My space is limited to around 10-11ft x 15ft so a true scale model is obviously out of the question how many football fields!) so these were my operating requirements

1) Express passenger WCML, mainline diesel cross country etc-sleeper service

2) Parcels stock-newspapers, mail etc

3) Local freight- coal, steel, grain, closed vent vans etc 

4) Bulk Freight inc Tank, Freightliner, MGR, Railfreight

5) Suburban Passenger

6) Diesel Depot

7) Electric Depot

8) Terminus

9) Marshalling Yard

10) Complete circuit- in case I just want to test or watch the trains go by! 

11) A purpose for all the trains with enough on track storage for all stock.

The rails around Glasgow basically form a hugh upsidedown T shape or triangle may be a better description- very difficult to model so heres a brief descrption of what I've done/doing- later I will add a proper track plan.

Glasgow Central forms the obvious terminus, reduced to 8 platforms with the basic use similar to the real thing. East platforms- WCML expresses, central platforms sububan then parcels (Glasgow has a separte mail/parcels but no room on the model) and cross country expresses on west side platforms. On leaving the station designed for up to 6 coach trains the throat will be located on a 90 deg bend, the 2 track main line will pass Gushetfield Freightliner Depot and Larkfield Carrage Sidings, beyond these will be a 2 road oil storage/loading facillity replacing the BOC siding -this will allow a rake of TTA tanks. The opposite side of the line will be Larkfield Junction, in the background will be the bus depot- the absence of cheap buses means I have collected only route 60 which does not operate here and some later Clydeside livery buses. At this point there is 2 up and 2 down running lines.

Rounding the second bend Polmadie Depot will be located on the Up side. The real thing lost its allocation in the early 70s but has always been a major stabling point. I think I can get 9 or 10 roads in, one of which will be a 'kick-back' to 2 or 3 short sidings forming fueling facillates which I believe was not there on the real thing. I have chosen to model 6 roads of the old steam shed (used for diesel stabling) and the 2 road building that still stands -however I will be using readily available models rather than 'acurate' representations. The old shed was demolished around 1977 but I wanted it despite having an APT.  

Around the last bend and Polmadie Marshalling Yards.  Both Up and Down will be reprented, with sidings rather than the loops that existed back then. I will  not be including the APT depot (Now Virgin's Glasgow Base) built around 1977. The down Yard will be the main one with a line allocated to a row of 37s as seen in real life. At a later stage I will probably add a 'kick-back' Permanent Way Yard (nearest Rutherglen) which doesn't exist here (Old North British Site) but a place to store engineering vehicles. The line then goes into a Tunnel which is the return loops reprenting everywhere else.

The other line represented from Glasgow Central will be the diesel line to Kilmarnock as far as Crossmyloof this will run at a lower level to under the main return loop- some kind of auto shuttle may be used and a link to the higher level return loops will be added. At this point I was running out of space but wanted more, in particular Central to Paisley as far as Cardonald. The only thing I could think of was to place a backscene next to the station and reprenst this area behind there. one problem - no room to turn 180 deg. The compromise:- eliminate trackwork Bridge St Junction to Shield's Junction, also eliminating the mail depot instead suburban trains would use the main line and return loop to get through Larkfield junction to Shieds - this line exists but is not as a passenger route, however modelers licence prevailed. En route at a lower level is Sheilds Road Electric Depot.  A little further on will be a road rail goods transfer point where siding were present in real life. This is my excuse to run Railfreight, Tartan Arrow and old closed vans to a fixed point, then the line will pass into a tunnel with the lower return loops. . One more line is reprsented this is the Larkfield Junction to Muirhouse South Junction- this is another 180 deg bend I could not fit instead trains will use the lower return loop and double back on themselves.

Construction

Constuction is a challenge on a limited time and budget, consideration also had to be given to possible future house moves. It took the best part of a year to clear space and lay a sub frame made of salvaged 2x2 from a false wall - woodwork not being my favourite hobby. Stage 2 was to build removable layout boards. By summer 2005 most of these were built using fibre insulation board on a lightwood frame- the largest dimension being 3ftx8ft. The pros and cons of this method :- cons -messy to cut, easily breaks if not supported properly    pros- very cheap, no need for underlay or cork, very light, cuts easily if a little messy and if you lay the track wrongly its easy to lift without breaking it.

This will be the return loops and one end of Polmadie Yards, the board in the background will be the station terminus with the other return loop below. The visable baseboard has been given a base grey as it could be sometime before I get to ballast it (if ever). The placed straight shows where the main up line will be.

This view is looking away from the return loops. The mainline will turn right to the far side of the board, Polmadie Depot will be on the nearside of the far board. I have had to redesign the depot as it is difficult to make it fit. One objective is to only have straight track at joins- this means I have to turn 90deg and fan out 10 roads in about 2ft- a mixture of setrack and streamline should do it.

WILL IT ALL FIT?

Progress is slow due to lack of time and budget, the Scenex double shed arrived broken- never fear I planned to join 6 together however if locos are not to be hidden 4 will be better, given the limited space.

7/8/05

The upper return loops are mostly laid and the fast up and down lines are next to go in place. I don't have all the money for the points so I will progress with the mainline and its pointwork only and hopefully the loop to lower loop line will be runable by Christmas. the loco shed may use up all my old pointwork from previous plans so progress here could be quite quick.

16/09/05

Work continues on the loco depot which does actually fit in the allocated space

The white paper is being used as a template for where the shed building will be. Since the picture was taken some lines in the background have been laid and the line with the coach has been relocated to give more loco space.

