Broker Street

After I gave up on TT:120 last time, I was left with the remains of the baseboard sitting on the shelf in my spare room.

It was a SMS baseboard kit, BB017 and two of the fiddleyards. This gave me a total layout area of 1.1m long x 25cm deep, and 80cm by 15cm of fiddleyard space.

At this point I'd built up quite a collection of OO LMS rolling stock (again with long winded intentions to eventually build something to use them on) so I thought a small shunting layout which would be suitable for Jinty's and lots of vents was the ticket.

After spending some time reading through various track plan books, I came up with the idea for Broker Street -  

The intention being to use only OO set track but this eventually morphed into the track plan below as I ended up buying some used streamline electrofrog points off eBay -
 

The idea remained the same though - a few sidings for a couple of industries, a run around so a train could be rearranged and taken back off scene, that'd be plenty.

The track work and wiring was done in an afternoon - the points remain under manual control as they're easily reachable. Only two power feeds are required.

A simply Peco backscene was hastily applied. Some buildings mocked up in cardboard, a water tower built from a Ratio kit - and it's a lot of fun to operate. A gaugemaster W provides control from a 16v gaugemaster M1 AC transformer which sits below.

Some time later I decided to sell off most of my OO rolling stock - collecting stuff for a layout that may or may never be built is a fools errand I've learnt.

So what did I keep for this layout? 

 

 

Not a lot, just a simple Hornby LMS Jinty, some LMS Milk Vans, a Dapol Milk Tanker, a couple of open wagons, an LMS vent and an LMS cattle wagon, plus a couple of brake vans of course. That's all I need to entertain myself with this track plan for 15-30 mins a time.

I also bought some of the Manchester Model Railways kits, starting with a simple coaling stage -  

I've got some more still to complete, to add some buildings and depth. Eventually I'll get the ballasting and tunnel entrance added, but in the meantime it's just a simple layout that's fun to operate.