Layout Idea: Swanson Rd

Am_Fet writes: One of the real rail success stories over the past decade has been the revitilisation of the Auckland commuter service. Taking what was a creaking, antiquated system with museum quality rolling stock and a terminus station in the middle of nowhere and turning it into a growing, state of the art system has taken a lot of time, effort, and last but not least millions of dollars. Aucklanders can now travel to work in comfortable trains and be deposited right into the heart of the CBD. I've used the service several times while up on business and loved it.

The idea of a model based on this system came from a long gestation; lets face it, the colour scheme on the DC and DBR locos is fantastic, and those refurbished SA/SD sets really are ...something on a stick (whoops, might be children reading).







What really reounded it off was a competition being held in The Mother Country to celebrate "Minories", Cyril Freezers plan for a simple, inner city terminus station that had first been published 50 years previously. It obviously still has some appeal....just do a search on the interweb and numerous hits come up of layouts built using this simple plan:



Seems one of my heroes, Ian Rice (Guest at next years convention), was really taken with it and produced his own version, albeit with a slightly more rural feel:



And here is how it looks in Pommy 4mm:





Right then, so here is the plan: Swanson Rd is a suburban terminal somewhere out west (or south) with a fairly intensive rush hour peak that slows down during the day. Commuters are served by DC hauled SA/SD sets as well as those strange looking Perth ADB and ADC Railcars. If you really want to stretch the imagination, a Silver Fern could terminate here from its morning run into the city, then start its evening trip out from here as well.



What has made all this possible is the technological gains the hobby has made over the last few years. Many people have pointed out that most NZ passenger rolling stock could be made up of a wrapper that folds over a set of formers to create the shape. And that sounds like a job for etching to me, either in brass or styrene.

So whos up for it? Hell, talk nicely to the boys in the Waihaorunga Creek Workshops and throw a few chocolate fish our way and we might even do the artwork for you...

BTW, the pics are from the VCC, so they could be from either MRK, Goobah or Skippy....or maybe they are the same person?