When I abandoned the idea of the "mighty morphin Inglenook" to go for a conventional locomotive depot, I still had the desire to build myself an Inglenook, but the question was - where to put it. The answer was to put it above the fiddle yard, but the standard inglenook would cover the whole fiddle yard and I want an open area to lift off and replace stock and locomotives.
After some thought I came up with the idea of a bridge over the Northbridge Western throat and putting the headshunt on the bridge, this does have prototypical provenance - the ex LNER branch from Shettleston to Hamilton had been closed in 1955, but a section near Peacock Cross in Hamilton had been retained to provide a freight service into Allenshaw Foundry, and as you can see from the map the line had been truncated just beyond the bridge, the link line comes up from the Caledonian line which passes under the bridge. The track layout is almost a classic Inglenook
A Glasgow to Hamilton DMU passes under the bridge
Here is how I envisage the yard will fit on the existing layout, I ordered one of the excellent bowstring girder bridges which will form the main span, unfortunately it is not quite long enough to completely cross the throat so I will need a couple of arched bridges to cross the goods lines and the Gateside line
Progress reports to follow
Jim
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(stock photo)
When I got home the bridge kit had been delivered too, pity I am off to Norway in the morning or it would have been a productive week.
