Masterplan: 4ft by 2ft

Micro master Paul A. Lunn sets out to build a layout that’s small but perfectly formed.

Paul A. Lunn sets out to build a layout that’s small but perfectly formed.

So much has changed in the time since I wrote Building Micro Layouts. Small layouts have grown in stature, garnering much popularity these days. No longer is there any excuse for not having a layout. Squeezing something into the smallest of houses or flats, and on the tightest of budgets, is now commonplace. Furthermore, manufacturers have, either by accident or design, come to our aid, with numerous short-wheelbase locomotives. Hornby’s Ruston & Hornsby 48DS is a prime example, featuring a level of detail and performance that we’d never have expected a decade or so ago. There are ready-to-assemble baseboards at that optimum 4ft by 2ft size and all manner of beautifully crafted cast resin and printed card structures, crying out for our interest.

My work as an author started with small layouts, at that point an unheard of section in the first of many Peco Setrack Planbooks, a collaborative effort in Santona’s, Design and Planning Handbook and latterly my first solo outing, Building Micro

Layouts (Booklaw) way back in 2009. Since then, I’ve broadened my horizons, taking on a wide and varied range of tasks, more often than not larger than my preferred choice. If we’ve met at an exhibition, you’ll have probably heard me say, ‘if I had a very large modelling room, I’d rather have 30 or 40 micro layouts than one large one’.

So, in this first of four micro layout plans,

I’m really back to the beginning… where my heart is. I’ve started by setting my own criteria, which must include everything in ‘The Brief’ on the right.

A diminutive Hornby Ruston and Hornsby 48DS 0-4-0 squeezes through the gap between the two main structures, heading right, towards the headshunt for the kick-back inglenook sidings seen on the left. Viewed at near eyelevel, you won’t need a 2D backscene, though I have painted grey clouds behind purely for visual effect. The accompanying initial sketch, for the opposite side, raised my concerns about the position of buildings over the linking diagonal track and was subsequently replaced with overhead pipes. Similarly, total use of corrugated structures was, for me, too overpowering, resolved with a balance between brick and corrugated sheet.

If you find part of the layout dimensionally too tight, there are potential minor improvements. When I wrote Micro Layouts, one of my key hopes was to find a variety of ways to improve the lot of a micro modeller with a selection of ‘Tools and Tricks’. One such example was the effect of what happens when you place your tracks across the diagonal, while remaining within 4ft by 2ft confines? Here you can see (right), although there’s a modest loss at siding B, headshunt A becomes 80mm longer with headshunt C 41mm longer.

That doesn’t sound a lot and in measurement it isn’t, but when you consider locomotive sizes, it will allow for; Classes 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, Sentinel 4WDH, ‘1366’/‘16XX’/‘64XX’/‘94XX’ Panniers, ‘1F’, ‘Jinty’, ‘J50/52/70/72/83/94’, ‘N7’, ‘USA’ tank, Beattie well tank and ‘Terrier’, all ready-to-run from the main manufacturers (and Model Rail). While some of these were taken into industrial use, many were not. Those that weren’t would need adjustment to the scenic setting; a china clay works, oil depot, brewery, locomotive depot, warehouses, railway works or chemical plant. Whatever you choose, don’t copy my choice of scenic treatment – make it work for you.