Cheshire Railway Modellers

My Layouts by Terry Tasker

Pitt Lane

Pitt Lane is my first attempt at modeling. It is an imaginary branch line of no specific period but was inspired by a layout called ‘Common Lane Wharf’ and without seeing it I would never have started modeling.

The section of line depicts a small farming community which relies on the railway to move sheep and cattle to and from market. A small coal dock supplies two local coal men and the goods depot is mostly for incoming freight to serve light industry and shops in the town. The station section of the layout was added for the for the Southport MRS show in September 07 and as the town started to get bigger and more people needed to travel to work, so the layout has got bigger too. This new section gave the operation of the layout more scope for movement of rolling stock. It has three fiddle yards, one at the end and two hidden sidings behind the scenery, and all inter connecting with one and other.

The rolling stock is ready to run and has been acquired over a number of years. All the track work is Peco fine scale. The goods shed, coal, cattle dock and station platform are all revamps from bits and pieces I have picked up from shows. The electrics are the bare minimum and the points are now electrically operated having replaced the ‘Slippery Sid’ wire (which worked well) and was originally installed on the layout when it was first constructed.

This is my first attempt at modeling and has proved very popular at all the shows it has been exhibited. It has featured on the railway channel and also in ‘Railway Modeller.’ Hopefully it will inspire more enthusiasts to find their hidden talents.

Mugwump Junction

I was so impressed with all of the American type layouts at the Derby 2008 model railway show that I just had to build one. With the help of Bill I spent £xxx of money on rolling stock and a couple of locos. When I arrived home I looked on the internet for some puzzle layouts.

The electrics were kept to the minimum, saving time and effort, along with the point push and pull control rods (pictured below) under the baseboard for simplicity. From start to finish the layout took me just over ten hours, although no layout is ever really finished and I still have some touching up to do.

This is the track plan (designed by Scot Osterweil and published in Small Layout Scrapbook) used for Mugwump Junction. When operating at the maximum capacity of 20 cars (10 cars coming in and 10 cars going out) it can take over an hour. Incoming cars are spotted on the yard tracks by an imaginary way freight entering on Yard Lead X. The layout's switcher must move them to the five industries on four sidings, while removing outbound cars from those sidings and placing them in the yard to be picked up. The cars to be picked up are determined by shuffling cards and dealing them out in order of pick up.