Hi boys and girls, 
First and foremost, let me introduce myself as this is my very first post here on this forum. I am something as exotic as a Swede building a British model railway. There are several reasons behind my decision to do this. When I began looking at building a model railway a few years ago my eyes instantly fell on the N-scale (more stuff in less space!). But there were almost no Swedish models at all. So I began looking abroad. Everyone seemed to build German layouts. I had no interest in that. But then I began looking at the British models, and I knew I had found what I wanted to do. I have been to the UK many times, I even know some people there. After some thought, I decided to model a small station somewhere along the northern parts of the WCLM, set in the 1970s or 80s when loco-hauled trains ruled the rails and BR ran everything.

So, my simple railway is starting to take shape. It's as simple as it gets: a double track main line passes through a small village. It's a very simple layout, with just the double track mainline going through the village and a hidden yard on the back side. With track laying and other work coming along nicely, I am now beginning to look for rolling stock.

My collection so far is made up by the Dapol class 86 in InterCity livery hauling a set of MK3s as a London - Glasgow express service. With the current track setup I am able to run up to 6 trains, which I think will be enough for a relatively varied timetable. There is going to be a mix of express, stopping and freight trains. Thanks to the size of the railway and the very simple track layout I am able to run full length trains (my current train is formed by a locomotive and 8 Mk3s). But which types of rolling stock were usually seen on these parts of the WCLM back then? My fictional village is roughly set somewhere between Preston and Carlisle.

All help is appreciated!

Excellent choice of era, and welcome to the NGF

You'll want a Mk1 buffet car to go with those Mk3s. Pretty much most trains on the WCML at the time had one in the middle. And maybe a Mk1 brake van at one end.

Otherwise all the Mk2 (a-c and d-f variants) you can get hold of, and probably Mk1s as well. Blue/grey livery will cover most of that period, and for the mid/late 1980s you can mix in Intercity livery. You can probably get away with mixed rakes of Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3, the later the era the higher the proportion of air-conditioned coaches (i.e. Mk2 d-f and Mk3), but pretty much always a Mk1 brake van and Mk1 buffet.

Search Google images for "wcml 1980s passenger train" and that should give you a good idea; ignore any results showing Virgin or other weird modern liveries.

FWIW Dapol has some Mk3 Intercity coaches on offer; IIRC they are marked Intercity 125 but are actually loco-hauled versions and the "125" bit is an error; Hattons still has the NSE-liveried 86 on offer.

Sounds like Oxenholme to me...

Farish have been promising an 87 in blue and one in intercity for a while, but who knows.
I managed to get a blue 87 from an earlier production run but the intercity ones seem rarer.
Dapol made a blue 86 exclusively for C&M Models in Carlisle, but I believe they are all sold out.

Notable freight would be the Steel Coil trains from Ravenscraig double headed by 86's or 87's, freightliners.

If you can stretch to the end of the 80's you could get an Intercity class 90.

Unfortunately there are no RTR 81s or 85s but these would have been seen as well.

G'day from Australia, Blillpers! Welcome to the NGF! Your layout sounds great, especially location, and period (said he, biting lip  )

Can't wait to see pics and hear of developments! 

Welcome to the forum!

You might find this video useful for ideas:


Trains In The 1980's Rugby Spring 1989, Part 1

Darren also has other videos of the WCML in the 1980s on his channel.
Incidentally we still run most of the old WCML Mk3 stock in my local area in East Anglia.

hi I used to live neargalgate, between preston and Lancaster

http://www.abcrailwayguide.co.uk/bridge/CGJ6.78.1

http://www.railbrit.co.uk/locationnew.php?loc=Galgate

I used to see class 81, 85s, then 86s with mk1s and mk2s. could go on and on about what stock to run eg cross country stock, Euston - glasgows, freightliners

On the upside, repainting things into yellow-endy blue is pretty straightforward, but you might not wish to repaint a brand new model. And there might be detail differences to be dealt with.
For my blue 87 I bought a Farish Virgin 87 that was on sale cheap and got a blue body off ebay and just swapped the parts over.

