BREATHE NEW LIFE IN TO A LAYOUT

In a classic example of art imitating life, a new real life freight service prompted PETER MARRIOTT to bring an old layout out of retirement. But exactly how do you revitalise a tired and faded old model railway?

Ibuilt this 132cm by 45cm layout years ago. I called it ‘Crianlarich Lower’, but only the inspiration and feel came from the former Callander & Oban Railway location. The track plan is fictional and depicts a small timber loading yard plus a sideloading platform with a run-round loop that is located some way from the passenger station. My layout was set in autumn, and I enjoyed it for a while before it got replaced with another project. It was hidden away for several years but, in another example of art imitating life, I decided to give it a new lease of life.

BACK TO THE WOOD

The inspiration for this came about when Colas Rail started to run timber trains on the mothballed Heathfield branch in south Devon. Why couldn’t the company introduce a new timber flow to my layout? Timber panel specialist Kronospan took timber from the stations at Arrochar and Crianlarich, near Loch Lomond, until 2009. My new and revitalised layout envisages that Colas Rail is contracted by Kronospan to haul even more timber from the West Highlands to Chirk (North Wales), providing a significant environmental

benefit by taking lorries off the Scottish roads. While the track work and the basic scenic elements on the layout didn’t change, I wanted to make various visual changes that would make the layout look quite different to its previous incarnation. This included setting the season to summer, adding more yard lights and new signage, removing the piles of stored timber and replacing them with a Colas portable building, using figures with high visibility jackets and setting it up to depict the reopening of the Crianlarich Lower Timber Loading Facility.