Underneath Pontesbury Sidings

One of the most appealing aspects of the model railway/railroad hobby is the range of skills it helps you develop. From research and draughtsmanship, woodworking and electrical, electronics and computing, paint and artistry, even the core model construction part of the hobby means working with a range of materials (wood, resin, plastic, metal, plaster) and therefore a range of workshop skills to match. There is always a new skill to learn, technique to master or new product to try out.

I must admit that woodworking is not my strongest skill set, but still wood underpins the majority of model railway layouts, so you need to know some basics. Wood does have advantages: it is widely available from hardware and builders’ stores, its not expensive, and not that difficult to work – on top of that in our environmentally conscious world its from a sustainable resource. Pontesbury sidings is no different, indeed it was designed to fit in as the middle shelf of a wall mounted rack. 

The base is 12mm exterior grade birch-faced hardwood ply shelf, 6ft (1.8m) long by 1ft (300mm) wide. With a narrow-gauge prototype its amazing how much you can fit in this modest space – without having to resort to the unrealistic “rabbit warren” beloved by many 009 modellers. 

After fitting the shelf to the wall mounted brackets it soon became obvious that the ends were going to droop without some stiffening. Many would have added a dimensional lumber frame, but I wanted a smooth base to slip on and off of the shelf brackets; instead I added a stiffening piece (a ply strip) along the back of the layout. This would later help mounting the backscene.

Pontesbury sidings were raised about the natural ground level on a substantial earth embankment – the railway needed to pass above the main road between Pontesbury and Minsterley (now the A488), and also end up being raised above the GWR standard gauge so it could tranship its main loads by gravity. I created this embankment by using 12mm ply risers which were glued to the shelf – clamping these while gluing gives a much better bond. Holes were drilled in the risers for threading wiring before the track bed of 6mm ply was glued and screwed on top. This all added to the structural strength of the layout. 

Not quite the quickest layout baseboard I’ve built, that was from extruded foam, but not far off. So far so good. 

Next time – I’ll look at track laying