dmudriver
Member
Good evening.
I've recently joined Western Thunder and, having a layout of my own, I thought it might be of interest to other members. I don't want to just take ideas from others, maybe some of mine can help others as well.
The layout's name is as above. It's based on the real West Kirby which is on the Wirral and is part of the Merseyrail network. So why West Kirby? Well, I was born and bred in Liverpool and we had relatives who lived on the Wirral. We'd always go by train to see them and often ended up at West Kirby. The track layout really fascinated me - a double track approach to an offset island platform, including a single slip and with 3 storage sidings.
The layout is based in the late 70s/early 80s and is, basically, blue diesel. The real location is on the third rail network but I have not modelled that for 2 reasons: 1) in that period the services were run by Class 503s and there are no RTR 503s or even kits of them - in 7mm, anyway; 2) just running the same units in and out would get boring rather quickly. My main interest in railway modelling is operations, particularly passenger terminal operations. "Roundy roundy" layouts are not my thing at all - useful for running locos in but then I get bored!! (that's the second time I've used that word in quick succession!!)
The EMUs on the real thing are replaced on my model by DMUs and to add interest to the operation, I've added a DMU stabling point and, in addition, I run a couple of loco-hauled rakes of stock: one is passenger, made up of 4x Mark 1s and the other is parcels, made up of 4 bogie parcels vehicles. Finally, to add a real bit of variety, there's a preserved steam rake: this is a model of "The Welsh Dragon" which ran between Rhyl and Llandudno - again, something from my childhood: I used to see it when we had our holidays in Colwyn Bay.
The layout has been under construction since 2012 and is nowhere near finished yet. I'm not going to give a blow-by-blow account (is that a big sigh of relief I hear?) but I'll describe it as it is now and then follow up with progress reports as things get done.
Mods - I assume this is an acceptable way to do it?
Anyway, I've seen in other threads that pictures are liked so here's a few to give an idea of what I'm doing. The first is a picture of the station in 1976 (this is taken from the book "Merseyside Electrics" by Jonathan Cadwallader and Martin Jenkins) and the second is a picture of the layout taken last year:
I think I'm getting there!! Finally a couple of "taster" pictures:
In future posts, I'll look at how the layout came into being, track and electrics, signalling, stock and operations.
Please feel free to comment. It's my first post on Western Thunder: am I doing it the Western Thunder way?
Rod
I've recently joined Western Thunder and, having a layout of my own, I thought it might be of interest to other members. I don't want to just take ideas from others, maybe some of mine can help others as well.
The layout's name is as above. It's based on the real West Kirby which is on the Wirral and is part of the Merseyrail network. So why West Kirby? Well, I was born and bred in Liverpool and we had relatives who lived on the Wirral. We'd always go by train to see them and often ended up at West Kirby. The track layout really fascinated me - a double track approach to an offset island platform, including a single slip and with 3 storage sidings.
The layout is based in the late 70s/early 80s and is, basically, blue diesel. The real location is on the third rail network but I have not modelled that for 2 reasons: 1) in that period the services were run by Class 503s and there are no RTR 503s or even kits of them - in 7mm, anyway; 2) just running the same units in and out would get boring rather quickly. My main interest in railway modelling is operations, particularly passenger terminal operations. "Roundy roundy" layouts are not my thing at all - useful for running locos in but then I get bored!! (that's the second time I've used that word in quick succession!!)
The EMUs on the real thing are replaced on my model by DMUs and to add interest to the operation, I've added a DMU stabling point and, in addition, I run a couple of loco-hauled rakes of stock: one is passenger, made up of 4x Mark 1s and the other is parcels, made up of 4 bogie parcels vehicles. Finally, to add a real bit of variety, there's a preserved steam rake: this is a model of "The Welsh Dragon" which ran between Rhyl and Llandudno - again, something from my childhood: I used to see it when we had our holidays in Colwyn Bay.
The layout has been under construction since 2012 and is nowhere near finished yet. I'm not going to give a blow-by-blow account (is that a big sigh of relief I hear?) but I'll describe it as it is now and then follow up with progress reports as things get done.
Mods - I assume this is an acceptable way to do it?
Anyway, I've seen in other threads that pictures are liked so here's a few to give an idea of what I'm doing. The first is a picture of the station in 1976 (this is taken from the book "Merseyside Electrics" by Jonathan Cadwallader and Martin Jenkins) and the second is a picture of the layout taken last year:
I think I'm getting there!! Finally a couple of "taster" pictures:
In future posts, I'll look at how the layout came into being, track and electrics, signalling, stock and operations.
Please feel free to comment. It's my first post on Western Thunder: am I doing it the Western Thunder way?
Rod
Last edited:
It'll look good when he's done those and the 3rd rail.
Seriously!!