Hrm..., Marshbrook...

After a conversation on RMWeb, there's also this alternative....

Marshbrook, as it was in the '30s.

Yes, yes. I know. Make your %^&*()ing mind up, Mike :D

In other news,. just scored a Millholme Models LNWR 4-6-2T kit on eBay.

2018 announcements, planning

*sigh*

No love for the GWR this year from Bachmann or Hornby, and Dapol are releasing their own versions of things that already exist and I already have (61xx, Churchward Mogul).

Ah well, still got some catching up to do on LMS stock - the Webb coal tank from Bachmann is lovely, new since I took a break and ubiquitous on the area I like. Now if someone would make a Cauliflower....

Picked up an online PDF of the GWR 1936 working timetable for the Shrewsbury/Hereford area, which is fascinating reading (very distracting from what I'm supposed to be doing!).

I have drawn up the Five Year Plan (aka what happens when the tenant in the workshop gets to the point where they need more space and moves out), and the short term part of it is to go back to my original plan of building Longville on the Wenlock Branch, only on an 8'x2' (so plenty of room for scenery). I've been reading John de Frayssinet's "Scenic Modelling: A Guide for Railway Modellers", which is very inspiring, as it talks about the Pendon-esque approach of making the railway a part of the landscape. Recommended reading.

Track Plan 2

Just idly considering two other options:

• taking the right hand end right round the corner and along the workbench, which gives me an extra 10' of main line run and room for Wistanstow Halt. If I can do that, though, I can cut it down a bit, and try for....
• a roundy-roundy with fiddle yard in 12' x 8' or so. My first run at a station plan with runaround loops for 6 coaches looks to be about 20' long, but it could be bent in the middle....

Track Plan

So, after a skim through Cooke section 63, I've reached a few conclusions...

I do actually have about 35' of length in the music room, and I can turn the corner at both ends for a fiddle yard (one end has a piano, the other is used for stacking flightcases, which in both cases will fit underneath) - basically a very stretched, inverted U

Essentially the layout of Craven Arms from south to north goes:

• south-facing junction, South Wales line off to west
• main station
• level crossing
• relief roads/goods loop
• north-facing junction, Bishop's Castle branch off to west
• Wistanstow Halt
• north-facing junction (Marsh Farm), Wenlock branch off to east and an up loop.

My mental map has had the southern end at the right hand end of the U, but I'm starting to think that's less practical if I want to slip the Bishop's Castle branch in, since it can come off a bit short of the right hand end and vanish behind the backscene to a two road fiddle yard, whereas the Wenlock Branch can curve round to the main fiddle yard.

Assuming I have 30' of clear run (allowing for turns into the fiddle yards on both ends), if I can fit the South Wales junction, main station and relief roads in 16', that leaves about 14' of open country to fit the two north junctions in. I might even have room for Wistanstow Halt. The Wenlock branch can actually round the corner in front of the main fiddleyard and have its own small (4', 3 road) yard.

Prototype and period

I've always (as I said) been a GWR fan. I've also always been a lover of the Shropshire hills, ever since I read the Malcolm Saville Lone Pine books as a kid (in case you were wondering, that's where the station name comes from!). The fact that the Welsh Marches line down from Shrewsbury was LMS/GWR joint just makes it even better, since there's more scope for stock - small (and bigger) boys like variety.

As far as period goes? Fed up to the back teeth of variations on BR black and green, not to mention BR standard classes. Also don't really like the GWR or shirtbutton logos (not that the latter lasted long, or even made it on to many locos), so it's 1935 or earlier for me. Which is quite cool, since it basically means I can avoid the (to me ugly) LMS Pacifics, and the Hawksworth-era GWR stuff, while just squeezing in the Black 5, Jubilee and 8F on the LMS side. Technically, no Kings, either, since the line wasn't rated for them. More fun, though, the Bishop's Castle railway just hasn't closed, so I have an excuse for some four wheel coaches of some sort and maybe a saddle tank.

Craven Arms junction is ... actually, it's insane. From the north you have the main line, the Bishop's Castle line, and the GWR's Much Wenlock branch (about 2 miles north), and just south of the station the LMS's South Wales line turns off to the west, while the main line carries on to Hereford. The actual track plan is probably achievable in N, or in 00 if I actually don't ever want to make music in the music room again - which isn't going to happen.

So, the plan is a track plan based on a cut-down Craven Arms (losing at the least some of the carriage sidings, a couple of roads in the LMS shed, most of the GWR goods yard and the coal sidings, as well as reducing the rather insane 8 parallel tracks (goods loops, goods shed, Knighton road) at the north end of the station down to a more manageable 4. If I shoot for 24' of visible layout, that gives me room for two 6' or 8' fiddle yards and five or six coach trains. On 2'6" wide boards, I should be able to get 8' of station, with a couple of feet of faff at the southern end for the South Wales junction, another 6' of faff for the north end of the station, and then maybe 6'-8' of countryside, which has to include the Bishop's Castle and Much Wenlock junctions. The latter can disappear behind a backscene to a 3' fiddle yard while the BC branch can run parallel to the main line before disappearing into the main fiddle yard.

Time to stump up the shareware fee for RailModeller, I think, and see how practical that is.

Introduction

So, what's Onnybrook Junction?

It's a fictional junction roughly where Craven Arms is in real life, on the LMS/GWR joint line between Shrewsbury and Hereford.

I've been a fan of railway modelling for ages, but never really sat down to do anything serious about it. My dad built a 14'x9' 'roundy roundy' in our sun lounge for me when I was in my early teens, which never got beyond white painted baseboards (I believe Mum insisted on that!) and cardboard platforms, on a mix of Peco Streamline and Triang Super 4 (some of the former may well get reused!). Since then, I've not really had the time or space to do more than cast covetous glances at odd copies of Railway Modeller on the train. Well, that and pick up a Hornby 2721 class pannier which has been sitting in my desk drawer un-run for 7 years.

This year, however, my son (who's coming on 10) wants a train set for Christmas. The wife paid a visit to Trains4U here in Peterborough and came back with loads of information which, bless her, she assumed I didn't know and proceeded to explain to me in great detail for 20 mins. In which, of course, I wasn't allowed to get a word in edgeways! Having (tactfully) explained that yes, I knew most of that (in fact, had forgotten more of it than she knew), it was decided (I was told, in other words) that James was getting a decent DCC train set. It also turned out that Anne's idea of 'decent' was surprisingly, not 'something laid on the carpet for the cats to play with'.

So. Much discussion later, it was agreed that we'd get him one of the Hornby sets and a temporary 6'x4' baseboard for the TrakMat that would sit on the seldom-used dining room table. and IF he showed an interest (pause for behind-the-hand paternal laughter here!) we'd look at something a little more substantial and permanent.

Result, I'd say. Our house is a late-1800s place with an outbuilding, and at least two useable 12'x12' rooms in the main house. There's nowhere really practical for a continuous loop, but I don't see that as a problem. For a while, I toyed with 2 x 6'x2' and 2 x 6'x1' round the walls of one of the 12' square rooms in a U: eventually, though, I think I've settled on the music room. The music room is about 12'x'35' in one of the outbuildings, but about 2' of the width is taken up with amps and speaker cabinets, so I have an eye on a 2' or 2'6" wide run down one long wall and round a corner. Some building work may be necessary first, since one wall is somewhat damp due to a slightly leaky roof.

But that's later. For now... off to Trains4U.