Good evening,

Today is part 2 of my mini series looking at the layouts which were on display at the South Hants Model Railway Club 2012 Exhbition that was this weekend.

Up first we have Cartsdyke Yard a 7mm gauge LNER based layout which has featured on this blog before but with different locomotives and rolling stock. Cartsdyke Yard is actually a freelance design based on a trackplan illustrated in the October 1996 issue of the Railway Modeller. The length of the layout as suggested in the article was 3 m, but this has been extended to 5 m by the addition of a locomotive run-round for the platform, an engine shed and a cattle dock. The concept of the model is that it is a small yard off a much larger main yard in a town centre setting. The yard is surrounded by walls on all four sides, the front wall having been left off to permit viewing of the model. Although the stock is LNER, the setting could be around London, or a large town in the north east of England, or even somewhere in Scotland.

An amazing engineers train with an impressive crane

  Canal boat makes a lovely foreground scene.

The Great Western Railway was represented at the show in the form of Great Shefford and it being a GWR layout it got alot of my attention. The layout is a 4mm finescale layout and its based on the real life station which is located just over 8 miles from Newbury, Great Shefford was an intermediate stop on the Lambourn branch. The model depicts the station and the surrounding landscape as it would have appeared circa 1935. Buildings and line side features are all faithful reproductions of the prototypes based on plans and photographs taken from “The lambourn Branch” by Kevin Robertson & Roger Simmonds. The landscape is produced using the techniques demonstrated by Barry Norman in Right Track 5 and 6 Modelling Landscapes. Track work consists of C&L flexi track with Marcway points operated by Tortoise motors. The layout is controlled by DCC via a ZTC 511 unit, supplemented by one of their hand held controllers, which gives the operator freedom to roam along the length of the layout.

A Suburban passenger train arrives at the station 

Broken down truck

 Last layout of the day is Meon (EM Gauge) which is a fictitious layout of what might have been a L&SWR branch terminus in South Hampshire. The history of the line is based on the 1861 Parliamentary proposal for a Petersfield and Botley Railway which was to commence at a junction at Botley on the L&SWR Bishopstoke (Eastleigh) to Gosport Line to Petersfield via Bishops Waltham, Meonstoke and East Meon. It is assumed that the line was progressed only as far as the Meon Valley before funds ran out resulting in a Countryside Terminus.

Later a connection to an Army Camp was added, this was most busy during the time of the Great War.

All buildings and the stock are modelled on actual prototypes that could be found on the LSWR in the period after the Great War. The layout was started in 1983 as a smaller replacement for the club’s larger East Meon layout with a view to being able to attend more exhibitions with less to carry. However, with the addition of the lighting units, the scenic extensions around the station end and the ever increasing stock boxes we now seem to take as much as did for the bigger layout. The layout is run to a schedule to show movements and stock in a logical sequence. This ensures the Main Operator and the Fiddle Yard Operators are synchronised and prevents a repetitive presentation.

The impressive signal box at the end of the station