The plan for the new layout

Southon Yard has been sitting on the bureau, in the alcove next to the fireplace in our dining room for the last 3 years. This has been great as I can play trains at any time, and it is good to show off my loco's. However it struck me that it wasn't fully utilising the space there, and the limitation of Southon Yard is that you can't really run trains, just move loco's about.

So I decided to build a layout to fill the alcove, which gave me 3 foot 6 inches by about 13 inches deep, but also restricted to 12 inches tall at the backscene due to shelves above. I seem to have collected some tramway style loco's, with skirts fitted, and also some coaches that would look good on a tramway style layout, but how do you capture the feel of a roadside tramway in such a small space? I also wanted good shunting potential. I thought a train length of 12 inches, plus loco (up to about 4 inches) was sufficient. That means 2 bogie coaches plus brake van, or 3 4-wheel coaches, or about 5 wagons.

So I came up with this plan, you may recognise elements from Wantage - particularly in the Station with overall roof and the goods shed behind. I also have a goods yard, and a factory, so 4 sidings to shunt. I even got an engine shed in! Low relief buildings and the factory will give an urban back-streets feel. The line runs onto a removable "fiddle Yard" which will use the cassette system I designed for Pen-Y-Bryn Quarry, as that worked well. The fiddle yard will sit over the mantle piece, but will only be fitted when the layout is slid forward about 6 inches, so I plan to mount the layout on drawer runners into the alcove!

I have started building the baseboard - but more of that later. However I have not come up with a name for the layout yet, so suggestions gratefully received!