Commission: West Highland Hub…

Not everything I design is small! Two of my books might have that in the title and my own projects are small by necessity but it’s nice to be asked to help develop something larger and in this case - Scottish - and even better, sectorisation into early privatisation…

In this instance my customer wanted to model the yard at Fort William in a bedroom in his house. Scale was to be OO as he’d collected some stock… the challenge, quite literally, was making it fit…

The arrangement of lines around Fort William and the blend of passenger and freight services made it a good choice. Mapping this out to understand and consider the long distance and short trip workings it became clear that despite what felt to him like a generous space, things would get tight, quickly.

However in our discussions the simple tuning fork came to mind. What if we made the yard the hub, and placed the depot between the Mallaig and Glasgow spokes?

Now yes, admittedly this didn’t make much sense for passenger service - the Sprinter / Jacobite have to reverse in the yard, but for freight services which were my customers main focus, it worked very well indeed.

We had initially placed the yard and fiddle yard the opposite way around but this meant when you walked into the room, instead of a finished scene you’d see the fiddle yard! Mirroring the plan was easy and much improved that initial feel as you entered the room.

Drawing this up showed we could get much of what he wanted on 50cm deep boards, and the design explored ways to mount and display this in the room.

The final step was to dress this with the structures and scenery so typical of the area. Whilst a generally flat trackbed on the shelves was envisaged, the corner allowed the opportunity to cut in a river, whilst one plenty of trees hide the trains - allowing you to hear them before you see them…

It was a great pleasure to develop this scheme. Working with my customers using my Layout Design Process is a different experience each time but always rewarding for both parties. If you’d like me to help you on your own project then get in touch, design prices start at £210. Until next time…

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