Layout: Westbrook
By avoiding the restrictions of modelling a specific location, Paul Butler was able to let his imagination run wild on this Midlands-inspired layout.
Paul Butler has let his imagination run wild on this Midlands-inspired layout.
Almost every modeller has an idea of a location they would like to model at some point. At the very least there’s somewhere that provides a form of inspiration. Recently there have been some fabulous layouts in Model Rail accurately depicting prototype locations right down to the telegraph poles, but Paul Butler has shown with his freelance model of a town in the Midlands that you don’t need a prototype to make a great model railway.
Set in the late 1980s to the early 1990s, Paul’s town of ‘Westbrook’ is located on a Cross Country route that the company uses as a diversion, close to where he lives. Similarly to some cities, space is at a premium, and the railway is lost underneath the concrete jungle of buildings at one end. But how did this urban ‘N’ gauge layout come into being?
“I’d visited my local exhibition hosted by the Elizabethan Railway Society and was very impressed by the club’s ‘N’ gauge layout. After speaking with the operators I decided to join them. The layout was a regular on the exhibition circuit and once I’d operated it at a few shows I decided to have a go at building my own exhibition layout. I came up with ‘Annston’, a modern image end-to-end layout, but it was limited to fairly short trains, so I began to plan a continuous circuit layout. ‘Westbrook’ was born.”
Since it was built with exhibitions in mind, Paul carefully measured the available space in his car to ensure that he utilised the maximum space available to make trains as long as possible, without having to buy an expensive new vehicle!
“The boards were constructed from 9mm exterior plywood with 18mm by 44mm bracing and hinged legs. The whole ensemble is able to form two boxes for transport.”
“Paul Butler has shown with his freelance model of a town in the Midlands that you don’t need a prototype to make a great model railway”
‘Westbrook’ is a freelance layout that has all the classics incorporated into it. It’s got the main line station, the sidings behind, the railway disappearing under the buildings at one end and there’s even a cameo scene of a car accident. This is another example of how modelling in ‘N’ gauge is showcased so well, but, as Paul explains, as with any railway the planning is key.
“The plan took me quite a while but once I was happy with the structure and stability I began working out a track plan. After several changes I settled for one that allowed for a two-track through line with passing loops and a branch line diverging from the inner loop. There is also a small freight distribution depot and adjacent sidings. Once I was happy that the layout would be easy to operate at shows and allow for maximum use of both freight and passenger trains, it was marked out on the boards.”
Whereas the mention of a two-track through line may bring to mind images of Paul standing at the side of the layout chatting to exhibition goers as trains continually run round, and while this is possible if locomotives are taken out of the fiddleyard to allow
“The boards were constructed from 9mm exterior plywood with 18mm by 44mm bracing and hinged legs”
a clear passage, ‘Westbrook’ is unusual in that it doesn’t really allow for continuous running of more than one circuit. This is because Paul’s fiddleyard is split into several isolated sections to allow for the storage of 20 locomotives and 12 DMUS. As one locomotive completes a circuit, it joins the back of the line and has to wait in the queue to be featured again. He can still chat to the viewers, so long as he has a couple of helpers to keep trains moving.
“The locomotives all run on Peco Code 55 finescale with live frog points pinned directly to the baseboards. To me, a gentle curve will always look better than a straight on a layout, so it took a bit of fine tuning to get all the track to fit in a way that looked prototypical and that wouldn’t give me any wiring difficulties across the joins in the baseboard.”
WIRING WOES
“I absolutely loathe doing the wiring; you spend forever doing it and have nothing (visually at least) to show for it at the end. It took a long while to do, particularly with each of the 12 tracks on the fiddleyard split into several sections and all of the wiring that comes with live frog points. When the layout is erected, 25-pin D connectors link the baseboards and feed everything to the two mimic panels in the fiddleyard, which are wired with Double-pole-double-throw switches.”
Paul uses the stud and probe method to change the points and a Gaugemaster W controller at each end, one for the inner and one for the outer loop, highlighting the necessity for two operators as the controllers are 14ft apart! Selecting the correct tracks takes a little bit of getting used to, but after an hour or so it becomes second nature.
“The layout was given a thorough test to check it worked before the ballast was put down. This did result in a couple of extra sections being added to make it a bit easier to use. Testing and making changes at this stage is quite easy, and it provides an excuse to run trains!”
With only a 2ft 6in scenic depth to work with, having height was an important consideration for Paul to create a realistic 3D representation of the landscape.
“I used polystyrene for the basic shape and covered it with filler to give myself a firm base to apply the scenic materials. Rather than using static grass I opted for Woodland Scenics powders fixed in place with diluted PVA, then added details such as the bushes and the trees.
“Adding the details is by far the part of model railways I enjoy the most. I always try to get some cameo scenes into my layouts and here at ‘Westbrook’ the most noticeable is the car accident being dealt with by the emergency services. The driver had a lucky escape after rolling his car as had he gone a few feet further he would have plummeted onto the rails! My thanks must go to Dave Harrison for fitting the flashing lights to the fire engine. These details really bring the layout to life and give people something to look at on the odd occasion when there isn’t a train moving.
“’Westbrook’ has now attended over 30 shows and continues to visit exhibitions during 2019, including Milton Keynes, Macclesfield, Mansfield, Cotgrave, Quorn GCR and Burton on Trent. I would like to thank my regular crew of Alan Britton and Geoff Kybett and other occasional operators for their continued assistance in exhibiting ‘Westbrook’.”