The story of PETERSDALE my OO gauge Branch Line layout

[RailwayRobbo]

HOW IT ALL STARTED IN THE BEGINNING.

Well guys, as I said in my intro I've been interested in all things railway since a very early age. The Hornby Dublo 3 rail I had in my youth was always the inspiration to build something bigger and better.

The layout I'm currently building is actual version 3 of PETERSDALE.

In the late 80's I was living in a 60's semi with a very nice sized loft. Of course ideal for a layout as it had none of the forest of woodwork you get in modern house's roof space nowadays. A space of roughly 25' x 15' was floorboarded, insulated, a roof window fitted for ventilation and light and the appropriate electrics fitted. A nice job indeed. The only drawback to the roof space was the shallow pitch of the roof. I could just stand in the apex with my hair brushing against the fluorescent light fittings. I'm an average male of 5' 10 1/2" in height. This also meant that to get a baseboard of 18" to 2' in width the height of the boards had to be lower than unusual. No big problem but it had a bad effect on my back while building the boards. PETERSDALE version 1 was a continuous oval run with the usual fiddle yard for storage of trains. It progressed to the stage of having the track laid and wired up. The turnouts wired up with motors. A few buildings (station) placed on the layout and a small section of scenery built.

Then redundancy, 3 years at University (at the age of 40) and a new job (Teaching) resulted in a move away. The layout was left in situ as it would have been a case of salvaging what I could rather than moving it as a whole. I moved into a rented flat which had a decent sized attic bedroom. I didn't have the time or the money to start PETERSDALE version 2 for a couple of years.

Version 2 turned out to be a 'L' shaped portable set of baseboards around 10' x 8'. That's how it stayed when I moved yet again to another supply teaching job away from Derbyshire to Northants. The baseboards where packed away and that's how they stayed for another couple of years. I moved another couple of times to houses with no spare room for a layout so it was at this point I sold all the rolling stock I had collected along the way and given up on ever building PETERSDALE. 3 of the 4 baseboards had warped while they where stored so they had to go as well. The dream of a model railway layout seemed to have gone for good. Or had it? I kept a few card kits and accessories for no obvious reason.

Then I got a permanent teaching job and my circumstances changed for the better. We found another house this time with space for a layout albeit a couple of brick outbuildings side by side just waiting to fall down. Demolition and a rebuild perhaps? The house was built in 1720 from 2 small barns. converted together. It needed a lot of work so a home for PETERSDALE would be delayed for a few more years yet. It needed a lot of work and money and of course took longer than I envisaged but finally finished around 2006/7 my attention turned to those 'about to fall down' outbuildings.

TO BE CONTINUED............................ with pictures.

[Bufferstop]

Welcome aboard. Your first loft space rings a few bells here, it was a similar sized loft which for me came to be a pain in the neck, literally! Look forward to the continuation, with pictures. Shout if you have any problem uploading them.
John W
aka Bufferstop.

[RailwayRobbo]

Welcome aboard. Your first loft space rings a few bells here, it was a similar sized loft which for me came to be a pain in the neck, literally! Look forward to the continuation, with pictures. Shout if you have any problem uploading them.
John W
aka Bufferstop.

Thanks Bufferstop will do.
Next instalment coming right up.

[RailwayRobbo]

Welcome aboard. Your first loft space rings a few bells here, it was a similar sized loft which for me came to be a pain in the neck, literally! Look forward to the continuation, with pictures. Shout if you have any problem uploading them.
John W
aka Bufferstop.

Thanks Bufferstop will do.
Next instalment coming right up.

Bit over confident there I'm afraid.
How do I upload pictures please John?

Thanks in advance.

[Ex-Pat]

Try this:

http://www.newrailwaymodellers.co.uk/Fo ... os#p588459

[Bufferstop]

Two ways to upload photos.
First Method (Using web space which our sponsor pays for)
Get ready by ensuring your photo is only 800 pixels wide (Use MS Paint to resize it, or any other photo editing software.
Click upload attachment, and then choose file.
Choose your file by navigating the explorer window which opens, click on open, then on add file.
Move the cursor in the edit window to the point where you want the picture.
Now click "Place in Line" and you should see the attachment tags appear in your text.
Click on preview to see how it looks.

Second method using a free photo hosting site. (I'll give instructions for Photobucket that I use)
Resize your photo if necessary, then log in to your hosting site.
Choose upload from the sites options, then navigate to your file. (Photobucket allows me to drag files from the desktop, so guess where I put my resized image)
Once your file is uploaded there will be some method of finding and copying it's PUBLIC URL (it's different to the one you use for your account.
In PB there's a panel with various lines including the IMG one. I choose this and copy it to my clipboard. In PB I only need to click on it, it automatically goes into the clipboard.
Get back to where you were writing your post, put the cursor where you want the piccy click on the Img button above the edit window then paste or press CTRL/C.
You should end up with the URL for the piccy surrounded by a pair of Img tags. Again PB puts them in for me automatically.
It seems like a load of extra work but
we don't have to pay the storage charges and if you want to use the picture again you simply copy the tag line from the original use and paste it into the new one..

Come back if you get stuck.

