platforms (or however you have numbered them) and maybe S for sidings. Of course, these need not work, indeed if the signal was in the tunnel, it wouldn't be seen anyway!

Is the station a dead end or a thorough station?

After coming back from a weeks holiday in Par recently, I'm thinking of doing it in OO.

Finally for now, the current state of the station board. (Description based on the first photo). In the background we can see the pub next to the bridge on the skew. Tracks underneath the bridge, left to right, are: Goods line, Up/Down branch, Up main and Down main - the latter two fitted with third rail. The signal box, whilst not a Southern type (as I understand) still looks Southern-ISH to me, and that will suffice. Trains coming off the cross-country route taking the new connection will pass under the bridge on the up main before taking the crossover onto the down main in front of the 'box. There's a bit of disused platform here, the down platform having been cut back to 4 car length a while ago. (The white areas to the bottom right are what will be the platforms). The left hand platform will be the bay for terminating d/emu's. The pointwork to the bottom left will be the goods line and entrance to the (Engineers) yard. The brown area centre left is going to be filled with 'something'. The idea I have is to have several identical sub-baseboards here, each carrying a different theme - for want of a better word. One will have a couple of modern houses, one will have an Engineers/S&T building, another a construction site, maybe another a school or chapel, and who knows what else. The idea behind this is that I can swap the modules about thus making the layout a little bit different each time. (I was also going to do this on top of the hill on the scenic board but decided not to in the end).

Three pictures of the junction board - again not finished and taken just a few minutes ago. I'll describe what we see here as in the third picture. On the extreme left, we have a couple of low relief industrial buildings (you can probably guess their provenance) with an area of (what will be) concrete hardstanding. The siding is the aforementioned stump of the disused line under the girder bridge. At the bottom is the join onto the scenic board (post above) with the electrified lines on the left, and the cross-country lines on the right. There is a 'new' connection from the CC lines to the main lines sweeping across just behind the electric substation. Disappearing under the road bridge on the right is the up/down branch with the goods line on the righthand side - not separate up and down lines. (refer to track plan in a post above if that's not clear). One thing to note is that the road overbridge - scratchbuilt with some Wills bridge bits) is on the skew. This was built purposely like this to hide the baseboard join. The bridge actually 'locks in' to pieces of wood screwed to the baseboard, so that when the two boards are together, with the bridge in place, they cannot separate. Again, still work to be done on this board.

Herewith four pictures of the scenic board, taken just a few minutes ago. Obviously it's not finished. (Pictures are all 20% of the original - don't know how big I can post them on this forum) First picture. At the bottom is the join onto the junction board. The two cross-country lines are on the left, with the third rail electrified lines on the right. These all curve round and bury themselves in tunnels. Note the cross-country lines have separate bores. Crossing just in front of the tunnel mouths are the remains of a long ago abandoned line. Under the girder bridge, on the extreme right, you can also see the old trackbed rising up that used to connect with the abandoned line, the stump of this line you will see still in use as a siding on the junction board. Second, third and fourth pictures are all different views of the same.

Here is the track plan for the junction and station areas. The scenic board is off to the right as you view the plan. As this only has two sets of double track curving into tunnels, I have not drawn these. (The yellow lines indicate the limit of each baseboard - so obviously the plan is not to scale).

Thought I'd post up a little bit of info about the new layout I'm building - Whitedown Road. The layout is to be set anywhere within the BR blue and BR sectorisation timeframe, thus allowing me freedom to use basically what stock I like. However, I am most certainly not a purist, so more modern stock may well do a backward time-warp. Firstly, the layout is being built in a modular fashion, something I've not tried before. It will be a roundy-roundy with a small, non-important station and junction on one side, with the fiddleyard on the other side. Operator(s) will (normally) stand in the middle. Unfortunately, due to its size (something between 16 and 20 feet long by 8 feet wide), it will never be erected in my much-too-small flat. Hence, baseboards are being built from 6mm ply for lightness. Maybe the layout will, in time, get invited out and having it in manageable sections will facilitate me carrying it down (and back up) four flights of stairs. The layout will be DCC controlled, using a Lenz 100 setup and two Roco route controllers for individual point operation and route setting. The station is situated somewhere between London and Brighton, but is not located in the small town it purports to serve, the town being about two miles away. Hence the 'Road' in the layouts name. It is not on the main line but on more of a secondary line (with exceptions, as you will see). The Great Western and Midland Joint Railway (!) (GW&MJR) built a line down from somewhere on the Western mainline, joining the Southern metals just outside Whitedown Road station, and with running powers, were thus able to reach the south coast ports. Traffic on the 'main' third rail lines is predominately operated by the rather nice EMU's from Bachmann and Hornby. Some 'Brighton Belle' services are also routed this way, this route being only a few minutes longer than the direct route via Gatwick Airport. A few NSE loco-hauled services will also run this way too. Most of these services will not call at Whitedown Road - it's not big enough nor important enough for that - but some of the semi-fast services will call, to connect into the local services (operated by 2-car EMUs) and the local cross-country services on the joint line, which will be operated by anything from 1st generation DMUs up to 156s and 158s etc. The bulk of the traffic though will be freight, of all descriptions, going to or from the south coast ports mainly via the joint line. There will also be the Inter-City services, running from the coast up to Birmingham/Manchester and maybe even a place or two on the Eastern (I've got to find a reason to use my 55s!). Most of the area is controlled by colour light signals operated by Whitedown Road signal box, which has been converted to a small panel from the original lever frame, However, on the joint line, there remains a small manual box overseeing the joint line side of the junction, points and signals being 'slotted' by/with the Whitedown Road panel. I was going to attempt to build some (non-working) signal wires and point rodding until I saw recently that Wills (I think) are thinking of making some. I'll wait a bit :-) The station will have two through platforms on the 'main' and a bay platform for the terminating D&EMUs, with a small yard adjacent. Originally your usual run-of-the-mill goods yard, this has since been taken over by the Civil Engineers as a handy place to organise some of their ballast trains, thus enabling me to partake of a little bit of shunting now and again. Three baseboards have been constructed at the moment - the up side scenic one that leads, via tunnels, into the fiddle yard. This, whilst not yet complete, is getting there. The second board, 'The Junction', is almost there too, whilst the third board, part of 'The Station', only has its track laid - although it has now been ballasted. I should mention that the main lines through the station, and on the curve into the tunnels on the first baseboard, are all canted for faster running. The fourth baseboard will be the bulk of the station and this is currently being planned. And there, in a slightly larger than normal nutshell, you have it. [This layout is also over on the DEMU forum - and my apologies if any DEMU member reads this here and yawns. The photos I've taken so far are of a rather dubious quality, having been taken by my mobile phone. I will attempt to take some with my proper camera and post them them here for your perusal].