Andi’s Railway

Model Railways run in the family, with my Dad having a long running interest in all things model engineering I could hardly escape. After starting out as a child with British outline OO on a 6’x4′ set of boards on the floor I moved on to n gauge to get more operational scope in a layout. This was started in 1990, the design was done by my Dad along with construction of the basic framework and track.

The layout comprises a double track main loop with 2 terminal stations. There is a reversing loop which splits to give 3 hidden sidings under a tunnel which also covers the main line. There is a goods yard by the station and steep (approx 1 in 40) climb to a coal mine on top of the tunnel.

Basic track layout complete (Sepember 1990)

Basic track layout complete (Sepember 1990)

The whole layout is able to fold onto the wall on which it hangs and latch into the ceiling (there are also some hooks in case the door catch failed).

We now move on 5 years (and a house move) and the scenery is starting to be put in place. There are platforms and lots of very white polystyrene. The tunnel to the left hand end is still to be completed but the line up to the mine is complete. The mine sits on a board which can be lifted out to grant access to the reversing loop sidings below.

Starting to fill in gaps (June 1995)

In the next nearly 15 years the layout stagnated while I went to university and then lived in a house where the layout was consigned to the loft – too inaccessible to spend time on it. Finally when we moved to our current house there is a big enough spare room to accommodate the 8’x4′ layout!

This picture shows the layout about a year ago, considerably more scenery is in place!

October 2009 (click to enlarge)

And finally pictures from 2010 – progress is still slow, although what this doesn’t show is a complete re-build of the control panel to enable children to more easily run trains.

The Mine on the top of the tunnel (Nov-2010)

November 2010