The Challenge

Back on April 1st the annual Christmas layout challenge was announced over at the Micro Model Railway Cartel Facebook group: Build a layout with a scratchbuilt railway related working feature (E.g: A crane, wagon tipper, wagon loader)

I'll hold my hands up, that prompt is very out of my comfort zone. I'm certainly a person who enjoys just watching the trains rather than seeing them actually loading and unloading. However it was very on the fence if the contest was going ahead this year, so it's certainly worth having a try, even if just to prove to myself that this certainly isn't an area I'm comfortable with.

Since the start of the month I'd been sitting down for an hour or two a week trying to sketch out some ideas. There were some nice thoughts, but nothing was really taking my fancy. The main stumbling block being that I didn't want it to be a layout were I could only have a particular set of locos and wagons running on it. I wanted it to be able to accomadate the regular 009 stock too, which would include incorporating a passenger service somehow.

Just last week though the obvious source for inspiration was pointed out to me. I'm not too far from the route of the long gone Ashover Light Railway, where industrial and passenger traffic coexisted quite happily together for a time. So armed with the Bob Gratton book on the line, a large mug of tea and the chance to sit outside in the sunshine, I started scribbling in the sketchbook again.

Introducing "Ashcross":

Very much taking visual cues from the Ashover Butts end of the ALR on the left hand side, with an aggregate chute and exit view-blocker cottage on the right giving some not quite Butts Quarry/Fallgate vibes. Just moving my pen back and forth along the rough track plan and thinking of operational moves revealed that it probably needs an extra middle spur for ease of operation. It could be done with just two tracks leading to the fiddle yard, but the third elleviates the need to 'crane shunt' locomotives round their trains.

Comparing the above rough sketch and stock list with what there is to hand in the project stash, this is looking like quite the viable project for 2026. There's the battered remains of a GEM Baldwin in a tub, the wagons would be a good scratchbuilding exercise, the body pieces for a Glouster style coach are easily available to buy and there's plenty of embossed sheets to make the structures. The only thing that would need to be specially bought in is one 'Y' point.

It all simply boils down to the classic enemy of all modellers. Time.

We'll see where this goes.