Many thanks for all the help! I would never have thought about having Mk1s with the Mk3s, but after some searching I see that the Mk3 buffet coaches were introduced in 79-80, so for my layout Mk1s would make for a more varying consist. I've seen some photos of blue/grey and intercity liveries appearing in the same trains, so I think I'll go for that as well, especially since the only Mk1s I can find are in blue/grey.

Two main formations; one for Cross Country and one for West Coast

Cross Country :
BSO-TSO-TSO-TSO-TSO-RFO

West Coast :
DVT-FO-FO-FO-RFM-TSO-TSO-TSO-TSO-TSO

The buffet on the Mark 2 Coach is contained within the RFO, these were converted in the late 1980s

Virgin Crosscountrys' mark 2 rakes were formed of an mark 2F RFB micro-buffet vehicle, 5 TSOs and a BSO.

no mark 2 buffet or restaurant vehicles were originally built, but at the end of the eighties thirty two mark 2F FOs were converted into the first buffets that were used in the Crosscountry rakes.

On the West Coast, mark 2 rakes were typically nine carriages in length, and in late Intercity and early Virgin days utilised a mark 3 catering vehicle in their formation. They were typically formed of 5 x Mark 2 TSOs, a mark 3 RFM vehicle, and 3 x Mark 2 FOs, with a DVT at the London end, adjacent to the first class accomodation.

The mark 3 DVTs were utilised with all the West Coast mark 3 rakes, and with most, and maybe all, of the West Coast mark 2 rakes, while the Crosscountry rakes made use of BSOs for luggage storage.

Trains regularly ran in reverse formation, or shortformed, or with locos heading DVTs with TDM failures, or with locos hauling failed locos. It was even not unknown for an entire West Coast mark 3 rake, complete with DVT

In general, the West Coast mark 2 rakes were kept largely to the shorter distance services, such as Euston to Birmingham (A notable stronghold of the mark 2 rakes) and Manchester. The West Coast class 86s were also limited principally to these shorter distance services, although 87s, and presumably an occasional 90, could also turn up at New Street.

However, Virgin liveried class 86s could be found along the full length of the West Coast route as they worked the shorter Crosscountry mark 2 formations from Birmingham and Manchester to Edinburgh and Glasgow: In the loco hauled days of Virgin Crosscountry, Birmingham and Manchester to Edinburgh/Glasgow were both part of the Crosscountry network, and Birmingham to Scotland services were part of a longer distance service from the South Coast.

The class 87s were of course built specifically to power the Euston to Glasgow services, and throughout their lives on the West Coast they remained the dominant form of motive power on these services. At one time in the nineties, every Euston to Scotland service was booked for a class 87, although what services were booked for and what actually turned up were often very different things. Mark 3 rakes were mainly used on the Glasgow services, and also played a large part on the Manchester and Liverpool services.

there was of course no mark 2 buffet or restaurant vehicles were originally built, but at the end of the eighties thirty two mark 2F FOs were converted into the first buffets that were used in the Crosscountry rakes.

On the West Coast, mark 2 rakes were typically nine carriages in length, and in late Intercity and early Virgin days utilised a mark 3 catering vehicle in their formation. They were typically formed of 5 x Mark 2 TSOs, a mark 3 RFM vehicle, and 3 x Mark 2 FOs, with a DVT at the London end, adjacent to the first class accomodation.

The mark 3 DVTs were utilised with all the West Coast mark 3 rakes, and with most, and maybe all, of the West Coast mark 2 rakes, while the Crosscountry rakes made use of BSOs for luggage storage.

However, Virgin liveried class 86s could be found along the full length of the West Coast route as they worked the shorter Crosscountry mark 2 formations from Birmingham and Manchester to Edinburgh and Glasgow: In the loco hauled days of Virgin Crosscountry, Birmingham and Manchester to Edinburgh/Glasgow were both part of the Crosscountry network, and Birmingham to Scotland services were part of a longer distance service from the South Coast.

