After a lot of searching through books and pondering over various stations I came across Waddon Station. Not the one we see today but the one built before the turn of the last century demolished in the 1930's. The old station looked quite house like and incorporated the station masters dwellings.The new (and current station) is a very plain brick box affair with an iron riveted bridge replacing the wooden one.
I chose Waddon as it had a very interesting layout which I could model without without resorting to bespoke point work. Being my first layout running only relatively new stock, it was going to be Peco Code 75 at the front and very old but serviceable Peco code 100 at the back. The latter was salvaged from a loft layout built by my late father over 30 years ago and apart from being completely oxidised, has presented no problems following a good clean.
Waddon was and still is a two line station but there used to be run around points, a parcels bay, goods yard, signal box and as it later turned out a set of run around points at the end of the head shunt as well. Although it had a goods yard it didn't have a goods shed but I will be adding one typical for the area as well as a small engine shed based on the one at Epsom. The station was electrified early on for EMU's and suited my chosen theme of a busy 1930’s commuter station in the expanding London suburbs.
The station platforms are also staggered making it a little more interesting visually, with little obscuring the busy rush hour up line platform.
The picture shows early development of the layout with some track laid and some just placed on the layout to plan it out.
The layout was going to be a round and round layout as I wanted to have fast trains rattling through the station and if they do three or four loops before the next local stopper appears then so what? I've seen enough exhibition layouts to know that anything running maintains public interest (and I like to see my loco's get to stretch their legs).
The first four boards were built to form a wide 'U' shape for the front of the layout and I quickly clamped them together and laid out the track. I was so impressed with the long run that I drew out the plan and began laying track. It was at this point that I realised all the boards were end to end and the layout was sixteen feet long not twelve! Oh well, too late now.
The photographs show the initial build which was in my living room and then the full circuit which was completed in my Mother's garage. The buildings will be scratch built copies of originals but the met calf buildings were added for scale and appearance.
In retrospect the only thing I am not entirely happy about is the very straight line of the track. However this does give a good fast run through the station and curving the track would have meant considerably expanding the width of the boards or loosing the goods yard, neither of which was an option. Therefore it's going to have to be the scenery that makes the railway flow through the landscape.
No comments:
Post a Comment