Nutt & Bolton - an N Gauge industrial shunting layout

[Andrew Cockburn]

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, limited space/”micro” type layouts are my speciality, due mainly to a lack of household space. I currently have six such layouts, all of which follow the theme of industrial shunting, one of is in N Gauge, the rather quaintly-named Nutt & Bolton. Why is it called this you may ask, well because the layout is based around a small, fictitious engineering firm, Nutt & Bolton, whose name is derived from the fact that nuts and bolts feature rather prominently in the world of engineering. My chosen era is the BR blue period of roughly late 1970’s - early 1980’s, occasionally also BR black/green, and the layout is completely contained, as it manages to squeeze Nutt & Bolton works, a warehouse, goods/coal yard, diesel refuelling point and the controls/fiddle yard into a space of just 3’ x 1’, which tends to illustrate the potential of N Gauge rather well. Nutt & Bolton took about six months to build, and has given me many hours of pleasure, both in it’s construction, and from an operational point of view, and for me at least, it is perhaps proof that a layout which is small and simple can be just as interesting as something larger/more complex. Nutt & Bolton is also my current oldest layout, and is now in fact approaching it’s tenth birthday, having been built at the back end of 2007. And as it’s served me well/been more or less fault-free for almost a decade, I now look forward to ten more years of the same.

[crazynitwit]

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, limited space/”micro” type layouts are my speciality, due mainly to a lack of household space. I currently have six such layouts, all of which follow the theme of industrial shunting, one of is in N Gauge, the rather quaintly-named Nutt & Bolton. Why is it called this you may ask, well because the layout is based around a small, fictitious engineering firm, Nutt & Bolton, whose name is derived from the fact that nuts and bolts feature rather prominently in the world of engineering. My chosen era is the BR blue period of roughly late 1970’s - early 1980’s, occasionally also BR black/green, and the layout is completely contained, as it manages to squeeze Nutt & Bolton works, a warehouse, goods/coal yard, diesel refuelling point and the controls/fiddle yard into a space of just 3’ x 1’, which tends to illustrate the potential of N Gauge rather well. Nutt & Bolton took about six months to build, and has given me many hours of pleasure, both in it’s construction, and from an operational point of view, and for me at least, it is perhaps proof that a layout which is small and simple can be just as interesting as something larger/more complex. Nutt & Bolton is also my current oldest layout, and is now in fact approaching it’s tenth birthday, having been built at the back end of 2007. And as it’s served me well/been more or less fault-free for almost a decade, I now look forward to ten more years of the same.

Looks amazing. It's surprising what you can fit into such a small space.

[Brasskingfisher]

Thanks for sharing this, and showing what's possible in a small space.

 

Layouts like this are brilliant for showing off why it's not necessary to have a lot of space for a layout.