Layout Name: Harding’s Staithes Scale/Gauge: e.g. 4mm P4 Gauge Size: e.g. 4ft x 1ft6" - Subject to change Exhibition layout, or stay-at-home? Exhibition (hopefully!) Type: shunting plank Era/region/location: North East Tyneside, 1960s Whether you would like to be included in the layout register: Yes
The plans for this layout have gone through a number of changes and will be changing again now I’m moving and storage space is more retrictive. The previous plans called for:
A staith over the Tyne
A dock branch
DCC - MERG
CBUS - MERG
3rd Rail Tyneside Electric on Viaduct
A line down under viaduct to dock branch
The plans will be slimmed down to only be the following now:
DCC - MERG
CBUS or EzyBus (MERG)
A single staith with shunting opportunities
Optional: Viaduct with 3rd Rail Tyneside line
I’ll post pictures later of what was planned and how the plans might look in the future. It might be that we try to redesign it to fit within the Scalefour Society’s 4ft 8.5" challenge dimensions, but I’m not sure yet until I fire up Templot again.
The plans will change to rewmove the wagon works, dock lines, lines to the north of the staithes and the line going under the Viaduct and off scene. I’m not sure what to do with the Viaduct as of yet.
Natalie visited this afternoon and we had a chat about what the plans might turn out to be given the changes necessary due to moving and the space restrictions.
To give an idea of what the plan is based upon, here’s a page from the Harton Electric Railway book by Williams Hatcher:
The teeming shed is on a higher level to the drawn line coming over what is labelled a level crossing, but will be a viaduct of some description as the scenic break. The graving dock will be omitted and the black rectangle will be a small wagon works (which in reality was part of the Low Staithes rather than the High Staithes, but the Low Staithes is much to complex and big for us to consider (plus it used gravity shunting!)).
The scenic edge would be where the stockpile is, with the power station not modelled.
These revisions keep things fairly simple and in the coming days I’ll fire up Templot and get something put together and see how it looks. If we can fit it within about 6ft I think we’re good, cassette storage wouldn’t be very long as the locomotives are small and we’d probably be shunting 4 to 6 hopper wagons (13t, 20t, 21t) at a time at most. Harton No.2/No.10 are smaller than a 21t BR hopper wagon! Though obviously Harton No.11-13 are a bit bigger, but No.2 was the shunting loco typically.
I’d like to do a model of No.9 which looked a bit bonkers to say the least and the two articulated locomotives. As yet Michael Edge has only produced kits for Nos. 2, 10, 11, 12 and 13.
