And now for something completely different

Well, the last couple of weeks has been a bit single topiccy really. certainly a valid topic, but you can have too much of one thing. So tonight, its track plan time.

A station type that is fairly commonly modeled overseas is the Junction. Normally a busy mainline with plenty of trains for interest. the main drawback is that they tend to be quite sizable chunks of real estate with complex track work. Maybe this is why they are not that commonly seen at local train shows. However one does have options that are not particularly large like Frankton or Addington. The first is Lincoln, Junction of the Leeston and Little River branches.

Its not a particularly large station, but still one with a bit of interest, especially with the odd shaped station platform.

The second option tonight is Lumsden.

This is a far more interesting beast as it was on the line from Invercargill to Kingston, and also a connection to Dunedin through the Wamea plains 'branch' through Gorre (phonetic spelling). The Mossburn branch was a few km futher up the road, so there is the possibility of 6-8 trains a day. to cap it off there is a small engine shed present as well. Locomotive optuions would be A's, Ab's, Q's and later on Dj's and even Dsa's (I've seen pictures of them running the shunt from Gorre to Lumsden and back. Add to this a collection of interesting old wagons and there is quite a bit of potential for a home or exhibition layout.
(A warning, these are a bit big file size wise, I couldn't really trim them down much further)