Silver Sidelines

Some time ago I was asked to provide more details of the current layout. Where to start? I would start with the Branch Terminus. The Branch Terminus – Long Shot 2013 First a little bit of history. Back in the 1960s I didn’t have that much space for a model railway and I had plans and even made the base boards for, a short ‘L’ shaped layout. It would be modelled on one of CJ Freezers suggestions. In this article from August 1961 CJ Freezer took the track diagram from Ashburton (ex GWR) and provided an alternative layout which I have reproduced below. Layout Design based on track diagram from Ashburton (ex GWR) courtesy of CJ Freezer I think this layout is one of the ‘milestones’ in railway modelling and I have thought about it a lot and have extended it and incorporated it into my last two layouts. Branch Terminus – the Park View Layout 1990s The original Ashburton layout has only one platform face and no passing loop. When ‘playing’ trains I always thought t...

Stocks of the latest Bachmann Midland 4Fs have appeared in the shops and I have taken delivery of one of the examples with a Late Crest. Well I have taken delivery of two engines but more of that later. Bachmann Midland 4F on unfitted freight It is now over 100 years since Sir Henry Fowler introduced his 4F goods engine. 192 of these engines were built by the Midland Railway between 1911 and 1922 and according to Casserley and Asher (1961) all these engines were still in service up until May 1954. The ‘Midland’ 4F continued to be constructed by the LMS Railway after grouping. Between 1924 and 1940 a further 580 engines were built giving a final total of 772 engines, the highest of any class in the UK. Casserley and Asher reported that withdrawals of the later engines constructed under LMS ownership did not commence until 1959. The fact that such large numbers of relatively small 0-6-0 goods engines were still being employed in the 1950s has often been used as evidence t...

A model railway friend has recently upgradedand motorised his kit built turntable. He has used parts formed with a 3D Printer - real cutting edge technology. As a result I have been shamed into refurbishing my hand operated turntable made in the 1980s. Turntable prior to refurbishment In the 1980s there was the Airfix turntable, now marketed by Dapol. This was a plastic kit for an above ground turntable. At the time I thought it a disappointment as it was particularly flimsy and I could not figure out how to make it into a working model. Having discarded the Airfix model, what next? Well there was the Hornby / Triang turntable with its X04 Triang motor. It perhaps lost marks for lack of detail but it did work. Well it moved in fits and starts – and made lots of noise, something my now married daughter is still keen to remind me about! As a child she was lucky enough to have the bedroom right next to the railway room. I would build my own turntable – with a proper we...