LAYOUT | OO | WHITEACRES
FACTFILE
NAME: Whiteacres
SCALE/GAUGE: 4mm:1ft/16.5mm/OO
SIZE: 29ft x 13ft
ERA: 2000s/Staffordshire
LAYOUT TYPE: Continuous loop & end-to-end
Stafford Railway Circle's (SRC) flagship layout is back after an extended layoff due to the Covid lockdowns and the logistical problems created. When we were closing up after the club's annual show in February 2020, we planned a year off exhibiting to allow us to complete tasks that had long been planned but not started due to exhibitions getting in the way. We then had one outstanding exhibition booked for October 2021, so we had a plan. Little did we realise what was ahead.
We managed to honour the booking, despite our long absences from the clubroom, although the show actually occurred in October 2022. We are now due to appear at the next annual SRC show scheduled for the weekend of September 23/24, 2023, at our new, enlarged venue of Bingley Hall at the Stafford County showground.
Creating ‘Whiteacres’
The layout was designed to representcircuit where continuous running is possible. This is the Birmingham-North East line. A link track to the lower levels runs down from the back of the station from Platform 5 to a junction with the line to Loughborough to a fiddle yard at this level. Running down the front of the layout, we proceed downhill gently past sidings for a quarry and a small locomotive service depot at a third level and onwards down to the lowest level with another fiddle yard sited virtually below the station building.
