Whats New

I have a basic design in place for the ‘N’ Gauge layout – Stowey Green.
.. As an LMS man married to a GWR Wife, I was drawn to the area of the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway (SDJR)
(Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway – Wiki Page)  .. This railway was run by the GWR and LMS so gives a great opportunity/excuse of seeing GWR and LMS traffic together.

I chose as the village of Neither Stowey, an attractive Somerset Village near Bridgewater as a ‘location’, on a potential route that could have beeen used to connect Bridgewater to Minehead.
So I gave the new station the name ‘Stowey Green’, and I also decided to include a small ‘halt’ station – using the simple if attractive GWR ‘Pagoda’ Halt building, which will be ‘Upper Stowey’.

This will be a 4ft 6ins x 2 ft 6ins two layer layout. To keep the gradients low I have built to board so that the front is 30mm higher than the back to keep all the gradients gentle.

Unlike the ‘OO’ layouts(s) which have a wide variety of stock. I am planning the ‘N’ gauge layout to be purely GWR steam eta.

Whilst everything is on hold (And Inaccessible) during the building work I have been having a bit of a clear out on Ebay of ‘Surplus Stock’. Mostly LNER and BR MK2 Coaches.

I’m planning to use the funds to build a small ‘N’ gauge GWR layout to join the Burton Crumpnold Family. I had been thinking of having a go at an N gauge layout for a while. It all started for real when out local Oxfam shop had some GWR wagons. More on this later.

The portable ‘OO’ layout that is being built using the recycled parts of Burton Crumpnold now has a name…

It will be called ‘Burton Phoenix‘ – as it has come out of the ashes of the original Burton Crumpnold Layout.!!!

05/10/2008
Sad News – due to the building of as new extension at our house the ‘Original’ Burton Crumpnold has been ‘Decommissioned’.

The room where it has been living currently has no roof…. I have also become very dissatisfied with the quality of the track running. The layout ‘Looks’ OK but trains do like derailing at the rear (and difficult to access) area’s of the track. The longer term plan (2009 and beyond) is to build a larger layout using larger radii more gentle (Peco Streamline?) points.

All is not lost though with the original Burton layout. I am currently in the process of planning a portable layout using what was the Upper station area and a new fiddle yard.

27/01/2007
Finished updating the original Website

11/02/2007
Added the ‘Scenery’ page of the website. This was also an opportunity to photograph and document the work I have been doing these past few weeks.

19/05/2007
Started work on upper start on area and scenery areas.

23/06/2007
Finished Basic upper station detailing and extra detailing (Fences etc) to main station.

01/07/2007
Improved existing scenery areas and add scenery items to hide baseboard joins etc.
Added some ‘work in progress’ pictures to the website.

11/11/2007
Updated the Loco and Passenger stock pages to include the new additions (and a couple I missed). See ‘Work in Progress’ for details of my first foray into DCC…

09/01/2005
Started on Scenery work.

03/07/2005
…Long Overdue Website Update.
Added more pictures of the layout as it is so far.
Added a Work In Progress page to encourage me to do more regular updates. A kind of ‘on my workbench’ page…

I’ve been clearing out the ‘chaff’, mostly ready to make room for up and coming models – wallet permitting of course.
Plus I’ve been busy on Ebay getting a few items of modern ‘Parcels’ type rolling stock – Full brakes, Siphons etc.

Also I’ve been making the removable ‘Hill’ that covers the hidden sidings and road access to the main station.

Late July-August 2005
.. Lots of Website Updates – and Many New Photographs added.

27/11/2005
Finally wired up the upper station area. Also updated the stock lists.