Shear genius
With some inventive thinking and unorthodox DIY techniques to create some baa-rilliant effects, Rob Gunstone’s ovine-themed layouts are geared to give maximum enjoyment for minimum cost.
Rob Gunstone’s layouts have the flock and awe factor.
‘S“heep Lane’ was a result of sheer frustration,” Rob Grunstone recalls. He’d spent roughly five years building a large, 18ft by 12ft loft layout but had come to a point that many large layouts reach. The track was laid, trains were running but, as Rob says, “things just didn’t feel right, so it all ground to a halt.” A change in circumstances meant that the loft layout never got any further. It was dismantled. “The desire to have a layout never went away,” he says,”and a chance encounter with a redundant IKEA shelf got me thinking about a small shunting layout that could be stored when out of use and set up quickly anywhere in the house. I added a second shelf and ‘Sheep Lane’ was born.”
Inspiration came from John Betjeman’s wonderful film A Branch Line Railway, filmed on the Highbridge branch of the former Somerset & Dorset. “This was my first layout after a long time away from modelling so I wanted to develop my skills. I certainly didn’t go into the construction with the intention of making an exhibition layout. I simply wanted to try out new techniques and see what came of it. “I decided to keep things simple and get it finished, taking a ‘less is more’ approach. All of my locomotives and wagons are either Bachmann or Hornby ready-torun models, which I’ve weathered, and the buildings are also ready-to-plant. The larger hut on the righthand side is from Bachmann, though after the original roof was damaged I added some individuality by
making a new one for it out of foil from a Prosecco bottle. The ground frame hut is an exclusive model from Kernow Model Rail Centre.”
GROUNDWORK
Take a closer look at the ground detailing and you’ll see where ‘Sheep Lane’ really comes into its own. The flat landscape is typical of the area Rob is modelling and the balance of concrete and grass is realistic. At first glance there are no obvious indications about which part of the country ‘Sheep Lane’ depicts yet, as with all good layouts, the modelling itself gives it away. Rob’s layout is set in the South West, on the SDJR – his favourite line. The build wasn’t expensive. The two shelves cost just £18. They’re joined with case clips and rely solely on the fishplates for connectivity. “It’s all very low-tech. My Gaugemaster Combi controller provides the DC power and I’ve used live frog points so I don’t have any trailing wires. The shelves are solid, and I didn’t fancy boring down into them to fit point motors, so switching is done with the good old finger method!”
“The larger hut on the right-hand side is from Bachmann, though after the original roof was damaged I made a new one for it out of foil from a Prosecco bottle”
“The Somerset & Dorset Joint is easily my favourite line in the country and is the basis of my railway interest. However, the S&D was run jointly by the London & South Western and the Midland Railways and this has led to an interest in both. So much so that my second layout, ‘Mutton’, which wasn’t even finished when Chris Nevard came to take these photographs, is based on an EX-LSWR branch line.” ‘Mutton’ is a fictional place. But it’s based on Combpyne, the only intermediate station on the Lyme Regis branch. Many of the construction methods between the two layouts are the same, although the shelves for ‘Mutton’, which measure 4ft by 1ft 4in, are slightly bigger than those of ‘Sheep Lane’ and cost Rob £ 24. Consisting of a single-line platform with a run-round loop and three sidings, ‘Mutton’ is not permanently set up in his home but it has allowed Rob to continue working on his skills when ‘Sheep Lane’ was finished.
“Nothing jumps out at you as being obviously weathered in a different colour and that is how I like it”