Good evening,

Todays post will be continuing my look at the South Hants Model Railway Club’s 2014 exhibition so without further ado we begin with:

Orestone Quay

 The layout was built by the late John Lewis, who was at one time a prominent member of the Burgess Hill MRC. After his death, in memory of him, the Club purchased Orestone Quay plus all the rolling stock. This layout is imaginary, and is located “somewhere” on the south coast during the period 1935 to 1947. There is a passing resemblance to Weymouth Quay.

There is an off scene storage area containing storage sidings from where trains appear to make their way through the narrow streets, beside scratch built shops, to the main quayside, where several ships can be seen. There are three lines beside the quays where un/loading can take place. The fine detail of the layout shows accurately the period modelled.

The layout can only accommodate short trains, made up of fish, banana, meat or fruit vans, some privately owned, but there could be a surprise arrival of a parcels train or even a Gunpowder van in one of the trains!

Stock is mainly Southern, painted in period livery, although infiltrators from other areas are not uncommon, including a train from the north east. There is also a ‘Terrier’ and a sentinel shunter owned by the Quay railway solely for use at the dockside. Stock in use is mainly ready-to-run suitably modified, plus some scratch and kit built models.

 

 Prospect Point 

 Prospect Point is a new American HO logging and branch line layout set in Montana in the fading days of steam. Three small junctions on different levels are linked by steep switchbacks (zig-zags) of track. Geared logger and more conventional steam locos patiently work a variety of lumber, woodpulp and ore trains up and down 1 in 25 grades. The layout is L-shaped with viewers outside the L (they look from bottom or right on the floor plan). With seven metres of fully-modelled layout and two hidden fiddle yards, trains can be seen working a scale mile (65 actual feet) through the switchbacks.

Buildings on the layout are all either scratch-built, or hand-built from laser-cut wood kits. Locos are all DCC and sound equipped; Digitrax wireless DCC works trains, uncouplers and points. The layout has its own lighting and additional sound effects; train unloading on the layout is mechanised. Construction of the layout has featured in “Roundhouse”, the magazine for American modellers in Britain.

Wansbeck Road

Wansbeck Road represents a County Durham colliery village station and is set in the period 1957 – 1962. Although some of the structures on it are based on prototype locations the layout has no connection with any place, being purely a figment of my imagination. The layout has been designed to be viewed from what is described as normal viewing distance (NVD) which in 2mm scale can be anything from between 15″ to 2′ 6″. .

Baseboards are fairly standard; 6mm plywood box section glued and pinned with cross-members ‘hole sawed’ to make them as lightweight as possible. Trackwork is constructed to 2mm Scale Association standards using a plastic track base for plain track and pointwork of soldered construction. Buildings are scratchbuilt from balsa and cardboard with brick papers. Windows are my own etchings, manufactured by Fence Houses Model Foundry. Locomotives are largely scratchbuilt. Some diesels appear, and Bachmann items have been converted to fine scale. Rolling stock is a combination of scratch and kitbuilt, with finescale wheels or on 2mm Scale Association etched wagon chassis. Coaching stock: a repainted and re-wheeled Minitrix Gresley brake composite, an etched ex-North Eastern clerestory, and two Bachmann Mk I coaches, all have extra detail added.

 

I hope you enjoyed this look at some of the layouts at the show. I just wish I had some more time to take some better photos of these fablous layouts. My third and final part will be appearing soon, thanks for reading.

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