On30 Shays in Germany
 This small U.S.-style logging layout is the
work of Gerd Ziller, in Germany. Designed to show off his new On30 Shay loco,
Melina's Camp was designed as a small, backwoods location for maintaining
engines and other rolling stock.
There are just a few buildings in the camp -- an enginehouse with workshop and two
bunkhouses. The landscape behind the camp will be mainly a rock wall with many, many
trees.
This little layout (80x120 cm) is home to lots of operation. Engines come out of
the woods and are refilled with wood and water. The small Shay brings freight cars
with food and tools to the bunkhouses, and cars in need of repair are moved to the
workshop.
For more on this charming little layout under construction, see Gerd's website.
 The secret of the operatons is the track to
the workshop, which "sneaks off" to make a 180-degree curve, ending behind
the background and completing a very-useful continuous loop.
It's useful not only for runarounds, but for breaking in locomotives, and even for
just allowing you to settle back and enjoy watching the trains run!
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English rural narrow-gauge
in OO9
Grumblwick Coombe is a narrow
gauge railway in an A3 paper size (16.5"x11.7") created by Graham and
Caroline Watlling, from Norwich, England. The little rural layout was
first covered in the Small Layout
Scrapbook Page 8,
but Graham has kindly provided some additional photographs and a scale track drawing.
The "main line" is 38 inches long (including the hidden fiddle yard, which
features a two-track traverser (transfer table) to move the carriages sideways while
the loco runs around them on the adjacent track -- see photo below). The chief purpose
of the line is to bring passengers and beer to this remote valley, whose central
feature is an inn named (what else?), "Coombe Inn."
The baseboard is 4 inches high, which allows a three-arch viaduct (a modified N scale
kit) to carry the train over the coombe (valley). The train pulls into the station,
and passengers make their dignified way down the stairs to the inn while the beer
barrels are lowered by ropes down a convenient chute. A second locomotive, seen standing
by in the photo above, couples on for the return journey.
All in all, a wonderful example of relaxed railroading in the depths of England,
during a time now, alas, long past!
 
 
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