what are people doing on their layout right now

[tutenkhamunsleeping]

commissioned through the Lichfield Train Shop in about 1990

A much missed emporium with a handy supermarket car park round the back.  I must have spent a fortune in there back in OO days

[AdrianC]

Gotta love a good 37

[AdrianC]

@MatP, I forgot to add, my layout is also a fictitious one, based on the North British taking over and extending the Fort Augustus route up the Great Glen to Inverness. Mostly late 80s based but with a smattering of 90s (couple of 156s etc), and a fair bit of rule 1.......

[crewearpley40]

Matip,  I like the station. Good selection of stock. Just need a 20 and 26  27 and a 47. Apart from.that jardine looks good

[MatP]

Hi Mr. Crewearpley40 and AdrianC,

I have two 26's and one 27. The 27 is a Minitrix one that my Dad gave me for my fourth birthday (in the 1970's) - it still works just fine. Of the Dapol 26's, one is great, and one suffered from a faulty RF-suppressing capacitor. I dismantled the loco, removed the capacitor from the PCB, and got the loco to run without smoking, but it's still very jittery for some reason, so spends most of its time at the back of the shed. Also the lights at the PCB end don't work since I unplugged and replugged them. Grrrrr. Maybe I should take all the gubbins out of the faulty 26 and tow it around with the 40-year old 27, as a comment on modernity.

In the 80's, 47's didn't appear on the West Highland or Inverness branches, so I generally don't run them on this layout (though I do have a couple). And the layout is deliberately set before the Coming of the Sprinter, but that's just my personal taste. 

Adrian, could you direct me towards content about your layout - sounds very interesting. I'm afraid I am having trouble finding stuff about it on my own.

I've always liked 37's, ever since (later that same day when I got the 27 model) my Dad took me down to Swansea Landore and I got to sit on a driver's knee, with my hand on the power controller and his hand on mine, and drive a 37 out of the shed. And in more recent times, I was part of the team that carried out the most recent repaint on the 37 that lives at the North Norfolk Railway.

Regards,
Mat

[crewearpley40]

I'm a railwayman and I have seen a class 47 heading out of f towards stirling with the clansman . https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/the-clansman-and-other-childhood-memories.139894/

[MatP]

Hi CreweArpley,

A lot of 47-hauled services certainly reached Inverness. But did a 47 ever run on the Inverness branches in the 80's (by which I mean Kyle and Far North)? It's those that I am basing the operation of the Fort Jardine - Kingussie service on - thinking that if such a line had been built, it would have been done as cheaply as possible, hence smaller engines only, right through the BR era too.

Best Wishes,
Mat

[crewearpley40]

Hi CreweArpley,

A lot of 47-hauled services certainly reached Inverness. But did a 47 ever run on the Inverness branches in the 80's (by which I mean Kyle and Far North)? It's those that I am basing the operation of the Fort Jardine - Kingussie service on - thinking that if such a line had been built, it would have been done as cheaply as possible, hence smaller engines only, right through the BR era too.

Best Wishes,
Mat

. As far as I know no 47s ran anywhere on branches just the aberdeen route and south on the highland mainline

[Philip.]

building the Scalescenes church, what a faff, should be worth it though it's a lovely looking model

[AdrianC]

Adrian, could you direct me towards content about your layout - sounds very interesting. I'm afraid I am having trouble finding stuff about it on my own.

@MatP, I haven't used a huge amount of actual content but the wikipedia page on the Invergarry and Fort Augustus Railway is unusually thorough.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invergarry_and_Fort_Augustus_Railway.
My idea is based on the North British finally getting permission to extend up the Great Glen to get their own access to Inverness, extending the already built I&FR beyond Fort Augustus up the west side of Loch Ness to a fictitious terminus located along what is now Telford Street. The I&FR was in real life built to quite a high standard and so the extension was built the same, and because the NB wanted to tap into the Glasgow-Inverness market, it upgraded the West Highland line to take heavier trains as well. I've imagined that Glasgow traffic never materialised but instead the NB found there was a high market for travel between Fort William and Inverness, eventually adding a direct spur to save reversing at Spean Bridge. Now in the late 80s, although somewhat of a backwater route it has quite a frequent service between the two, plus a single service to Glasgow, and a summer service from Manchester (allows me to run other stock). The 'upgrading' of the WHL allows me to run 47s as well. Whilst this is all fiction it's not entirely without foundation, but I have gone one step further and imagined the NB also eventually built the planned line to Ullapool (which the Highland did actually plan but never started), so I can also run shorter Kyle type services (2 or 3 Mk1s etc.). Much of the service types are based on my memories of going to Scotland in the late 80s and early 90s so both routes allow me to replicate the trains I remember.

