WORKING OUT WHAT GOES WHERE

Start to familiarise yourself with all the key features – track angles, building shapes, and so on. Think of volume too. Clearly, the main workshop will have to be reduced in size, the smaller the layout.

Consider textures too: while much of the yard floor is very similar, there’ll be numerous subtle differences and while the railway scene will be covered in a ‘hard’ surface, the tree-lined avenue of Vastern

Road will provide a wonderful, organic foil.

At 10ft by 4ft you can have a fair stab at the prototype, retaining most of the key features. I’ve chosen a reverse ‘S’ arrangement with the scenic section largely diagonally placed across the main board. There are high and low-level non-scenic tracks, a low-level traverser consisting of three tracks, each capable of holding six short wheelbase wagons, plus two high-level sidings with the same capacity per siding.

There’s a hidden non-scenic curve extension to the headshunt coming off the graded line, to the left of the plan, and this could be extended onto a longer, narrow non-scenic ‘shelf’.

In terms of gradients, E to F is for scenic purposes only, though could be used periodically for storing a locomotive and train. I’d be tempted not to make this gradient too steep at F, so as not to block the view of the bowstring girder bridge. G to H is fairly steep, at a little over 1:18, but this could be increased in length (and the gradient thus eased) by moving crossover I to J. Or, Dccconcepts’ Powerbase system could be employed to help locomotives negotiate the gradient (www.dccconcepts.com).

The first plan requires a sizeable baseboard, so can we get any smaller? Yes, at 6ft by 3ft 6in, plus non-scenic sidings, in either ‘L’-shaped format or curving round the back of the layout beyond Vastern Road. In order to make gradients work, the following will be required: K to L rises 1in at a ratio of 1:20, M to N falls 2in at 1:20. Tracks N and O will be at the same level, as will all of the Signal Works Yard. Track P will sit at the highest level and Q somewhere in between. Again, DCC Concepts’ Powerbase may also be beneficial here. Please note the headshunt left, from K, will hold a short locomotive and three or four wagons.