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Holmehurst
by Keith Lodge
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Planning
View of the road overbridge |
From my previous experiences in railway modelling
I knew that planning the layout was extremely important.
Even more
so with a portable one: It had to be as small as possible to appeal
to exhibition organisers of smaller events, whilst possessing all
the attributes of a station serving a small market town.
I wanted a platform to handle
a 2-coach train with a passing loop, a bay platform for handling
light goods and an Auto-train, a goods shed and yard, and an engine
shed.
It had to be simple to operate,
with very few obstructions on the operating side, giving easy
access to all possible areas for uncoupling.
All the structures, buildings
etc were to be permanently attached to the baseboards whilst at
the same time maintaining a minimal distance between paired boards
for packing and transporting. The positions of some structures
was thus critical in the final interlocking of opposing boards.
It had to have a "feel" for the real thing, a slice
out of the countryside, no backdrop or relief buildings - the
"cut" lines being mere coincidence falling conveniently
on open space. It had to be light in construction for portability.
Four main baseboards were chosen for the layout, each measuring
3' x 2', the fiddle yard being a single 4' x 2' board with only
a single line.
Once a decision on these ground
rules was made, I set about wasting many trees with numerous sketches
of track diagrams, as well as mock paper layouts of the layout
to 1/12th scale to determine that the packed boards would indeed
interlock.
For those who have never tried
this, draw the layout on separate sheets of paper representing
each baseboard top surface, then form each sheet into a box to
represent the baseboards, in this case each box measured 3"
x 2" x 1/4". Stick more paper boxes on to these to represent
platforms, buildings, bridges etc as well as roughly shaped pieces
of polystyrene to represent any land features. Throw it away and
try again until you have the final desired result. It is surprising
how even carefully drawn and calculated plans on flat paper can
result in the most unlikely problems.
With the final effort that satisfied
my requirements, construction began. |
