Easterner
Western Thunderer
Good Afternoon,
I thought I would share with you something I have been working on in the background, and seeing’s as I sent my form off to wild Swan this afternoon it was a good time to share the progress so far.
So, Easton Mill is a small 7mm layout designed based somewhere on the Great Eastern in the late 1950’s. I have provisionally named the layout Easton Mill, as it is a small town not far from the Framlingham Branch and part of the layout will incorporate a mill style building. The Framlingham branch, along with stations such as Lavenham and Saffron Walden are all areas I have took an interest in and researched in the past and will probably, one day lend up as the basis for a long term layout so hence another reason for basing the layout on the Great Eastern and from around that area.
The layout has been designed to show, what I hope can be achieved in 7mm within the constraints of a small space, whilst still being operationally interesting and what I hope will create the atmosphere of a real location.
The layout will be built across 2, 4ft x 2ft 6” baseboards which is coincidentally the size a culvert in one of my rooms, and hopefully at this size will still fit anywhere inside a small house should I move in the meantime. Unfortunately this is going to form a nasty break right across the scenic part of the layout and back scene, but on the other hand was something I was probably never going to get away without on a 7mm Layout.
Having seen Tim Horns baseboard previously used on another, larger 7mm project I am involved in, I have decided that main part of the layouts infrastructure will be ordered from Tim, thus reducing time and also because my woodwork standards will never be up to that of a laser cutter! However, all is not that simple as I plan to make a few modifications to the boards before/after assembly, these include:
Once all that’s complete, I then will need to build or at least design before the layout develops to much how I am going to encase the layout. The current plan is to fit a 6 or 9mm end to each of the baseboards at the height of the backscene/lighting pelmet, then a joined to these will be a curved backscene which will disguise the sector plate and storage siding – My idea for where the backscene will go is shown loosely in black on this Templot screenshot.
The layout will be based on 31.5mm standards, mainly because this is what other modellers use in my area and makes sense if I want to run stock in or on any of their layouts. I plan to make the layout both DC and DCC operation, but my intention is to use DCC to allow the aid of sound.
Scenically, I plan to build a large mill style building or warehouse on the left hand siding, something along the lines of the warehouse/mill on Monks Eleigh. I plan to have a few trees modelled at the end of this too further disguise the sector plate and perhaps a few infront of the siding, towards the middle of the layout and around the pond area as previosuly mentioned to break up the view. The back road will contain a small water tower at the end closest to the sector plate, again surrounded by a few overgrown shrubs and trees and as we move to the right of the layout I am planning to model a raised loading bay with a few run down goods facilities, similar to those on the back sidings at Framlingham or Saffron Walden or if not a larger goods shed with a canopy of some descript although this is the part I am not fully decided on.
I don't think the layout will be signalled, I think the points will be operated in the style of yard levers, as I think point rodding and signals would be an over complication. I'm open to others ideas/suggestions on this as I wouldn't mind making the odd ground signal and a bit of rodding for practice for future layouts.
I will go into the depth of operation, stock and progress on other parts in separate updates/a bit later as I feel like there is already enough to digest above!
I look forward to hearing peoples thoughts and comments on what has been proposed so far
I thought I would share with you something I have been working on in the background, and seeing’s as I sent my form off to wild Swan this afternoon it was a good time to share the progress so far.
So, Easton Mill is a small 7mm layout designed based somewhere on the Great Eastern in the late 1950’s. I have provisionally named the layout Easton Mill, as it is a small town not far from the Framlingham Branch and part of the layout will incorporate a mill style building. The Framlingham branch, along with stations such as Lavenham and Saffron Walden are all areas I have took an interest in and researched in the past and will probably, one day lend up as the basis for a long term layout so hence another reason for basing the layout on the Great Eastern and from around that area.
The layout has been designed to show, what I hope can be achieved in 7mm within the constraints of a small space, whilst still being operationally interesting and what I hope will create the atmosphere of a real location.
The layout will be built across 2, 4ft x 2ft 6” baseboards which is coincidentally the size a culvert in one of my rooms, and hopefully at this size will still fit anywhere inside a small house should I move in the meantime. Unfortunately this is going to form a nasty break right across the scenic part of the layout and back scene, but on the other hand was something I was probably never going to get away without on a 7mm Layout.
Having seen Tim Horns baseboard previously used on another, larger 7mm project I am involved in, I have decided that main part of the layouts infrastructure will be ordered from Tim, thus reducing time and also because my woodwork standards will never be up to that of a laser cutter! However, all is not that simple as I plan to make a few modifications to the boards before/after assembly, these include:
- A falling away hill at the front right hand side of the layout with the possibility of a small over grown pond similar to that of a picture I have come across, somewhere on the Mid Suffolk I believe - I have attached an image at the end of the post to illustrate this.
- A section for a sector plate needs to be removed from the back corner to allow access to the run around loop and storage side which will be disguised by a back scene. Alternatively I need to use a thicker material as an underlay for the scenic part of the layout and just fix a length of 6mm ply to the top of the baseboard and make it up to the same height as the underlay.
- Thirdly, I may cut out a slot in the storage siding on the right hand board to allow cassettes to be used, however this may be a little over the top for the stock required but would be easier to do before construction.
Once all that’s complete, I then will need to build or at least design before the layout develops to much how I am going to encase the layout. The current plan is to fit a 6 or 9mm end to each of the baseboards at the height of the backscene/lighting pelmet, then a joined to these will be a curved backscene which will disguise the sector plate and storage siding – My idea for where the backscene will go is shown loosely in black on this Templot screenshot.
The layout will be based on 31.5mm standards, mainly because this is what other modellers use in my area and makes sense if I want to run stock in or on any of their layouts. I plan to make the layout both DC and DCC operation, but my intention is to use DCC to allow the aid of sound.
Scenically, I plan to build a large mill style building or warehouse on the left hand siding, something along the lines of the warehouse/mill on Monks Eleigh. I plan to have a few trees modelled at the end of this too further disguise the sector plate and perhaps a few infront of the siding, towards the middle of the layout and around the pond area as previosuly mentioned to break up the view. The back road will contain a small water tower at the end closest to the sector plate, again surrounded by a few overgrown shrubs and trees and as we move to the right of the layout I am planning to model a raised loading bay with a few run down goods facilities, similar to those on the back sidings at Framlingham or Saffron Walden or if not a larger goods shed with a canopy of some descript although this is the part I am not fully decided on.
I don't think the layout will be signalled, I think the points will be operated in the style of yard levers, as I think point rodding and signals would be an over complication. I'm open to others ideas/suggestions on this as I wouldn't mind making the odd ground signal and a bit of rodding for practice for future layouts.
I will go into the depth of operation, stock and progress on other parts in separate updates/a bit later as I feel like there is already enough to digest above!
I look forward to hearing peoples thoughts and comments on what has been proposed so far