Hello and welcome to my third blog posting.

I have been making steady, if slow, progress with my layout. My efforts since Christmas have mainly been focused on the marshalling yard element of my model railway.

The original layout (showed below) had plenty of sidings but I thought it was rather unimaginative and restrictive to operate. I had a major redesign and came up with a new track layout. This would allow more flexibility and be a bit more interesting to operate.

Old Layout

New Layout - overall view

The new layout is connected to the lower level via my ramp which still needs properly connecting up. There's the island platform still to be built. The idea being that passenger trains "the branch shuttle" will use the road closest to the wall and trains for the yard will use the other line. Stock accesses the yard via a small reversing section with points. This makes shunting a large train into the yard more fun because it has to be broken into sections and then re marshalled once in the yard. Inefficient but fun!

The Bulk sidings are shown here. This is where the longer trains are assembled and stored for distribution. The second photo shows the need for a backscene along the wall. Its on my list of things to do!

The sidings then extend into the industrial complex. This is where shorter trains are shunted to collect products from the factory. The view here is from the ramp which connects the two levels of my layout.

View of the Industrial buildings - made from Metcalfe Industrial Kits. Leading on from the industrial complex is another siding which connects to the Loco Shed, Carriage Shed and a couple of smaller storage sidings.

Austerities waiting for duty

A TPO being shunted into the carriage shed for repairs

One of the smaller sidings next to the industrial site, shunting into this siding involves much reversing and point changing!

There are still things to complete, a few low relief buildings are to be added, the island platform, and some scenery along the backwall. I also need to add a power feed to another couple of places allowing more than one loco to work at a time. In the next update I hope to have some progress on the lower level

Thank you for reading and any comments are gratefully received.

Venator