LAYOUT | 00 | METCALFE ROAD
At the height of the pandemic during the latter part of 2020, I decided to build a layout to run some of the British outline OO rolling stock that I’d acquired or kit-built during the previous few years. I returned to modelling British outline in 2015, following a hipreplacement operation after spending over 10 years building and exhibiting two American HO layouts (‘Sweethome Chicago’ and ‘Sweethome Alabama’).
Having grown up with Tri-ang and Hornby model railways, I’m no stranger to modelling Britain’s railways in OO, and two of my layouts have featured in British Railway Modelling over the years – ‘Hudson Lane NER’ (BRM December 1995) and its successor, ‘Hudson Road NER’ (BRM January 2013).
When I returned to British outline, I started building some of the Metcalfe range of card kits to get me back into the modelling groove and had quite a selection by the time I was ready to start planning the layout.
Layout checklist
Before designing the layout, I set out a few parameters that I wanted to include. The layout had to be portable, with exhibiting in mind, and the boards light enough to carry easily by myself. Each of the main baseboards is 3ft 3in (1m) × 19 inches (0.5m), with separate backscenes and open-frame construction. Only the trackbed, baseboard edges and ends are constructed from 5mm plywood sheet, the scenery base being constructed from foamboard for lightness.
I wanted to use the freestanding folding leg assembly that I had built for and salvaged from ‘Sweethome Chicago’, whereby folding leg assemblies with adjustable feet on each leg piggyback onto one another to form a solid, level foundation for the baseboards that can be used for multiple layouts, although not at the same time.