[RailwayRobbo]

Thanks guys. Will have to be tomorrow no time now but grateful for the advice.
Pete

[RailwayRobbo]

DESTRUCTION and CONSTRUCTION (Part 1 Destruction)

Down come the old brick outhouses.

Demolition already under way. The conservatory at the rear belongs to the neighbours as does the left hand side of the outhouses. Care was needed.

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Safely demolished.

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The bricks from the gable end were used as hardcore for the floor.

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TO BE CONTINUED................. next construction begins

[RailwayRobbo]

DESTRUCTION and CONSTRUCTION (Part 2 Construction)

With the floor complete the framework starts to go up.

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Framework complete. Window frames fitted. Cladding started.

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Roof on. Windows glazed. Door fitted. Cladding painted.

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INTERIOR - Wall spaces insulated with polystyrene sheeting.

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Interior walls and ceiling clad with plywood and painted with clear varnish.

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Interior brickwork had been cleaned, re-pointed and painted.

NOTE - Being a Technology Teacher with a specialism in Woodwork use of the school workshops was a god send. It made the construction of the frame work so easy with all the space and machinery at my disposal.

[RailwayRobbo]

DESTRUCTION and CONSTRUCTION (Part 3 Interior Construction)

Drop down workspace and storage installed.

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Didn't take long for the shelving to fill up.

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Interior complete. It all looks so clean and tidy but that didn't last long.

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Look at that lovely clean floor.

At last a home for PETERSDALE. The finished 'Layout Shed' gave me a space of roughly 16' x 8'.
Now to move onto the serious stuff = Planning the layout.

TO BE CONTINUED ..................................... Planning??????????

(Thanks BUFFERSTOP for the guidance on how to up load pictures. Simple when you know how isn't it.)

[Bufferstop]

(Thanks BUFFERSTOP for the guidance on how to up load pictures. Simple when you know how isn't it.)

[manna]

G'day Gents

A very nice usable space there, just waiting to be filled with a railway

manna

[RailwayRobbo]

G'day Gents

A very nice usable space there, just waiting to be filled with a railway

manna

Thanks Manna that was my intention LOL.
Pete

[RailwayRobbo]

PLANNING

With the 'Layout Shed' complete I admit I was very happy with the end results. Now it was time to get down to some serious planning of the layout.
The floor space available dictated the size and shape of the layout. With the old fire left in situ on the left hand side of the door and the work area on the right there really was only one choice for me. An end to end, fiddle yard to terminus was the way forward. I liked the idea of a rural branch line with fields , water etc.

I set myself a few 'loose' rules for the layout.
1. It wasn't going to consume all my spare time. I had other interests like photography which also had a railway theme to it, photographing the real thing on preserved lines.
2. Everything would be out of a box ready to run or out of a packet in the form of kits. After all it was really my first serious attempt at a layout and I'll think about scratch building later (if I get time).
3 The era would be mid 50's till the end of steam. Locos and rolling stock reflecting the trains I used to see on the Mansfield/Worksop line when I was a kid. There would be some interlopers as well. Usually bargains from a certain model railway shop in Liverpool.
4. The layout wouldn't be a prototype but it would be realistic with a Midland flavour to it. It would also reflect a rural setting with an old coal mine up the dale somewhere out of view.
5. It would be easily operated by one person, me.
6. It would be called 'PETERSDALE' which is a combination of my name and a reference to the Peak District.

On the subject of realism, I was once admiring a layout at an exhibition when the guy stood next to me started to comment to one of the operators about the choice of cows they had on the layout. He told them they were incorrect as the breed of cows they had on the layout had not been introduced into the UK until well after the era the railway was set in. He was deadly serious about it as well. A cow is a cow to me. I'll not be researching what breeds of cow were in fields in the 50s/60s.

TRACK PLAN

Must admit I lifted this from a book I had. Not knowing anything about how full size track layouts are designed it seemed a good choice for the space I had available. It also gave me a good variation in railway operation (shunting, passenger traffic etc.) I needed to make the layout interesting to operate.

FINAL TRACK PLAN

The shed yard has since had a third road added between the shed and the backscene. Some much for thorough planning.

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The layout would require 6 baseboards to be constructed.

The top 2 roads in the fiddle yard would hold the coal traffic from the small mine up the dale. The other 5 roads would be the general traffic for the station and goods yard. Passenger, freight, excursions etc.

I split the layout into 3 different areas.
On leaving the fiddle yard the area up to the canal would be open fields. After crossing the canal the area in the corner would be the engine shed yard and finally the main baseboards would be the village and the station/goods yard (main operating) area. The 'village' will consist of a church and a row of workers cottages. The main village of PETERSDALE is out of view somewhere to the right of the station. My main criteria for PETERSDALE is to construct an open rural model that looks realistic.

NEXT .............................................. BASEBOARDS.

[Ex-Pat]

On the subject of realism, I was once admiring a layout at an exhibition when the guy stood next to me started to comment to one of the operators about the choice of cows they had on the layout. He told them they were incorrect as the breed of cows they had on the layout had not been introduced into the UK until well after the era the railway was set in. He was deadly serious about it as well. A cow is a cow to me. I'll not be researching what breeds of cow were in fields in the 50s/60s.

Are you sure it wasn't April 1st?!