The class 87s were of course built specifically to power the Euston to Glasgow services, and throughout their lives on the West Coast they remained the dominant form of motive power on these services. At one time in the nineties, every Euston to Scotland service was booked for a class 87, although what services were booked for and what actually turned up were often very different things. Mark 3 rakes were mainly used on the Glasgow services, and also played a large part on the Manchester and Liverpool services.

there was of course the mk 1 / mk 2 Nottingham glasgow

Welcome to the forum from a Lancastrian (well, a blow in I'm told)

For freight you could look into container and parcels traffic, bulk tankers, permanent way, fish etc.
How about the odd steam special, too?

For extra interest there's the trains that split at carstairs to consider, which would have a brake coach in the middle.
And sleepers.

Lots of great information here. But a few extra comments:

You'll need a BR blue 86. Pretty much ubiquitous through the 70s and 80s. C&M Models did two versions of the blue 86/2 that was operating at this time, both sold out now unfortunately. Repainting one of the other Dapol 86 is slightly complicated because these are usually 86/4s equipped with extra lights and front-end cables that they didn't have during the BR blue period. Nothing you can't file off and paint over, but worth bearing in mind.

Mixing Mk2 and Mk1 coaches was very common during this time frame, but unfortunately the models are slightly different in height, and the resulting trains look a bit disappointing.

Nowadays containerised freight dominates on the WCML, and it was also extremely important during the 80s as well. But some Speedlink trains would be realistic, as well as some of the more interesting specialised services such as steel trains. Some of the Class 86s, the 86/0s, were dedicated freight machines by the 80s because of problems with their high speed running. The 86/0s had different (poorer) suspension than the other 86 subclasses, so modelling these particular locomotives would be a challenge. On the other hand, 86/2s sometimes ran freight trains, and 86/4s were quite common on parcels traffic.

Cheers, NeMo

ON HAS TO ALSO think which mk1s / mk2s had which brake types eg vacuum / dual

Looking at the 1984 timetable, there were a couple of services form Nottingham through to Edinburgh/Glasgow.

Northbound

Mon-Sat
0727 - Glasgow C. 1405 / Edinburgh 1411
1043 (0717 from Harwich PQ) The European - Glasgow C. 1710 / Edinburgh 1710

Sun
1517 - Glasgow C. 2150 / Edinburgh 2150

Southbound

Mon - Fri
1110 from Edinburgh / 1120 from Glasgow C via Nottingham at 1735 to Harwich PQ (2110) The European
1510 from Edinburgh / 1520 from Glasgow C to Nottingham at 2144.

Sun
1605 from Edinburgh / 1620 from Glasgow C to Nottingham at 2238.

All of the above were via Manchester Victoria and Bolton and would split / join at Carstairs.

these trains were loco hauled with an electric locomotive to preston
then class 45 / class 47 Preston, then ran via Chorley, Bolton, Manchester Victoria, Phillips Park Jcts, Ashburys, Belle Vue then Hope Valley. many more permutations

In addition to earlier thoughts you might like to consider parcels/mail trains.  Back in the 1970s these would've been formed of all sorts of designs of carriage, full brakes and general utility vans would be OK as long as they were in blue or blue and grey. 

Then of course there were the overnight sleeping trains.  These would've been of Mk1s, both first and second class, along with a few ordinary passenger carriages, probably composites rather than opens in order to provide a more quieter environment.

If you were to do a sleeper train remember that passengers will have pulled the blinds or curtains so you would need to think about replicating that, I suggest taking the coaches apart and painting the inside of the windows.  Sorry but cannot remember what colours you'd need, possibly orange for curtains.

And finally on overnight trains you could legitimately run some one off additional passenger services.  I remember being at Crewe one night whilst on the way to Glasgow when a Class 85 pulled in with about 8 composite coaches, one a brake composite, with almost no-one aboard.  Needless to say I ran for it and having a composite all to myself I had a very peaceful ride north.

Nigel

please do ask if you need help, photos,  we may have reference material