esngblog

As you realise, not much (if any) progress with the Minories over Christmas.  For the last few days, I blame Amazon Prime, with loads of live football to watch.

But, gentle reader, you may recall a design something like the below:

Of course, I was soon overthinking this.  I had several issues with the design:

1. The platforms are marginally short for what I was looking for.  I know I also thought that smaller is better, but I did want to comfortably run a Brighton Belle EMU.
2. Although this is a classic Minories, I preferred an extra siding to the design, to have a little more stock standing around  – more interesting to look at and operate.
3. That long strip of waste ground is not very interesting, and not really realistic for an inner London layout – though in the 1950’s, a WW2 old bomb site would be appropriate.
4. I had doubts about the break in the platform at the baseboard joint.  Yes, I’ve seen it done well, but I think it would be a little too obvious.

So I came up with the design below, with two 900mm boards.  I also added back the separate locomotive and parcels spurs.  This needs another point, but also ensures that a full length platform is all on one baseboard.

I still wondered about this design.  Really, I find the left hand board just uninteresting!  As I commented in yesterday’s post, it is difficult to make a busy urban platform interesting.  The lack of movement is not helpful.  The actual concourse has some interesting features, but long empty platforms are a bit boring.  And that length of waste ground is still rather uninteresting.  Some under arch industry would be OK, but again not really appropriate under a London terminus.  It would be better to have another length of road here, but I then lose the two buildings at either end of the board.

Really, all the interest in a terminus is at the station throat, bringing back memories of transpotting on the outer end of platforms at Kings Cross and Paddington.  So, I tried cutting the board down to a single 1200mm long board.  I feel this works rather well.  It presents a singe, scenically interesting, picture, much in the Iain Rice ‘Bitsa Station’ tradition.  On the left, a short board gives the extra train length, and as it is off stage, it can represent a 10 coach long platform in 300-400mm.  It also makes uncoupling very easy for loco hauled trains.  There is still the fiddle yard to sort out on the right.

The baseboard is still just 250mm wide, as originally I’d left 50mm at the back for the baseboard framing to support the top of the board and its lighting.  However, with a single board, this isn’t needed, and we can widen the visible section to 300mm.  This would allow, say, 25mm at the front and 25mm at the back to increase the scenic potential.

I’ve decided (for today, anyway) to opt for this version.  I’ve ordered the extra point, and will start marking up the track on a board.  I’ve decided that with the new year, I must get back into modelling.  This is NOT a resolution, as they always get broken.  But you never know…..