Book Small Layout Design Handbook

[Simon]

Just into stock - an exciting new layout design book from Wild Swan and James Hilton.

In a fresh new style and an easy to flip through and read "landscape" format, this is a complete guide to its subject, full of fresh and innovative ideas for space and time starved modellers.

210mm X 280mm, printed on high quality paper and 80 pages long, £16.50 plus postage.



Based upon his blog, this is an original and imaginative book that I found very interesting and motivating - it really does show that small in size does not mean small in either interest or enjoyment.

I found it reminiscent of Iain Rice's approach, in that it is both thought provoking and motivating, and it also reminded me in many ways of the fantastic work of the late and much missed Carl Arendt.

Following a general introduction and discussion around the subject, featuring several of the author's own models, the book then sets out a number of worked up schemes along various prototype themes, featuring plans, sketches and photographs.

In stock and available now direct from Wild Swan and on its way to shops around the country as I type.

 

[spikey faz]

Just ordered it.

Mike

 

[Simon]

Thank you very much!

 

[spikey faz]

Just ordered it.

Mike

...and received today.

Excellent service. Thank you.

Looking forward to reading this along with a nice brandy or two.

Cheers

Mike

 

[chigley]

on order

Ken

 

[Richard]

Mine arrived today, very well wrapped against the forces that are Royal Mail.

Now I'm going to have to take an extended coffee break to enjoy.

In answer to Simon's hand written note to me inside the book.

Yes, I am the very same Richard who used to exhibit the 7/8ths scale Wrekin Havock with Rob Bennett all those years ago.

Although the line eventually succumbed, nearly everything is still in the garage roof awaiting the day of it's resurrection.

 

[Jordan]

the 7/8ths scale Wrekin Havock

Great layout name!!

 

[Simon]

Hi Richard, great to hear from you.

I thought it must have been you - Wrekin Havoc, what a brilliant name and layout that was.

Glad you still have the pieces, a resurrection would be great!

And thank you for your order, sales are certainly keeping me busy.....

Simon

 

[chigley]

thanks Simon, full of inspirational ideas,

Ken

 

[NewportRod]

I’ll see if I can get a copy in Wells tomorrow, or failing that ExpoEM next weekend

 

[Richard Gawler]

My copy has arrived, complete with a hand-written note from the publisher. I know this is already mentioned above but it is a nice touch.

Anyway - I have three possible sites for my next layout, which will be 0 gauge. All about the same size. James Hilton's straightforward and thoughtful narrative has let me decide on the best of the three within ten minutes of opening the book.

I won't say why of course, you'll have to buy your own copy

 

[Richard Gawler]

Richard,

Can you share the three you find most attractive, please? I wonder if our thoughts are similiar?

Tim

I want to build a layout (0 gauge) about 11 or 12 feet long. I think this is the minimum I need to set a short train in motion, enjoy watching it move, and bring it to a halt.

As it happens, I have three locations: the back of the living room behind the sofa (a bit narrow), my office/garden room (which is north-facing and has the option to extend outside) and one wall of my hobby room where I will need to dismantle part of another layout to make the space.

The hobby room wins because it is the most accessible and it keeps my model trains all in one room. I won't be frequently carrying the models up and down stairs. The trouble with a garden railway is, while I could have one, I don't think I particularly want one. The wheels of 'Nellie' were filthy after her excursion on a garden line, and when 'Blackwater' lost a crankpin screw there it was a miracle we found it. Also I am trying my best to make models which are quite detailed and sometimes fragile and I don't want the neighbour's cat playing with them. He is banned from the hobby room but I can't ban him from the garden.

The living room has always been a "difficult" room in my house (it has doors at both ends and no decent view from the window) but somehow a 12-foot slab of model railway layout isn't the way to try to enhance it. A slender cameo might be really nice here, but this would be a fresh project. And finally, you may have guessed from my output here I am retired. There is a possibility, I start to make models for other people, and if I do this I want my "hobby" to be contained in a room where I can close the door and walk away.

I wonder how many similarities there are?

 

[Richard Gawler]

It's just as well. He came into my house within a week of his owners (my new neighbours) arriving. And spends most of his time here.

I'm still in Chapter 3, the plans come later.

 

[chigley]

has been at the wainwrights ?

Ken

 

[geoff_nicholls]

My copy arrived this morning. Flicking through it I found "Fancy a Beer" a US based layout inspired by a video of shunting at the Matt Brewery Utica. I model 1840s/1850s ECR/LNWR, but I saw the same video (link below) during some lockdown Youtube trawling, and some members of my club have just the right rolling stock in 0 gauge...

 

[Richard Gawler]

This is perfect.

@Simon you have the first clip for your DVD to go with the second print run

 

[Jordan]

My copy arrived this morning. Flicking through it I found "Fancy a Beer" a US based layout inspired by a video of shunting at the Matt Brewery Utica. I model 1840s/1850s ECR/LNWR, but I saw the same video (link below) during some lockdown Youtube trawling, and some members of my club have just the right rolling stock in 0 gauge...

That's precisely the sort of point American modeller & writer Lance Mindheim has been making for years:- when it comes to switching (shunting) operations, done realistically in model form they can take almost as much time to carry out as on the real thing.
If you know roughly how long you operate your layout for, on average, then with switching plans it doesn't take all that much track and stock to fill that time, without having to resort to artificial 'games' or 'puzzles' to pass the time, or just running trains in circles if the layout has a continuous run.
It's the 'hidden bonus' of smaller layouts, I think, that some modellers miss, thinking that a plan is 'too simple', or they'd get bored quickly.

 

[Richard]

Since I'm a Richard...

My three 'favourites' are:

Renfrew Wharf
Ruabon Brook Tramway
High Peak Wharf

As someone working in 7 mm my idea of a micro based on the above is probably 8 ft of scenic boards and a further 4 foot board as a cassette table!

Such a cassette table allows a bit of room for shuffling and splitting cassettes as required. A train length of 3 feet (the length of a single bit of Peco flexi) will accomodate a loco, brake van and three mineral wagons, or a single car DMU or similar sized train.

I know that both the Wharf designs would work on the above mentioned boards, but suspect that the Ruabon Brook would probably need another cassette table so that the through working could be achieved. This brings a finished length of 16 feet!

Obviously, these sizes end up as massive in comparison with their originally designed 4 mm counterparts, and are not really suitable for a layout over a desk in 7 mm scale, unless your desk is in either your old billiard or ball room.

I've read through my copy a couple of times now and it has made me realise that sometimes putting in some immoveable constraints and sticking to them concentrates the mind to the task ahead, without the inevitable (to me) 'mission creep'.

 

[Richard Gawler]

My apologies Richard,

I meant which three plans caught your imagination. Btw, you have a nice cat.

​

Tim

I have one so far: 'Canal without water' helps me a lot with devising my own scheme. I think the spur to the incline (1) could be a spur to my local foundry. The exit (3) could be the road to my goods shed, and continue through this building into my fiddle yard. The goods shed then masks the exit to the fiddle yard. The location of the engine shed could become a side and end loading dock. The canal gets water and moves to the back where the spur to the foundry crosses it on a skew bridge. The main line continues to the left (without a retaining wall), ideally into a bit of hidden track where a train can run off-scene and reverse back later.

This needs work to make me happy; I want to have at least half of a run round loop on view . . . but scaling up from 4 ft in 00 to 11 ft in 7mm, I think I have a chance.