Forest Creek
My previous layout, Emu Creek, occupied a 5m x 3m space in a purpose-built shed and was featured in AMRM Issue 316 (February 2016). It was my first serious layout and proved to be very satisfying in terms of size, track arrangement and scenery development. I was also very pleased that I was able to say, after about three years, that it was ‘finished’ (as much as a model railway can ever be regarded as having reached that stage).
However, in 2012 my wife and I decided we wanted to move closer to Melbourne to be in more regular contact with our families, so we chose to make our new home in Gisborne. Imagine my pleasure when we (jointly) settled on a property that just happened to have a 26m x 6m shed in the backyard! It was partially divided, the front to be used as a workshop and storage area, leaving me 11m of the shed to be used as I wished. In short order I built a wall at one end giving me a train room of 7.75m x 6m which I insulated and lined, and had a suspended ceiling installed with plenty of troffer lights I managed to buy cheaply on eBay. This was more like it!
Track Plan
The inspiration for Emu Creek had been the Maldon branch, which diverges from the Bendigo line at Castlemaine. For the new layout I wanted a long single track branch line as well as somewhere to run main line diesels, so it was a pretty easy decision to base it on the same scenario, but this time attempting to model the real locations a little more accurately.
From there, the plan developed into a double track dog-bone main line passing through Castlemaine station with the Maldon line commencing from there and taking a fairly long route to a terminus, with a few passing
