Stapleforth St Stephens
‘N’ - GUEST
The layout is an ‘N’ gauge mainline of freelance design, with a track plan designed to provide train movements which are entertaining and hopefully appreciated by those watching and a headache to the operators if they make a mistake.
All my exhibition layouts have been named “Stapleforth (xxx)”. This latest layout continues that theme being called after the church opposite the station, as was the terminus station “Cheltenham St. James” in my home town.
At this exhibition the layout will be set at the time of the Privatisation Era (1995-present) and you will see representations of all locomotives and stock which have run during those years.
The layout is 15ft x 3ft and provides continuous running from and to the fiddle yard accommodating 21 full trains (mostly freight) and as an end to end – fiddle yard to terminus station and return for 9 passenger trains.
Where feasible, most of the rolling stock has been adapted with closer couplings to provide a more realistic appearance. All coaching stock has interior seating and the Virgin HST first class coaches have table lights – no they don’t work.
All track work is Peco 'finescale', with the live-frog points operated by sub-baseboard ‘Seep’ motors – controlled by stud and probe via 3 independent circuits, each with its own capacitor discharge unit. At present, all “CR” colour light signals are set by the operators and you may see a “spad” from time to time.
We hope the atmosphere of the real scene is sufficiently captured for your appreciation.