Tower Street Station Track Plan

This is the proposed track plan of the Tower Street Station Layout based on the track plan at Abingdon Station, a typical busy GWR branch line terminus with ample provision of goods yard facilities, which will add to the operational interest of the layout. The plan has been mirrored to suit the location of the layout within our hobbies room and has been compromised in a couple of areas to enable it to fit. The headshunt will remain and will extend onto the traverser to enable longer trains to be worked in the goods yard while keeping the running line free for passenger traffic.

The layout will comprise of two main baseboards, each being 1200mm wide and a traverser fiddle yard also 1200mm wide. The baseboards will be of monocoque construction using 9mm plywood for the tops, bottoms, which will have holes cut out for access, and sides. The side on the left hand baseboard which curves will be formed from bendy MDF while ends of the baseboards will be formed using 20mm thick oak plank left over from flooring our hallways and living room.

All trackwork on the baseboards will be hand made using code 75 bull head rail and copper clad sleepers and ballasted using C+L Finescale 2mm ballast for the running lines and ash ballast for the goods yard and headshunt.

At the moment the plan is to use proprietary kits by Wills, Ratio and Scalescenes for the buildings and accessories including a couple of items from Hornby's Skaledale range and to slowly replace these with scratch built items as my skills develop and time allows.

At the moment an interest in Green Diesel era motive power collides with an enthusiasm of GWR rollingstock and liveries, running sessions at home will not prove a problem, but if the layout ever gets to the exhibition circuit, as is hoped, then investment in GWR motive power will be needed!

The layout will be operated using Bachmann's wireless Dynamis DCC controller and will use a control panel, yet to be designed, for point and signal control. One of the members of Cardiff MES, of which I am a member, has developed and produced a point and signal machine, the signals to be used will be Ratio kit items.