Jim Read

After a gap of 20 years I am starting to plan and build a model railway layout.

I do like to take my layouts to exhibitions and am limited in length by my vehicle, I can get two boards 16" wide by 3 Ft 10 Inches long in it.

Many hours of Google searches for small layouts led me to Model Trains International magazine and the Model Trains Interactive online forum, please see the links at the bottom of the page.

Further searches led me to layouts made by Bob Hughes, revelations to me in design and with an operational potential far in excess of their size. The searches also revealed the small layout goldmine, Carl Arendt's enormous website entirely devoted to small and micro layouts.

---

An 0 Gauge Micro Layout

My first thoughts were to make a layout similar to the one I had years ago and the design below this one is the one I will eventually make. We are in the throes of a house move and will be moving to a different area. (we hope)

With that in mind and the prospect of even more decorating looming, I decided to have a go at making a micro layout. My stock and locos are all 0 Gauge and are all I have left from my previous modelling interest, so the layout has got to be to that scale.

Below is the plan I've come up with, this has been done in XtrkCad model railway layout designer software, well worth downloading and getting to grips with especially as it's freeware.

One of the things that surprised me while doing the drawings, this is the Mk 8 version, was the difference small alterations make. I started with 3 parallel tracks and no point and ended up with this, which I now feel quite happy about.

I want to be able to operate it from both front and back and from a sitting position so the buildings will be at the ends leaving room for me to couple/uncouple as the layout is shunted.

I have a variety of wagons from dumb buffered coal wagons of the 1800's to 1930's vans and wagons and locos from an 0-4-0 saddle tank to a Y6 tram loco and a 1920's diesel, I will be able to run it in various areas and eras.

It will be part of the 3M's Light Railway Co and have two names Moxley Basin and Marshland basin.

---

This plan is the Mk7 one, there is a post about its design in the MTI forum. This will be run using mixed trains as well as just goods and the run round, with the traverser as the other end will mean that I will be able to shunt from both ends making the operation that little bit more interesting. Having a siding in multiple use helps with this as well with a number of movements being needed to shuffle wagons in one siding.