The
Apple Valley light railway was my first Gn15 layout. The first
version of the plan was entered in the small layout design group
first competition where though there were no official winners
and loosers was acknowledged the best plan. I was pretty proud
of myself. All those years spent doodling in Maths class had
come to some fruition. The plan was even featured in 2004 issue
of Kalmbachs "Model Railroad Planning". The next stage
was to build it or something similar. I went for the something
similar and developed the idea a bit the central feature of the
traintable was still there, I just added the end of a passing
loop to the plan. The layout was built from pink insulation foam,
which was ultimately to be the layouts downfall. For as the mod
roc plaster bandage used for the scenery dried it pulled the
ends of the layout inwards and consequently upwards so the layout
had a bowed shape to it. Running was impossible and it was pretty
quickly scrapped. These photos are all that remains.
The Apple Valley Railway could be a
busy place as this picture illustrates
Click on the thumbnail and a larger
version opens in a new window.
As this was
my first exercise in a totally new scale (Gn15) I stuck as much
as possible with materials I was familiar with. The track was
all PECO O:16.5 crazy track. Despite the small overall size 4'
x 18" operation could be quite hectic. The key to this was
the Lazy Susan traintable that was in the centre of the layout.
This took interchangeable cassettes that could be lined up with
any of the roads. The red loco is my first attempt at scratch
building a Ransomes and Rapier. I'll write a bit more about that
in the Locomotives section, same goes for the railcar. For the
moment just enjoy the pictures of this fun little layout. I'm
actually quite nostalgic for it now just making the pages up.