Sunday 31 March 2019

Trainset!

On the pick-up goods, Guildford shed's No. 33019 simmers in the goods yard at Porth Emmet Railway Station - click to enlarge.
Recently I was commissioned to build a traditional 5 x 4 foot trainset. I've wanted to build such for some time, so this build was going to be even more fun than usual. I have a feeling that even the most serious diehards of the hobby secretly crave a traditional trainset, though they might not mention it to their peers!
5 x 4 feet of roundy-roundy trainset joy. Operation is surprisingly fun, with much of the charm being to simply let a train run round and round and round and round and round and round.... Click to enlarge.
Design wise, seeing what could be shoe horned on to a dining room sized board without cramping things was going to be fun. With the sharp set track curves, I could have packed a lot more track in, but then I fear any lean towards 'realism' would have been compromised.

Part of the brief in addition to the set track, was to use as many pre-made items as possible, partially to keep the cost down (because I wouldn't need to charge for scratch building), but also to achieve a speedy build if to demonstrate that model railways don't have to take years. However, whilst all the tricks of the trade were embraced for rapid result, I wanted the scenic treatment to be at the same level as my more serious model railway builds.

The layout took just 11 working days, spread over a two week period. This layout will be on permanent public display at Kernow Model Centre's new Guildford store from May 2019.

Day 2 in to the build, two 5 x 2 foot boards allow the layout to be split down the middle for ease of transit. 5 x 4 feet is quite a big area to cart about as one piece. The laser cut baseboards were supplied by www.timhorn.co.uk





12 comments:

  1. Porth Emmet eh? saw that.

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  2. It's not the size, it's the quality. Maybe you should describe it as a diorarma.

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  3. ELEVEN DAYS?!!?! Cor I feel like such a slacker.

    Beautiful work, as always, Chris.

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  4. Hello Chris, I've been admiring your modelling work for some time now. I have some questions - is this layout in h0 gauge? Is it a realistic model of train infrastructure or just simplified (e.g. shorter distances, some signals or poles omitted etc.)? Hope you'll reply. Best regards from Poland!

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  5. Once long ago two gents were asked to make a peco track plan and Bredon was created, this is easily on par! I have a shelf layout and wish for the day when I have enough space to watch trains go round!

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  6. What a nice little layout...great detail and very atmospheric despite being a loop.

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  7. This is so amazing. There seems to be so much space. I love the way you manage to create two scenes with a natural form in the middle to separate. This is what it's about and I love the idea of being able to have a train run around.

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  8. Wonderful. After years of trying to build a garage sized layout and getting nowhere beyond tracklaying. This marvel has provided me the inspiration to downsize and to replicate with some changes. I wiil use 8x4 or 10x4 for main body of the layout with an L shaped extension providing a small terminus with staying tracks behind. This is to create a small "system" type layout with the illusion of trains travelling from point to point.

    Thank you.

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  9. Thank you for the inspiration, Chris. I now have my own 6’ x 4’ layout in the dining room, and the family loves it!

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  10. This layout in part inspired my 'Sandy Creek' (mk 3) layout though it is Australian prototype (Victoria)

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