Victoria Road

 00, British Rail, East London, 12 @ 1 foot


Still under construction   
David B and I designed Victoria Road or as it was originally called Victoria Street to break away from the normal industry in a rural setting and to avoid the problems with another layout by automating the passenger service & adding a goods service. We also took into account the normal constrains of cost, size, transport, storage, handling and technical factors like a decision to use pattern makers dowels to give smoother running over joints. After considering French, West German, East German, Czech, and America it was decided to go British 00 as the most popular outline. The availability of British 00 stock meant Victoria Road had to be set in the late 1980’s as the Class 121 diesel multiple unit in rail blue dwindled after 1986 as they were repainted into Network SouthEast livery, Class 09 in rail blue dwindled under post 1982 sectorisation as they were repainted in Railfreight gray and wagons are in Railfreight gray livery (1982-97) that wasn't wide spread till the late 80's. The next decision was where to locate the layout. Given the stock Victoria Road had to be in the London area so the next stage was to develop a background story - Victoria Road was a station on a line down to the London Docks that in the 1960's closed south of Victoria Road but a passenger service was maintained using Diesel Multiple Units and in the 1970's the track was rationalised into two reversible track as happened, at one point, to Blackpool South. Given we were in East London I had thoughts about Something Walford but sternly repressed them as it's an overused name. As the layout was set in London it was decided to go for a 24” high back scene allowing the a upper level 'mainline', a low level goods yard, and a 17” roof lines so plenty of tall buildings. The 24" high back scene meant the layout would be operated from the front. It was decided to operate from the fiddle yard end so goods stock had to be fitted with KD couplings and a magnet placed under the track for automatic operation. The upper level line was to be on a viaduct coming from behind buildings and ending at the station with the viaduct split by were the low level line passes underneath. The viaduct arches are used by small industries and one or two rail served industry such as a wine importer. The viaduct height was determined by clearance needed to handle stock in the fiddle yard. Track passing under the viaduct was made accessible by flaps in back scene and to ease maintenance no track crosses baseboard joints under the viaduct. The back scene was, initially, to be a combination of very low relief buildings and a Peco photo back scene possibly SK-20 Port/dock scene with ships at berths. I built the baseboards, installed the track and wired the layout. David's built the buildings etc. Nigel Ca. offered to paint the back scene. At that point for a variety of reasons development stopped.


Panoramas

 

Station


Victoria Road


Industries

Wine importers

Warehouse
 
Wire Works


Low Level



Photos of Victoria Road under construction

Fiddle yard - rarely photographed but in many ways the heart of a layout