Introduction
Hello and welcome to my little blog for my new model railway.
I have had a Hornby model railway since I was about 4 years old. It was a standard Hornby oval with an InterCity 125 and after many years of running she is now very tired and barely runs at all, I am sure a new motor would give her a new lease of life and many more hours of running.
The Current Layout
In 2004/5 my Dad and I made a new base board in his loft for my model railway. The current base board is 8ft 2in by 9ft 6in and has a control hole/area to one side.
It has three circuts (the outer of which is partially elevated) it has a turntable, goods yard and two stations. As you can see from the plan below it was not that imaginitive and quite basic.
I am not really a railway modeller (I just like trains) so I never really got started with the finer details of the layout and also never finished the wiring of the point motors. But actually never finishing it has actually helped in some way for the extension and the new layout as it won't take very long to get back to a blank canvas again as all I need do is lift the track and remove the pins.
The New Layout
For years I have looked down the loft and wished that I could extend my railway but never did. Then in March 2010 (around the time of The London Festival of Railway Modelling at Alexandra Palace) whilst helping my mother tidy her loft I made a passing comment regarding extending the layout, she thought it was a good idea. After some contemplation and the fact that my son (albeit not old enough to appreciate it yet), niece and nephew would love it so I thought why not, so I started measuring and planning my new layout.
Here are the final measurements and cuts for the board extension. I managed to get all the new pieces of board out of 2 8ft x 4ft sheets of chip board. I used 8 x 3mtr 4x2's for the frame that the board sits on.
Click image to enlarge
I have used Hornby HVR and HVR2 for sometime but I think they are quite limited from a design point of view and the geometries are not that acurate. After some searching on the internet and downloading a few other demos I came accross AnyRail v4. The geometries are correct and its really easy to use. You can download the full version from their website but without a licence key you can only use 50 pieces of track which sounds quite limited but is enough to give you a good enough over view. To buy the full version is £35 from their site and is well worth the money.
So I cracked on with my design scribbling on pieces of paper whilst at work and then having a play when I got home in the evening. I got many ideas from looking at my collection of old Hornby track plans and some more from the London Festival of Railway Modelling at Alexandra Palace which I have tried to include. After many evenings of playing I eventually come up with an initial draft design
Click image to enlarge
It comprised of three circuits with through stations, Royal Mail pickup and dropoff, a martialling yard, goods/shunting yard and a turntable with the two outer loops being partially inclined along the side wall and over the turntable.
As the new layout will take some time to get underway and if something like this will ever be finished it will probably take an age, so please keep checking back from time to time for updates.
Thanks for looking!
Click here to read May 2010
Regards
Andy Hutcheon (Hutchyweb)
May 2010
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