John Ross
Western Thunderer
This box built in the 1880s controlled the junction going out of Elgin (county town in Moray). For here lines went to Lossiemouth the first railway in the North of Scotland opened in 1852. To Aberdeen by the inland route and also by a junction at Craigellachie along Speyside to Boat of Garten. With a third route again eventually to Aberdeen travelling along the Moray Firth Coast. In addition to these the box also over saw the comings and goings from Elgin MPD (61C), the local gas works and a coal yard.
The plan is to recreate a model of this box and its junction in 7mm that will be housed in my attic. To date a number of boards have been installed and a barrier constructed around the hatch in the loft to make certain that I do not exit that area faster than by use of the loft ladder. A box of track recovered from a previous layout lain sealed up since my house move in 2017 has been opened and laid out on the boards to see how practical building this model will be. Space wise the floored area of the loft runs the full area of my house. However, with thoughts of what is possible for me to build and maintain I have restricted the layout to a size of 18' x 14'.
I have been dabbling in railway modelling for over 50 years of which for the last 30 has been in 0 gauge so have a reasonable selection of models and the intention is to run 3 time periods spanning a ten year period. This enables a full steam for 1955, steam/diesel 1960 and diesel 1965. As I use and prefer 3-link couplings as you probably guessed that after all these years of modelling I have gone back to a train set with the trains running past the box to and from the fiddle yard.
Hopefully I have not bored you too much and by creating this thread it will hold me to the task of working on this layout as I will be committed updating the forum.
John
The plan is to recreate a model of this box and its junction in 7mm that will be housed in my attic. To date a number of boards have been installed and a barrier constructed around the hatch in the loft to make certain that I do not exit that area faster than by use of the loft ladder. A box of track recovered from a previous layout lain sealed up since my house move in 2017 has been opened and laid out on the boards to see how practical building this model will be. Space wise the floored area of the loft runs the full area of my house. However, with thoughts of what is possible for me to build and maintain I have restricted the layout to a size of 18' x 14'.
I have been dabbling in railway modelling for over 50 years of which for the last 30 has been in 0 gauge so have a reasonable selection of models and the intention is to run 3 time periods spanning a ten year period. This enables a full steam for 1955, steam/diesel 1960 and diesel 1965. As I use and prefer 3-link couplings as you probably guessed that after all these years of modelling I have gone back to a train set with the trains running past the box to and from the fiddle yard.
Hopefully I have not bored you too much and by creating this thread it will hold me to the task of working on this layout as I will be committed updating the forum.
John
