Saturday 26 August 2017

Callington Branch: Gunnislake Station








This is the other potential prototypical layout that I've always wanted to re-create in N gauge, although it's a bit more involved than Luckett on the same branch line. I used to catch the train from Gunnislake into Plymouth when I was a kid and remember the old station buildings before they were demolished, along with the rest of the station eventually, now replaced by a housing estate and a new station across the road.










The track layout of the original station offers lots of shunting opportunities as well as having potential for some interesting passenger trains, hauled by a range of locomotives. I would love to have the original PD&SWJR engines operating on the layout but they're not available in N gauge (you can get them as kits in OO though). Instead, I'd run post war era Southern O2's alongside Ivatt 2MT's, with an occasional appearance of a Class 22 diesel or two car DMU to make things interesting.







I reckon a you'd would need at least six feet of layout space by about eighteen inches of width to avoid overcrowding, even if the layout was condensed to feasible proportions and not taking the fiddle yards into consideration. There's a convenient scenic break at the up end of the station but you'd need to do some clever scenic transition at the down end, probably by masking the exit with trees or houses. I don't think this would be too difficult with a little imagination?

Who know, I may even build it one day?

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