This is my model railway, constructed in my spare room to 00 gauge with finescale track. It runs around three of the walls with an opening section completing the circle. I began work shortly after moving to my new house in 1996 and after about ten years it was more or less finished, though there are always new things to be done.
The railway is built directly on top of various cabinets which are screwed to the walls for stability. Many of the cabinets house my model aircraft collection and were home built. Others were wall storage units I obtained from work when they were being discarded. There's also an old black and white TV cabinet which I gutted, and cut down to the same 2' height as the rest, plus another unit which was originally constructed for a railway in the seventies and also needed shortening. Finally, two units were built specially to fit in the corners.
Wiring is buried under the scenery, but I'm a professional engineer so no repairs are ever necessary.
The railway takes the form of a small station along one side, with storage sidings on the opposite wall. Traditionally storage sidings are built on bare boards, with the modeller deploying the big giant hand as required for making up trains. However, I chose to have them fully ballasted, with some scenery, like a real-life marshalling yard. I don't know of anyone else who has done this, though it surely isn't unique. There are four such sidings in total plus a main line, which is only enough for five trains altogether. More would be useful - I'll remember this next time.
The railway represents Scotland in the fifties and sixties, allowing me to run steam and green diesels. Knowledgeable readers may raise an eyebrow on spotting the Class 35 Hymek below - it's visiting from the South West of England. The blue Class 37 can only be explained by a break in the space-time continuum. (In reality I find the Hymek an attractive engine, and it was one of the first models I ever bought so it has sentimental value. The Class 37 is a non-runner which only appeared on my railway on a single occasion, for this photograph to be taken.)
Rolling stock is mostly quite elderly, a mixture of Hornby and Lima, with various kits from Airfix and Parkside. The wheels on Lima wagons and coaches had huge wheels which would have bumped their way across the sleepers had I not turned them down in brutal fashion with a Black and Decker drill and a file. The Lima coaches have all been fitted with flush windows from vacuum formed plastic. I've been slowly working my way through my rolling stock replacing the Triang couplings with low profile ones, mostly from Bachmann. This makes a lot of difference to the appearance, along with painting and weathering the underframes.
The layout is powered by an ancient analogue controller, via multiple switches so sections of track can be isolated. As an electronic engineer I have the ability to build my own controller, and I've had a prototype working, but installing this remains on my to-do list. Modern model railways use digital control, but I can't justify the expense. On the other hand, the signals are driven by a microcontroller circuit I designed and built myself - details are here for anyone who is interested.
