Good Morning


Looking through some old magazines in search of inspiration and I came across an article in September 2013 Railway Modeller on Ian Futers style layouts.

Although, I have been away from British modelling for at least 2 decades umm...I thought I can recall earlier layouts from the 1970's as mentioned such as Lochend and Ashleigh and some other others, names of which I cannot recall, built in EM and P4.

I wondered then, as I do now, how was the level of interest kept up given that they would be operationally limited.  I guess Ian interest was kept up by turning over layouts fairly rapidly.

Has anyone on this forum built 3 turnout (or maybe 4) layouts along the Futers' style?

Kind regards

Geoff

The layout I'm in the middle of building is an adaption of one of Ian's four point style layouts. He used the highlands to run a Minitrix class 27 into a terminus station which had a run-around loop, a bay siding and another back siding. All I have done is shifted it down south and put a load of hidden sidings and a reverse loop underneath so I don't have to handle the trains.

Operations are somewhat limited with such a small layout but realism can be achieved and that's what I try to get to. The one thing that used to frustrate me was the need for manual uncoupling. A principle reason for returning to N was automatic uncoupling, promised by Farish and only promised and achieved by Dapol. In my opinion, many a simple branch (GWR ?) is ruined by needing a hand from the sky to let the engine run around.

Just my personal take on things !

Have a look at the layout in my signature for an idea of a minimum space layout.
I dont feel limited. I can run any type of freight train along with any 2 car dmu. Have up to 5 trains on scene at a time. Shunt and operate a passenger service too