Model Railway: Riddings Junction Photos by Andy York
Robert Fickling brought this picturesque layout forward 20 years from the BR green to blue era.
Riddings Junction was approximately 14 miles north of Carlisle, just inside England, and the junction for a branch to Langholm. The branch closed in 1964 to passengers, with Riddings Junction closing at the same time because its only reason for existing was to serve the branch line, being so remotely located. The Waverley route itself closed in January 1969.
Richard chose Riddings Junction because it had a compact layout, but included a northbound (down) platform loop, the branch itself and a southbound (upside) set of exchange sidings. The station was located on a northbound 1-in-100 gradient so that the southbound exchange sidings were level while the station and main line climbed behind them. To achieve this effect, Richard kept the main lines level but dropped the exchange sidings instead.
The layout was originally set in the early 1960s when both main line and branch lines were open and served by ex-LNER classes A1, A2, A3, A4, B1, V2, BR Standard Class 4, Clans, early diesels such as Class 17 Claytons, Class 20s, 26s, 40s, 45s and firstgeneration DMUs. As such, the layout was built in the BR Scottish Region light blue colour scheme and with full semaphore signalling.
Buildings were scratch-built based on photographs, using embossed Plastikard of the correct brick bond. Counting brick courses from photographs enabled Richard to scale the buildings, but some artistic licence was needed to compress the layout to fi t the shed, so the platforms are only four coaches long rather than six, and the line curves where it should have been straight.
In order to enable the Langholm branch to access its own (raised) storage sidings, it had to climb as it heads northwards from the station – not as per the prototype.
The start and end of scenic areas were created using a typical Waverley route footbridge to the south and a road overbridge to the north.
Signals are brass kits for NBR/LNER lattice post ones from MSE, motorised using Peco servos, which can have the limits of travel set and the speed of raising and lowering adjusted. Points are controlled by Seep point motors under the baseboard in the scenic area, and on the surface in the storage sidings. Track is Peco Code 75 but with the sleepers split by hand by cutting the webbing to enable the sleeper spacing to be more realistic.
The layout from the start was controlled using DCC via a Gaugemaster Prodigy Advance station and handsets. All locomotives were fi tted with DCC decoders to work with this.
While building ‘Riddings Junction’ in 1960s condition, Richard had a nagging doubt about the era. Images of early 1980s travel while at University, including trips to Scotland behind burbling Class 26s, kept coming back to him.
In 2018, Richard took the plunge and moved from BR green diesels and steam in
1961 to BR blue diesels in 1981 with all locomotives weathered and soundequipped. It took just over a year to change the eras including motor vehicles on the layout. The sidings are now overgrown, and the exchange sidings are used as a permanent way yard.
The diet of services now comprises air- and vacuum-braked freights worked by Classes 37, 40 and 46s, local passenger services formed of Mk. 1 coaches and Class 26s, the up (southbound) ‘Thames-Forth Express’ worked by a Class 45, a Class 40 on a Edinburgh-Manchester passenger service, a parcels train behind a Class 47, a ballast train behind a Class 25, northbound empty oil tanks behind a Class 40 and Class 20s on branch freights, a track-laying train, and a diverted Plymouth-Edinburgh crosscountry service behind ‘Deltic’ 55013
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Stock is sourced from the usual suspects – Bachmann, Hornby, Heljan, Oxford Rail, and latterly Accurascale for some PCV wagons. Tension-lock couplings are used, but not at the front of locomotives or the ends of trains, and tail lamps are fi tted. All locomotives have been renumbered where needed to suit stock running in 1981 at such local depots as Carlisle Kingmoor, Edinburgh Haymarket and Glasgow Eastfi eld.