What region/area/period is your favourite ?

[longbridge]

Fictitious railroad called "Utah Central Railroad", Black livery, located in Utah USA about the 1970s

[EtchedPixels]

BR blue, summer 1976 (it was the hottest that I remember, got burnt on the IOW) so I can run locos with TOPS numbers and headcodes.

Headcodes were over by then, but the last few Westerns were on their last trips (with 10xx headcodes), the 56's had just arrived from Romania and promptly fallen to bits, and the first HST services were just beginning, but not yet out west.

(My last layout funnily enough was summer of '76)

I do have fond memories of 1973-1976 watching freight in the evening at Teignmouth.

Alan

[4x2]

BR blue, summer 1976 (it was the hottest that I remember, got burnt on the IOW) so I can run locos with TOPS numbers and headcodes.

Headcodes were over by then, but the last few Westerns were on their last trips (with 10xx headcodes), the 56's had just arrived from Romania and promptly fallen to bits, and the first HST services were just beginning, but not yet out west.

(My last layout funnily enough was summer of '76)

I do have fond memories of 1973-1976 watching freight in the evening at Teignmouth.

Alan

What about you then EP ? You seem to have a very unusual collection of loco's and stock... i'd love to know more !

[Pete Mc]

My layout is predominantly BR Blue TOPS to Railfreight Red Stripe.This is my favourite era and based on the east coast mainline around the South Yorkshire area.This way I can combine my favouite era for both trains and buses,the livery for these was brown and cream for SYPTE and red for Yorkshire Traction.I'm not a bus enthusiast or anything but,again,these were what was running around our way when I was a kid on the roads as were BR Blue on the railways.The spot on the mainline that I used to spend quite a bit of time watching trains go by was Bessacarr Junction about a half mile further down from where the Doncaster-Lincoln line crosses the main East Coast mainline.In this area we got to see alnost all loco's and rolling stock that graced the lines around south yorkshire prior to electrification.
Pete

[Roy L S]

Mine is the BR Eastern Region and specifically The Waverley Route during the period mid 1950's to mid 1960's. Lots of big ex LNER Pacifics plus B1s V2s K3s and a whole host of others, plus early Diesels like Peaks, 26s and the ubiquitous Class 47s. all battling the terrain and elements in that often bleak part of the world...

[EtchedPixels]

I can never make my mind up

Right now I've got a small microlayout for pre-grouping bits (85cm x 12cm) + fiddle which is actually mostly finished at this point. Still have to add the gateway to the poorhouse and finish the stack of coffins. That's built to be generic and sometimes runs LB&SCR or LSWR or early GWR depending how I feel. There's a second microlayout (Llanast)  which is a piano line design that is more of a shunting puzzle, and a third half built one (East Portillo) which is designed to look nasty 80/90's inner city. The final one I've just disassembled was a small BP&GV layout designed to use very small shunters and insanely tight curves. Unfortunately having turned a Farish 08 into an 08/9 its too sharp for the curves and the initial fix was a botch. It wants doing properly with easitrac and 6-7" hidden curves instead.

The actual layout proper I'm finally building now (a year and a half after it moving) has a current era 'what if' Snow Hill on one side. The idea being that the original Snow Hill merely got rationalised and the lines out survived. Part of one side (the bit that won't fit my 50cm width limit) has been deemed turned into offices and shops, and the rest then struggled on before expanding as New Street jammed up - becoming the Birmingham HS2 terminal, the logical route for the Arriva services and the London-Aberystwyth and other proposed things. The other side is Wadebridge roughly as it was in the late 1970s but without the two long sidings in front of the station (no space for them) and designed so once it's built it can operate in different BR green/blue modes plus modern and modern/preserved by the addition of the odd buffer stop and swap of a building. Not that I've built the buildings yet - my planned trip to Wadebridge last year didn't materialise due to university coursework pressure.

Plus various random entirely unrelated things like small black kit tank engines and other kit builds because I enjoy building kits, also because all the Ultima and Etched Pixels ones need testing so I tend to end up with various oddments. I've no idea for example how I'll ever fit the blue suburbans into anything I build !

The old layout was Devon/Cornwallish in 1976, which was fun but is now defunct, demolished and I need to sell more of the stock off to buy stuff for the modern era shiny colourful stuff.

There is a logic here I guess - both pregroup and modern have the best liveries and a sense of happening and progress, while the 1960/70s stuff (Wadebridge) can try and capture the dismal post Beeching era.

Mostly I just like making things - Snow Hill will be fun because I've no idea at all how I'll do the canopies etc even though I'm only doing one end of it.

Alan

[4x2]

Wow ! That is quite a collection... I love this... 

Right now I've got a small microlayout for pre-grouping bits (85cm x 12cm) + fiddle which is actually mostly finished at this point. Still have to add the gateway to the poorhouse and finish the stack of coffins.

What a dark sounding layout - brilliant !

Also like the idea of very tight curves, shunting locos etc bit like a port or industiral site. Thats something i've wanted to try for a while, along with the hundreds of other great ideas i get on daily basis... Should write a book really ! 

[EtchedPixels]

Wow ! That is quite a collection... I love this... 

Right now I've got a small microlayout for pre-grouping bits (85cm x 12cm) + fiddle which is actually mostly finished at this point. Still have to add the gateway to the poorhouse and finish the stack of coffins.

What a dark sounding layout - brilliant !

Right now its far too jolly hence the need for the addition.

I think the darkest plan I ever did but haven't ever had time to build is a passenger station by a food factory (Soylent Green)

[4x2]

Loving this too ! 

I think the darkest plan I ever did but haven't ever had time to build is a passenger station by a food factory (Soylent Green)

[BobB]

Hi Etched Pixels

You're right, the head codes were officially over by summer '76 but we still could see trains with them, a lot set to 0000 (or was it 0O00). I wonder if the reluctance of drivers to set the head code panels to blank or 0000 was why they became domino after a while. Seemed to be a bit of an unnecessary expense. It could have been because the displays were often a bit strange - maybe the drivers were just not setting them correctly and the confusion caused the change.

As I understand things, the powered signal boxes displayed the code on their mimic diagrams which is why they were regarded as redundant on the actual trains. Are they still displayed to the signalmen ?

BobB

[Portpatrick]

Definitely 1953-63 ish.  As for Region, Scottish of either side.

[Newportnobby]

Late 50's/early 60's steam/green diesel. Western Region with visitors from Southern, Midland and Eastern Region.
A sort of catch all

[darren.c]

it must be the 90s on the southern region spent many a day at clapham watching 50s 33s going down the south west,thumpers epbs and double headed freights
im glad i got so much of that time on film

daz

[tadpole]

Expose me to any railway for long enough (15 mins usually deos the trick) and it'll become my favourite for a while at least. For sheer staying power, though, it has to be SR around Farnborough/Aldershot in BR blue days. This area/time also had the best buses (Aldershot & District). Every little helps.

Then


came along and spoiled it all (sorry Tank).

[TimothyB]

For me it has to be British Railways Southern Region, evoking happy memories of a long distant childhood standing on the footbridge over the main Waterloo to Woking Main Line, just outside Wimbledon watching a variety of Bullied and Britannia Pacifics on the main routes mixed with EPBs on the suburbans plus the odd deisel - all green back then (early 1960's) with the occasional maroon coach don't recall any Blood & Custards.

Didn't realise back then that steam days were coming to an end - so never thought to take my camera along.