Where to start

My Model Railway.

I have been thinking and talking about making a scale model railway for a while now.

For months in fact I have been considering what to model.

At first I was going to make a model of Batley Railway Station around 1930 when it was in its pomp with probably eight tracks through the station as opposed to two today.

Batley Station in its heyday

When you start looking at the scale of things though it soon becomes apparent that modelling this in 00 is going to mean a huge layout and unfortunately I have very little space!

Lady Ann Crossing

I then thought about the area around Lady Anne Crossing where the lines used to cross, with one going on to Upper batley Station and the lower line heading on to Morley Tunnel and Leeds.

Again this was quite complicated with embankments all over the place so again I decided to think again.

Birstal Lower

I then started to think about Birstall Lower which was at the end of the Coddy Line which ran from Batley Station, through a station at Carlinghow and then on to the terminus at Birstall Lower.

I think that it was used a a goods Station only when it closed in the 1960s, but it interested me as the track plan was something that looked 'doable'.

As before though it was going to be quite a sizeable layout in 00 and I was having difficulty getting any further references for it to model it from.

Christmas 2012 arrived and my wife bought me 'Firts Steps In Railway Modelling' by C J Freezer.

At this point I realised that I knew very little about producing a model railway and therefore needed to think small.

I have therefore taken the track plan for 'Highfield Yard' in the book as below

But I have adapted it to look like this:

The model will only be four foot long but will extend to the right two feet so that I can practise making a fiddle yard!

The whole thing is going to be DCC.

I have bought a Mixed Goods set off ebay at a sensible price and have picked up other bits of track.

I am going to make the baseboards as suggested in the 'Freezer's' book and I'll post some pictures as I go along.

The layout will be called 'Batley Lower' an imaginary branch line terminus that could have been built at any time around 1900 when the local councillors wanted a train station in the Town and not in Soothill.