The title says it all really, but of course this is a simple
and fairly basic layout. Nonetheless, it
is fully operational with plenty of interest if you are ‘into’ shunting, a
great layout for limited space, perhaps if your main layout is in a cold loft or
garage, this would provide the chance to have a small indoor layout for those
winter evenings. A useful test bed for
running kit built rolling stock, maybe as a programming track for DCC, or as it
was for me, a test bed for trying out various new scenic methods.
Ok, so what’s it built from?
The baseboard is actually a skip find, it’s a leftover plinth from a
bathroom vanity unit, 50mm thick and probably chipboard covered in veneer, but
one edge was undamaged and this was utilised as the front. Great, cost so far, zero! A scrap of MDF was cut to size and screwed to
the rear to make the support for the tunnel and backscene.A Bachmann ‘Harry the Haulier’ train set started as the base. This track was added to with Peco and was fashioned into what I felt provided the most interesting layout and was pinned direct to the board. This was then dry ballasted with kitty litter, glued with a mix a white pva glue, water and washing up liquid. After a night of drying, it was then all painted with a good coat of emulsion pant. Just one point of this, most of the modelling press suggest buying the match pots for doing this, which does give the small quantity so often required, but I find that by checking out the mis-matched colours in the ‘sheds’ so often you can find drab mixes of greys and brown greatly reduced. These are regularly awful colours for painting your home, but just great for painting scenery! Plus when you consider the quantity in relation to price, you will be buying paint for several layouts, for a of the cost.
Peco platform edging was used, with a Peco tunnel
mouth. A Dapol waiting room and
footbridge helps to disguise the shortness of the platforms and suggests more
‘off stage’. The little waiting room was
put together with some scraps of Wills brickwork and tiled roof. Moving across to the road, all Dapol
buildings form the village, being the shop, semi-detached house and
bungalow. The goods shed again is made
from Wills products, with doors from my scrapbox. The rear doors however are actually the smoke
deflectors from the footbridge kit, and as I was running diesels I didn’t feel
the footbridge looked any less complete without them!
The total cost including the original train set did not
exceed £150.00, and therefore I feel that this is a layout within most peoples
financial, time and space constraints.
As a basic breakdown, the items purchased were:
Baseboard
Bachmann Harry The Haulier Train Set (which includes a power
supply & controller)
Peco Single Road Tunnel Mouth
Peco Platform Edging Straights (Stone edges in this case)
Peco Platform Edging Ramps
(Stone Again)
Kitty Litter
Polystyrene (Found in the garage from old packaging)
About 3 Large Packs Of Interior Filler (Now available
cheaply in those 99p stores)
3 Points and 2 lengths of flexible track, code 100
Dapol waiting room,
footbridge, semi detached house, detached bungalow and shops
Pack of Wills brickwork, tile sheets, and pack of fittings
for guttering and soffits
Wills brick walling (for around the monument)
Dapol monument
Hornby buffer stops
Dapol station accessories (which includes fencing, seats and
station nameboard)
Cars from Cararama
Working street lamps (from Ebay China I think !)
Other small oddments from scrapbox, like milk churns etc.
Various scatter materials from Woodland Scenics, trees from
Gaugemaster, all glued done with white PVA
