paulhb
Western Thunderer
Last year the opportunity arose to acquire the small (borderline micro) EM gauge layout Ruyton Road. Built by the late John Spencer it appeared at a number of shows in the 1990’s and the early years of the new century. To me it was inspirational in practically demonstrating that a small layout could provide both interest and a clear sense of place, that being the Shropshire and Montgomeryshire Railway of Colonel Stephens in the 1920’s. An imaginary branch from Kinnerley Junction to Ruyton XI Towns and a prospected quarry. The branch terminated someway short of the town it professed to serve when monies ran out, hence the “Road” tag. The layout was fully described in Model Railway Journal 75 published back in 1994. So a small ready made (nearly) short cut layout to run my oddities and generally play trains
The last owner (custodian) had done a fine job of maintaining the layout and had changed its time frame from the 1920’s to early British Railways to reflect his main interest as well as making improvements to the layouts presentation. I had no intention of fundamentally changing the context of the layout apart from reverting it back to an earlier time period and changing gauge to p4. I have no EM stock and didn’t want to add complication to my modelling world which is p4 orientated. (Well apart from a small Swiss based HOm layout but that’s a different story!). I did spend some time considering the way forward and and thinking through a sort of plan in the knowledge that parts of said plan would be seen through while other parts would wilt and slowly pass away. Such is the nature of most plans!
Priority would be to relay track to 18.83 but other ‘to do’s’ included rewiring, new control panel, new fiddle yards incorporating cassettes and potential through running, new backscene, repaint fascia, lighting and revamping the scenery. The photos show progress to date.
An aerial view taken just after acquisition clearly showing the simplicity of the layout. The scenic section measures 42 x 18 inches at it’s widest point. Ruyton Road is the end of the line, the run round provision is off scene to the left as is the quarry branch
Track lifting underway
The replacement turnouts were built off site with the interlaced timbers laid on thick paper (150gsm if I recall correctly). Following removal of the original EM track and efforts to make the underlying surface as level as possible thin cork sheet was laid as a new track base.
New end boards were fixed to both ends of the layout to facilitate new fiddle yard baseboards.
Ruyton Road in it’s new home with two new fiddle yard boards. The story is that the line goes on past Ruyton Road to another quarry with that branch forming an end on connection with the main (as such) line. Ok main line is bit of a misnomer more like twig off a branch!
Turnouts in place and fixed and plain track laying underway. All sleepers are ply stained with Pro marker ink. Chairs are C&L and Exactoscale and rail is steel. The ballast is Woodland Scenics (mix of brown and ash) stuck down with Gravel and Sand Fixer which has the advantage of not setting like concrete.
Current state of play. Track work completed, rail sides painted, wired up and working and various bits of stock tested to see what runs and what wont play nice. At the moment couplings are 3 link and as I intend to operate from the front (at home at least) and this will influence any decision about a cameo type presentation.
So that’s where we are at the moment. I took over custodianship last June, progress has not been particularly rapid and there have been diversions (more anon) but I’m happy so far. Next major job is to finish building cassettes and have a proper play before moving on to tidy up the scenery and fascia as well as thinking about a backscene and lighting.
Paul
The last owner (custodian) had done a fine job of maintaining the layout and had changed its time frame from the 1920’s to early British Railways to reflect his main interest as well as making improvements to the layouts presentation. I had no intention of fundamentally changing the context of the layout apart from reverting it back to an earlier time period and changing gauge to p4. I have no EM stock and didn’t want to add complication to my modelling world which is p4 orientated. (Well apart from a small Swiss based HOm layout but that’s a different story!). I did spend some time considering the way forward and and thinking through a sort of plan in the knowledge that parts of said plan would be seen through while other parts would wilt and slowly pass away. Such is the nature of most plans!
Priority would be to relay track to 18.83 but other ‘to do’s’ included rewiring, new control panel, new fiddle yards incorporating cassettes and potential through running, new backscene, repaint fascia, lighting and revamping the scenery. The photos show progress to date.
An aerial view taken just after acquisition clearly showing the simplicity of the layout. The scenic section measures 42 x 18 inches at it’s widest point. Ruyton Road is the end of the line, the run round provision is off scene to the left as is the quarry branch
Track lifting underway
The replacement turnouts were built off site with the interlaced timbers laid on thick paper (150gsm if I recall correctly). Following removal of the original EM track and efforts to make the underlying surface as level as possible thin cork sheet was laid as a new track base.
New end boards were fixed to both ends of the layout to facilitate new fiddle yard baseboards.
Ruyton Road in it’s new home with two new fiddle yard boards. The story is that the line goes on past Ruyton Road to another quarry with that branch forming an end on connection with the main (as such) line. Ok main line is bit of a misnomer more like twig off a branch!
Turnouts in place and fixed and plain track laying underway. All sleepers are ply stained with Pro marker ink. Chairs are C&L and Exactoscale and rail is steel. The ballast is Woodland Scenics (mix of brown and ash) stuck down with Gravel and Sand Fixer which has the advantage of not setting like concrete.
Current state of play. Track work completed, rail sides painted, wired up and working and various bits of stock tested to see what runs and what wont play nice. At the moment couplings are 3 link and as I intend to operate from the front (at home at least) and this will influence any decision about a cameo type presentation.
So that’s where we are at the moment. I took over custodianship last June, progress has not been particularly rapid and there have been diversions (more anon) but I’m happy so far. Next major job is to finish building cassettes and have a proper play before moving on to tidy up the scenery and fascia as well as thinking about a backscene and lighting.
Paul
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