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© N(B)MRS 2006
The Layout itself is the usual oval, with the fiddle yard at the rear;
the front and two sides are for public viewing with full scenery.
So, let us begin our journey , Viewing from the left , the lines appear from
a tunnel into a cutting, and under the road over-bridge, to appear alongside
the goods depot and coal staithes, where stands a typical Midland
Railway goods shed, with cattle dock these are situated to the outside
of the main running lines.
On the far side of the main lines are the main station building and
platforms with bays for the local suburban trains to arrive and depart,
including the express parcels platform, which seems to do a fair amount
of business. The station is unusual in that the platforms are not
symmetrical, but staggered, with public inter-connection
between the main and island platforms by sub-ways. The bay platforms
are used for the storage of parcels vans between schedules, the entrance
trackwork to the platform also provides access to the motive power depot,
which is situated further down the lines on the on the other side
of the road - bridge which crosses all the tracks.
The station buildings are not a scale model of any true station, but
are stone built to match the archways to the rear of the layout, giving
it the look of the Midland Railway in Yorkshire. All the buildings
on the layout are scratch built using Slater's plasticard, Wills scenic
sheets and mixtures of anybody's building fittings, which would also
describe the scenery.
The typical Midland Railway timber framed signal box sits in
it's commanding position amongst the maze of lines at the stations throat.
The Motive Power Depot has the usual two road engine shed, based on Midland
Railway designs, there is a water tank with a stone built
building as its support and pump house. The usual clutter of buildings
found in a MPD are to be seen. All across the front of the layout are the
goods sidings and head shunts for the goods depot.
After the MPD the line goes into the country, where can be seen the canal basin with
its barges and warehouse buildings in true canal fashion, with the wooden
structures for the grain and cargo hoists. Although once again these
buildings are completely fictitious they are based on many pictures in
books and visits to Shardlow Canal port (near Derby) and its buildings.
The barges are built of plasticard and balsa, and are modelled on actual
craft used in the area of the layout, namely the Huddersfield canal, Leeds
and Liverpool canal and Trent River Navigation. The barge which appears
to be a passenger boat is actually a model of a steam canal tug.
They are painted in the blue and yellow livery of "BRITISH WATERWAYS" which
came into being after canal nationalisation in the late 1940's. This bought
to an end the era of the colourful "Castles and Roses" livery with
its multi - coloured sign written company names on the sides of the boat
cabins. Although many older canal folk still kept their old painted water
jugs and buckets.
The line now disappears under a plate bridge connecting between the
warehouse buildings and passes through the complex to return to the fiddle
yard. Thus with the era of the lay out set to early B.R. you
will see both Steam and green diesel Loco’s, D.M.U.s and stock running,
with a slight bias to the Northeast and Loco’s to be seen in that
area during the fifties and sixties.
© N(B)MRS 2006