IT SEEMS THAT LARGE LAYOUTS are all the rage, with long main line runs and long trains. There is nothing wrong with layouts like the ‘Making Tracks 3’ project or ‘Heaton Lodge Junction’. They are complex, crowd-pleasing projects that take a lot of resources, management, skill and time to plan, build and complete.
Modellers may dream of building a large layout and many are attempted and often left unfinished because the initial drive and enthusiasm is overwritten by the scale of the project and the lack of resources. Unfortunately, the large layout can overshadow the benefits of compact layout projects, and compact does not necessarily mean boring.
Over the years, your editor has modelled a number of small, backwater station scenes on compact layouts, eschewing main line stations with their large structures and complex signalling. Some of the projects have literally been single platform affairs on secondary routes such as