Although built as a German layout, the mountain scenery and overhead electrification equally suits other European hilly areas like Switzerland, Austria or even Northern Italy. British stock can be run, since the mountains and cantenary suit a Scottish setting, (the west coast mainline, north of Carlisle). The layout also suits ‘across the pond’ areas such as the 'Northeast Corridor' (Boston-New York-Philadelphia-Washington DC), Milwaukee pre 1945, and great northern cascade tunnel, allowing American stock to be run. The cantenary is often removed since the amount of electric stock is limited.
We try to keep to a given scenario under operation, which will depend on the stock available. The option for specials throughout Europe can also bring the sight of steam, and heritage diesel traction to the layout. The layout was used for the first public run of the Dapol 45xx tank loco - thanks to the Company stand at the Bristol Exhibition ‘05.
The photos below, show us hard at work during club work nights,re-tracking the 14-road fiddle yard (7 in each direction) at the rear of the layout. This work is now completed, together with some track re-levelling on the front scenic area. We are potentially also looking to develop other "front" boards for the layout to give a non-electrified option. This should provide two very different layout themes, whilst using a common fiddle yard. An option for the new theme, is to have trains running on two levels, although this would require a new, lower-level fiddle-yard.
This was ‘born’ from a German layout owned by our late Chairman Dave Teall, called “Bayerscher Wald”. It was decided to use the layout to display Club members N-gauge rolling stock in prototypical settings.