Work is underway on the 3rd board representing Gushetfield container depot and Larkfield Carrage Sidings- since this picture was taken all the carrage sidings have been laid- next will be the Freightliner 2 road facillities, views from either end are shown here.

The main line to the right is not yet laid just placed, Larkfield junction can just be seen, the lines off this will go to the lower level- still to be laid, even some of the baseboard isn't down yet. I have ran some test trains and even pushed 5 coaches over the join and into the coach sidings without derailment, even the old lima shunter ran quite well. All my coach sets are Mk1 or Mk 2 so five fit perfectly. Most of the coaches are old but the general plan is to have 5 main rakes composed of 1 Eastern Mk 2D to represent Kings X-Glasgow via Edinburgh, 1 Midland set of Mk 2D for Euston -Glasgow, 2 sets of Mk2A for Manchester/ Liverpool/Birmingham- Glasgow and a Mk 1 set (or 2 smaller sets) for other services. The container Flats will work as 2 sets of 5 (they used to be in fixed sets of 5 bolted together)

As mentioned the BOC siding will be a fuel outlet instead, I have had to compromise the plan slightly by reducing to just one siding of shorter length, this works out very nicely for 6 TTAs and coinsides with the 6 discharge/loading points in the Knightwing Kit.

22/09/05

Board 1 progress

Now most trackwork is laid on board 3 below

10/11/05

Finally I got a Sunday off from my other hobby -canal boating. the lower loop track laying is complete

This area will be covered by the main terminus to the right, the left where the grey paint is will be partitioned by a backscene and will run onto the next baseboard below which will form the main sheilds road electric depot, at this time none of the buildings or trackwork has been fixed. The Hornby HST depot is a fairly good likeness to the type used at the represented location- the doors will need to be removed to facillitate the overhead wires. I have had to redesign this depot several times to make the APT fit, the theory with the curent plan is that the APT will fit on any of the 3 roads, all be it a very tight fit. The theroy is also that the depot will fit all of my AC overhead stock which includes 3x class 86, 1 class 87, 2x class 303 3 car EMU, non motored class 84. I also have a Triang 81 and a Trix 81 body only- I am toying with the idea of fitting these with a Bachmann GP series US chassis

The approximate running line position can be seen , also the locaton of the warehouse/goods sidings. The main lines will follow next to the container depot above rising quite steeply to Larkfield Junction. The crossing just off the bottom will have a single line off to represent the line to Muirhouse South Jct. The line from Central Station to Crossmyloof will pass over the single slip (by bridge) and will decend gradually over about 10ft to the lower levels runing behind the diesel MPD baseboard.

08/12/05

Yes finally a complete main line is in operation, a few baseboard section track joins need some height tweeking but it all runs well. Work has restarted on the main depot although points are all laid, tracks to 8 roads still need laying and still awaiting another 3 Scenix Double engine sheds, I am being a bit cautious in case they don't arrive so at least if a problem arises I can adjust the design slightly. In some ways the MPD will be my main interest ensuring it fits the designed 25-30 mainline locos is important (Picture below shows half the potential stock). Whilst a bit early to discuss operation the general scheme is a loco will arrive and fuel up (this requires separating pairs of 20s) if its been running ok it will go to one of the 3 left hand roads, ready for it's next duty, locos with minor faults (Dirty wheels etc) will await in the next 2 roads until space is available in the 2 road 'works' shed where I will leave them until I've done the required work. The other 2 roads will be used for 'dead' stock with more terminal faults like motors etc- use of the roads may change depending on the working status of the fleet. Further class 37s will be kept in the yard, a notable feature of Polmadie up until very reacent.   The class 27 is on the location of the fueling point, the points going nowhere will be a siding for off duty shunters and TTA tanks delivering fuel.

Abetter view of the track layout, still the area to be covered by shed is represented by the white template.

Twilight Zone

Finally I thought I should mention the main maintainance building which loosly represents the one remaining part of the steam shed (later converted for deisel seviceing)  in use today on the network. Basically its a Vollmur (must of spelt it wrong) kit which on the box looks extreamly contenental however I have omitted the ornamental trim and side offices to produce something I can live with as passable British. Inside I have fitted 2 roads of Peco Pits full length of the building, hornby carrage siding platforms have also been used although they could do with some thin balsa to widen them. As I have laid track straight to baseboard the doors need extending this in due course will allow me to make them more Scottish in paint design. For the time being I have left the roof removable as it was below.

28/12/05

Work continues in various areas, as seen below the yards are taking shape

The up yard is so tiny I decided to make this area for crane, departmental coaches and the tamper. The line with the AC electrics on ECS (empty coaching stock) is on the up slow which doubles as reception for the sidings and loco depot. You then see the main up and down running lines followed by the down reception/down slow. Spare locos will be in the loop where the 37 rests. The remainder will be standard sidings capable of holding up to 9 MGR wagons, although this yard will mainly be mixed traffic, there will be a further 2 sidings where the pot of PVA glue is standing. The real location was through loops which later became sidings, I think down yard was also called Polmadie holding sidings, where off duty locos (typically Motherwell based 37s) were often seen and the feature I remember from a passing train before I started planning the layout

More to follow, Please click BACK on your browser to return to main site. The page is starting to get quite large so I may soon have to redesign it rather than dated updates I may use sections of the layout before and after type of thing-or just contoinue on to the next page? 

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