The
Ayr Model Railway Group
|
Ballochmill (O Gauge)
Description Operation Track Plan & Exhibition Space Requirements
Ballochmill portrays the railways of our home county of Ayrshire and the 12' feature viaduct is of a similar type to several past and present viaducts not too far away from our clubhouse.
Laigh
Milton Viaduct.
Just south of Irvine, there is the world's oldest surviving public railway
viaduct which was used by the original "Kilmarnock & Troon"
track way and was opened in 1812. The viaduct was restored a few years
ago and can be accessed by foot from a near by car park. The Troon to
Kilmarnock branch line has now been re-aligned a short distance upstream
and is still in use today.
To the north of Irvine on the A736, near Burnhouse, there is a fine example
of a 11 span viaduct that carried the old Caledonian line from Glasgow
to Ayrshire.
and
tucked away by Burnhill there is a smaller one on the same line. Unfortuneately,
this one has just been demolished
Just north of Kilwinning there is one which carried the Glasgow & South Western line from Dalry to Kilmarnock
To the south of the county, there is the Ballochmyle viaduct (absolutely
no connection) which is still used by the Kilmarnock to Dumfries main
line along with a magnificent stone viaduct near Annbank which, again,
is still in use today.
Our Viaduct
The layout is 39'3'' long and 16'3'' wide (excluding barriers) and each
of the approaches to the viaduct comprises a Fast and a Slow line with
only the Fast lines over the viaduct and from there, back to the Fiddle
Yards.
At the rear of the layout, there is a 11 track fiddle yard ( 5 tracks
on the inner & 6 tracks on the outer ).
Following on from operation issues found during the AMRSS show in February
05, the outer fiddle yard tracks have been changed at the exit end. The
centre track & the next 2 tracks were changed to only feed the main
line with the remaining 4 only feeding the loop. However the 3rd track
was arranged to feed either the main line or the loop. The inner yard
was left as before with 4 tracks feeding either the loop or the main line
and the outer most track only feeding the loops. This arrangement allows
fast mainline stock to be run through the main line with freight or other
slow trains being held in the loops.
The centre piece of the layout is the viaduct itself. The main section of the viaduct was built by Ian Wallace out of plasticard with a full set of trusses beneath the deck. The rest of the viaduct was clad with plasticard after several other failed attempts were made using plaster.
The other features on the layout are,
Motive power depot.
The left hand rear corner has been developed as motive power
depot which is on a separate controller and is fully operational for shed
and coal shed movements. All the points have been motorised with the panel
being able to be located on either to outside or the inside of the layout
for operational use. Two sidings have been added to the outer tracks at
the exit (right hand) end to allow locomotives to be staged there to allow
active changing of the motive power on the trains.
There is a small 2 road diesel depot on the inner track located just opposite
the village and again, a short siding has been provided at the other end
to allow motive power swapping.
.
The village at the right hand rear corner of the layout is a collection of buildings built by various club members,as is the cottages at the right front side.
Here are a few more pictures the cottages and the small garage at the end of the village.
All the garage needs is Bernie Scripps along with David to appear out of the garage.
The small holding on the right hand viewing side was built by Bill Gribbens and is based on an actual small holding some where to the east of the A77 near Symington
.
The layout has appeared
at 2 shows so far, Ayr in September 2004 and Modelrail in Glasgow February
2005 where the layout was voted best in show.
It has now been refurbished for it's appearance at the '0' gauge convention
at Telford in September '06.
The layout can be run with only 2 operators, one for each main line but the assistance of 2 "shunting" operators is usually required whose duties also include stewarding the layout and answer questions from the public.
The main lines are controller by fixed controllers in each panel but the loops are controlled by hand held walk about controllers which allow the slow trains to be sent around the loops independently of the main line. The junction of each main line and loop tracks are interlocked via the points to prevent trains running through a wrongly set points. Both the loops have operating catch points that work along with the main line points.
The signals at the exits of the loops are now fully operational and interlocked with the points as is the main point into the outer fiddle yard just behing the loco shed.
Track Plan & Exhibition Floor Space Requirements
The layout requires a space 42 feet long by 18 feet wide overall with the operator space in the centre of the layout. The rear of the layout needs approximately. 2 feet of clear space from any walls or other layouts for operator access
Front, for main viewing
Last Updated: 2 January, 2008