All complete fiction but hey, rule one and all that 

[MatP]

Hi AdrianC,

That all sounds very interesting and not at all implausible. Are you envisaging any freight flows between FW and Inverness, or vice versa? There could be timber to Corpach, or aluminium for use in the oil industry, or alien autopsy samples from RAF Kinloss for underground storage at Glen Douglas (only kidding)...

My first trip to the West Highlands was in the early 90's as a teenager (prior to that, family circumstances prevented such a visit), with Sprinters on the regular passenger trains and the Speedlink network on its last legs - so my layout is about experiencing something I first encountered when its glory days were (for me) past.

I also have a c.1958 Welsh Valleys layout with the same rationale...

At the moment I'm building the landscape up around a road overbridge; I'm also preparing to scratchbuild a couple of OTA timber wagons, using Farish 20'9" chassis. The chassis are from Poole era container wagons (the sort with just one container on, as used by the MOD etc.) - even though it would be prototypical, I didn't fancy scrapping or chopping a Farish VBA van body. With these I can just take the containers off for use elsewhere.

Regards to all,
Mat

[AdrianC]

I've given it a bit of thought but not progressed too far. I've given Inverness Telford Street station a yard and a small depot, so there is scope.

Parcels and Newspaper traffic certainly, although light. I was thinking about OTAs too, there is (or was) a kit using the Farish chassis available although if you wanted to be dead accurate I think it had the wrong number of posts down the side (they did vary) for the ones used out of Fort William (I could be wrong). I might cut my losses and get a few of the revolution IWA bogie ones, they might not be entirely accurate but they'll be good models.

I've got a small rake of Farish VGAs I'm going to make a flow for (but don't know what yet) and some Peco railfreight liveried VBBs for some kind of speedlink train. I had also thought about Fish traffic off the Ullapool branch but this would have long since finished by the time of the layout.

I've got some ideas for some rule one trains, one of which is an early 'land cruise' train using the Farish 'NightCap Bar' ex-Pullman, the ex-Pullman FO and two sleepers re-liveried in Scotrail with vinyls (yes, there were actually two done), maybe a MK1 restaurant, and a BG.

[crewearpley40]

I've given it a bit of thought but not progressed too far. I've given Inverness Telford Street station a yard and a small depot, so there is scope.

Parcels and Newspaper traffic certainly, although light. I was thinking about OTAs too, there is (or was) a kit using the Farish chassis available although if you wanted to be dead accurate I think it had the wrong number of posts down the side (they did vary) for the ones used out of Fort William (I could be wrong). I might cut my losses and get a few of the revolution IWA bogie ones, they might not be entirely accurate but they'll be good models.

I've got a small rake of Farish VGAs I'm going to make a flow for (but don't know what yet) and some Peco railfreight liveried VBBs for some kind of speedlink train. I had also thought about Fish traffic off the Ullapool branch but this would have long since finished by the time of the layout.

I've got some ideas for some rule one trains, one of which is an early 'land cruise' train using the Farish 'NightCap Bar' ex-Pullman, the ex-Pullman FO and two sleepers re-liveried in Scotrail with vinyls (yes, there were actually two done), maybe a MK1 restaurant, and a BG.

I like the thought of your stock adrian and the sleeper service could have a couple of those added

[MatP]

Hi Adrian,

You could use BDA bogie bolster wagons for wood traffic, that was a fairly common occurrence in the 80's-90's West Highlands. Also OBA's were quite widely used, though in my experience the wheels on the Farish model often rub on the undersides of the wagon: I have had to remove a little bit of material from the recesses above the wheels on most of my wagons (I think 7 out of a total of 9) to get good running.

My OTA's, if all goes well, are going to be the 2+5+2 post variety with the angled ends and the light blue livery, that worked timber from (e.g.) Arrochar to Workington: I'm not sure whether these were ever used on flows from FW, but my line plugs into the WHL a bit further south. Also, the blue livery will be refreshing amid all the red-grey and bauxite brown.

Regards,
Mat

[Mark Davis]

Just finished using the model railway calculator program to list all my rolling stock!! Took a while.
Now trying to work out how to link the Hornby Brighton Belle coaches to my Dapol 'The Royal Alex.