Interlocking

Essential Details

Hennock was the first time I managed to bring a layout to a point where it was substantially complete. It was built to 2mmFS standards (1:152) and depicts the halcyon days of a Great Western Railway Devon branch line.

Trackplan

The Track plan for the layout was based on one of the passing stations on the Culm Valley branch line – a passing loop on a single track branch, with one siding that has a cattle dock and another with hard standing and a crane.

Gallery

Under Construction:

With the track laid, some stock was laid out to judge the visual effect

The layout was substantially complete at the point it was sold on:

Some arty black and white shots

An overall view of the layout at the point it was sold is below

Operations

Operationally this layout was not well developed – I had not decided on the type of coupling I wanted to use and so my stock was loose shunted.

Passenger services were met with a Dapol/Farish two coach B-set or auto-trailer, and goods services (such as they were!) were provided by 2mmFS Association kits

Positives

• My first real experience to the demands of finescale, which I generally enjoyed
• Highly defined location/time period meant that less mental energy was expended in decisions and choices
• Limited layout size made it straightforward to bring to a level of completion.

Negatives

• I didn’t spent enough time fettling the trackwork before I started on scenic work, so it wasn’t perfect
• With a desire to fit all pointwork on-layout I ended up with very short bits of track, and as a result troubleshooting was difficult
• I did not plan effectively for connections to the cassette fiddle yard, which ended up being very dissapointing

Lessons Learned

• More constraints made it easier to be successful.
• There is a need to plan for the WHOLE layout (not just the visible section) from the get-go.
• You can’t polish out bad trackwork.