A new home for Tower Street and the arrival of a small package

The lack of recent posts is due to the imminent arrival of an au pair to our family, we have an Italian girl arriving to help with the kids on the 2nd of November and thus, most of our house has been changed around. The kids have moved from a small bedroom and seperate playroom into a what was the hobbies / office space, we have moved into what was the playroom, which always had our wardrobes in it. Our bedroom will be for the au pair and what was the small kids room is now the office and hobbie space. I was fearing that I would have to loose the ability to keep the layout permanently setup, it is a little crampt in the room but there is enough space for the desk and layout plus a small beuro and a storage unit for paperwork. The room already had a sliding door which means we don't need to keep a space for the door to swing open. Of course, there won't be enough room to have the fiddle yard attached but it doesn't need to be while I am building the track and scenery. 

At long last, arriving today, came my order of 1000 SMP copper clad sleepers and two packs of turnout timbers. I say at long last because like with most things on my todo list I manage to procrastinate and put off what I should be tackling next. It mostly happens with stuff that I have yet to try. Being a perfectionist, I don't like messing things up and I hate the thought of messing on the layout, even though it is my first try and shouldn't worry about making mistakes. It was the same with spraying the first batch of models I had started and the first attempt at applying transfers. Well, they have arrived and with the pack of code 75 bullhead rail I purchased from C&L at the Bristol show, I have no excuse not to start track laying!

Tower Street Station Track Plan

This is the proposed track plan of the Tower Street Station Layout based on the track plan at Abingdon Station, a typical busy GWR branch line terminus with ample provision of goods yard facilities, which will add to the operational interest of the layout. The plan has been mirrored to suit the location of the layout within our hobbies room and has been compromised in a couple of areas to enable it to fit. The headshunt will remain and will extend onto the traverser to enable longer trains to be worked in the goods yard while keeping the running line free for passenger traffic.

The layout will comprise of two main baseboards, each being 1200mm wide and a traverser fiddle yard also 1200mm wide. The baseboards will be of monocoque construction using 9mm plywood for the tops, bottoms, which will have holes cut out for access, and sides. The side on the left hand baseboard which curves will be formed from bendy MDF while ends of the baseboards will be formed using 20mm thick oak plank left over from flooring our hallways and living room.

All trackwork on the baseboards will be hand made using code 75 bull head rail and copper clad sleepers and ballasted using C+L Finescale 2mm ballast for the running lines and ash ballast for the goods yard and headshunt.

At the moment the plan is to use proprietary kits by Wills, Ratio and Scalescenes for the buildings and accessories including a couple of items from Hornby's Skaledale range and to slowly replace these with scratch built items as my skills develop and time allows.

At the moment an interest in Green Diesel era motive power collides with an enthusiasm of GWR rollingstock and liveries, running sessions at home will not prove a problem, but if the layout ever gets to the exhibition circuit, as is hoped, then investment in GWR motive power will be needed!

The layout will be operated using Bachmann's wireless Dynamis DCC controller and will use a control panel, yet to be designed, for point and signal control. One of the members of Cardiff MES, of which I am a member, has developed and produced a point and signal machine, the signals to be used will be Ratio kit items.