Planning a British bedroom/exhibition layout based on Woodburn
Background & History: Warning lots of waffle - click here to get ahead.....
Well Crazy DTHEAD is at it again, A new project is officially born. But it has festered with me say for 24 years. It goes back to the Model Trains, the Hornby set for Christmas, then a big 4x8 table built by dad in Melbourne. But in a move to Brisbane, then Weipa, a isolated mining town, much furnature&belongings were placed in storage, as was the trainset and most of the locos. I did grab some stuff, I stil wanted my trainset !
So this time we built a small 3x6 board, no real baseboard, casters on it - to live under my bed. It has a removeable "mountain" and 2 points ! this kept me going for my stay in Weips ( boarding school too) so learnt a lot model railway wise and tried an extension and new ideas just as we left, back south. Extension didn'tmake it at all. That layout was stored, and been with me ever since, well the 3x6 ply, old sceinic material on it, no track In my shed right now. Nostalga at the worst or best - I then progressed from Hornby to Australian. On he way sold a bit etc. But have the remaining stuff in the back rooms somewhere. Lurking, reminding me.
So hop to 2011. AT the Eltham Model Railway Club we had a confirm British modeller, never could run his train on our layout, trackwork standard prevented that, and he stuck with us until his move. He had uilt a nice model railway in a spare room and it was great to go for a few visits. Perhaps Chris opened a smll fire somewhere, as I then bought two 4-40's one schol class, For I had a crush on the smaller locos, not just the big flashy monsters-steam or diesal. The locos smaler than a 4-4-0 appealed. This has been seen, I have 2 Aussie 0-6-0 in the pipeline, a 12 class 4-4-0 & hopefully a 2-2-2 T14 soon. So a 2-2-2 a 2-4-0 some with a cab or not - diky cute.
Next waypoint was my trip o the UK June 2013. Went to York and while spndin 12+ hours there ( they has a special Railfast event on) there was model train for sale - and well I could not resist the fun of buying a British train in the country. One of my friends has often purchased the train he rode while overseas. So I bought City ofTruoe class LONDON rather than the more expensive NRM named one. Then another loco caught my fancy, oh and some coaches for the loco, some mags, signals ..... I mailed quite a bit back that week home rather than carrying it around !
So more UK stuff.
Next thin, December 2012 found me in Hopital, in Brisbane on my annual trip for Chritmas. Well apart from the medical, one needs to stay focused and while the PC helped, I asked the Parents and brother to buy a few magazines, anything. . SO got 2 UK ones, a American and an Aussie one. Great and always good to catch up with the UK scene. So I had a lot of time to think, ponder in the bed. One UK mag was just a cataloque of basic reviews, boring I thought at first !
Then were moved from the local hospital to a big city one where things got happening in all respects. As I had been "in" since before Christmas and new Years, my birthday was approaching, so I decided to buy some train stuff as a treat to me ! Getting he credit card out was a $$$$$$ exercise as there was lots to tempt, all over the world. For instance the new hospital brainwashed me with a grea window view that allowed me to see some goods trains, and seeing thm pass day after day let me to be ordering a train eventualy to recreate them - A southern state modeller buying Queensland trains !
And those magazines were not left unread, comine them with the internet on my laptop, it made ordering easy, browsing more so. Saw the Kernow 2-4-0 and the Bachmann SECR C Class and now wanted them. The Kernow was a easy buy but took me ages to work out the SECR was sold out - but I might have snagged one here so.....
The Kernow duly arrived and I liked it so much I ordered 2 more. Now two are detined for the modification and alteration road - one stays stock, one will have the rear cab/bunker removed to become a tender loco with a 4 wheel tender off Ebay. The third will also be tender but no cab roof. Have a picture but no prototpe intentions - these locos are my cute fleet !!!
So, more british ! Onto the layout:
Layout:
I have the huge downstairs layout under the house, and a shed to build exhibition layout. But I could build a small layout in my bedroom. And I hoped to make it British, to run my UK and to expel that deamon. For it has been at me for years. I still have that 3x6 board - too tempting to recreate it, small radius etc. So what I wanted was an around the wall affair, station one end, staging ( into the closet for them) at the other, OVal, single track. Somewhere to run the City of London, or the lowly goods and shunt !
Well in the December edition of Railway Modeller, a Peco Publication I read a increasing interesting article by Ian Futers on page 1078. Woodburn - plan of the month and scale drawings.
Well the plan presented got my eye and the article was a good read. It gives me all I thought about. What could go wrong? So I have googled the place, taken some screenshot with google earth, and copied a lot of link to photos on the web. I have scanned the plan.
And have contacted the author to eventually see what ealier track arrangements were, a nice man and I were very honoured he replied. I may even try to get more authenic stock over time - his influence is that good.
So, now to do planning, enjoy !
David Head, February 2013
The layout at a glance (as proposed)
- Name of Railroad: Woodburn.
- Scale: OO
- Size of Layout: 10x13 Feet.
- Prototype: Northumberland, North British Railway.
- Period/era: 1960's.
- Layout Style:Standard Exhibition layout, scenic one side, with unsceniced staging the other.
- Layout Height: Not decided yet. High.
- Benchwork: Open Grid.
- Roadbed: 12mm Ply track base, cork etc.
- Track:code 100. Some scratchbuilt points as required.
- Length of mainline run: Not determined yet.
- Turnout(Point) minimum: no 6.
- Minimum curve radii: 24 inches.
- Maximum grade: 1:45
- Scenery construction: All forms but lean towards Styrofoam, as little plaster as possible.
- Control: DCC control (NCE radio based, or plug in) with Decoder Pro for loco configuration, and some form of computer control for signal & points.
- Starting Date: 2013
- Completion Date: TBA (2021 !)
Update occur when I remember, and when I have done some work !
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