Era or Error

Mr Druff has mentioned in the past that Newmarket Junction would make an interesting layout, something I have also thought about on and off.

So given it's decades of existance the first thing to do is pick an era to base a layout on.
Of course this assumes you haven't already got, or started building a collection of models... oops.

So with a bit of hunting I have tracked down some Aerial Photos showing Newmarket in a few different years.

These have all come from the Auckland City Council website, so of course we need the useage statement as follows (then you can see the pretty pictures).

“Data contained in this product is provided courtesy of ALGGi who makes no claims as to it’s reliability, accuracy or adequacy for any particular purpose.”

So with that out of the way we have:

Newmarket Junction in 1940

1959

Not a lot of change between 1940 and 1959.
I haven't as yet tracked down anything between 1959 and 2001, which is a pity given that as we can see a lot of change happened between these two dates.

2001

2006

and finally 2008

Also available on the council website are other datasets including contour data so you could even get accurate terrain information if you wanted to go that far.

Incidentally the colour images are orthophotos, I can't vouch for the older images but they look to be as well. What that means is that the photos have had the distortions removed and can be measured off just like a map.

A number of other councils around the country also have Imagery and data online, so depending on where you wish to model you may well find information to help.

So what era would I pick.

Well I like the idea of the diesel to electric transition due in a few years time, think of the mix of rolling stock you could run on the layout.

Guess that makes everything I've just mentioned irrelevant in the meantime...