Project 45C

Premise

To depict the grimy network of the movement of freight or secondary routing of passenger traffic in its first guise. There are contrasting periods of operation from 1955 to the current day. Ideally this is a night time view. The layout is in the round.

34' represents two 8 road steam sheds each at both ends of an 11 road marshalling yard. The other 34' run represents diesel operation with a 2 road (Peco) Gronk depot, a 2 road (Peco) TMD, a 4 road wagon repair depot (4 Peco depots) and a (Bachmann) 2 road paint shop. There are 2 fuelling points.

At one end is a nuclear fuels secure loading/unloading facility with a crane

at the other end are 2 x 4 road yards for Network Rail wagons which lead into an old goods depot being converted to a NR facility. There is also an oil terminal.

There are illuminations on all boards with various appropriate vehicles and internal trucks that have working hazards and lights. Various cameos are dotted around the layout for amusement. Scenic work has been created on every board with greenery only there as appropriate. 

Signalling is mainly 2 colour aspect with 2 gantries with feathers based on sensors in the track. 

The objective of the project team is to generate funds for wounded Royal Marines through a bona fide charity The Royal Marines Charitable Truist Fund. Every penny donated goes to the charity which is run by volunteers in the naval base at Portsmouth.

To enhance the image of the charity the layout is bedecked with RM 5'x3' flags.

 

To assist exhibition managers the layout can represent either a mixture of steam and modern image or just modern image  with the steam sheds being used by the green era including first generation DMU's. There are a considerable number of DCC fitted locos covering every class of loco/diesel made by manufacturers in this past decade plus some kit built locos from Wills and Golden Arrow. There is also a fleet of private owner diesel locos. The intention is to have every loco weathered which is around 70% at present. Wagons are at 90%.

It takes between 5 to 7 hours to erect it and has to have a 3.5T van with a tail lift to transport it. Ideally it takes 5 people to erect and dismantle with up to 8 persons to operate it. We try to operate it as you would on a real railway with a fat controller and a number two with one or two shunting wagons into consists and the rest on the 6 hand controllers.

 

For those of us interested in what goods and services were used to put this layout together the following may be of some help:

Baseboards 9 are 3'x7' 2 are 6'6"x3' and one is split into 2x3'6" with one inverted making a total of 34' x 13'6"

made up of 2x1 wooden frames with 9mm marine 3 ply topped by 9mm Sundeala. Each board has 3mm angle iron to minimise warping.

There are 4 legs one to each corner 2x2 with adjustable feet and held with cross struts. Plus 17 adjustable metal trestles purchased mainly from ALDI.

Transportation is in a welded frame of shelving strengthened with metal cross struts with welded plates to spread the load.

Trackwork is mainly Peco flexitrack code 100 with some set track (we are gradually eliminating this). Points are Peco with some Hornby (eliminating these as well). There are 2 double slips and 11x3 way points. Power droppers used go into a choc block then into the bus.

Wiring Around 1500 metres of wiring (Rapid Electronics via Ebay) is involved mainly using bakalite choc blocks (China through Ebay) and camden boss connectors (CPC Electronics). Recently for the lighting we have been using Wago connectors (China via Ebay). 

There is 3 x DCC02 (Gaugemaster) power districts at 16v. 1 x 3v DC. 1x12v DC and 6v lighting uses a stepdown unit into the 12v bus. CDUs' have a 16v DC bus.

Point Motors total 132 are a mixture of Peco and Seep motors (Gaugemaster). Driven by 5 CDUs' (Gaugemaster). Most points are insulfrog. The 5 electrofrog 3 way points are powered through 2 frog juicers (Tam Valley Depot) an excellent product when there are no wiring experts around.

Control panels are laser cut track diagrams on MDF x 5 using SPDT toggle switches (CPC) wired into 11 breakout boards (China via Ebay) and connected by 25 pin Dsubs (RS components)

Lighting is a mixture of 3v (LED) 6v and 12v (LED). All lamps come from China via Ebay as bulk purchases. Tower lights x 10 from Express Models.

Buildings are mainly commercial resin with some highly detailed scratch built items loaned to us from Chris Longson.

P.S.

Joining me on this journey which started with myself and my son came Neil who is our welder, builder and took responsibility in fitting all the point motors and started correcting a lot of my poor joinery. Volunteers from the Wrenbury MRC then joined being Chris G who will turn his hand to most things once shown how, Paul who started by doing the bulk of the soldering of the wiring along with all five control panels. He is now the signalling department. Alan walked with us for a short period instilling in me the rigour required in checking everything and advising us on where to place signals. Howard has been our saviour donating the use of a cabin that can house most of the layout and has realigned and replaced a lot of my naive trackwork as well as his carpentry skills. Finally Chris L joined the team and with his expertise has raised the bar with his modelling skills and micro lighting effects. All these good people give of their time and money in pursuit of the worthy cause and the opportunity to develop their own ideas on such a large layout.

The design of it was by chance as each board was made track went down and was rejigged until it felt right. Having looked at hundreds of layouts at exhibitions one stood out - Tonbridge West Yard - and freight became the theme as it is rarely represented on a large scale at exhibitions. As the objective was donations and fun to run the emerging plan became eclectic but able to be reasonably accurate if needs be. It will be a busy layout as there are numerous ways of building consists but initially we will have 20 consists and 40+ other wagons to make up loads such as nuclear and network rail. Around 60 locos will be on the layout at any one time. I am truly grateful to the team for joining me on this journey and to Warley MRC for believing in the concept and to where it is now 2 years on. I hope that the journey continues as this is still work in progress. A few have helped with advice, discounts and donations. I have met others who said it was an impossible task. I took this as a sign of their own limits in modelling as I had no experience or understanding of the task ahead of me but as a former Royal Marine you are trained for the long haul and no fear. As the saying goes "it's a state of mind". Thank you.