Next Stop Davemoor

Last weekend we cleaned up the baseboards in front of the window, prior to planning the track layout for both the main line and the branch line extension.

The blue lines in the photos above depict the approximate route of the main line while the black line shows the course of the branch line, travelling above it on an embankment. The green lines, meanwhile, indicate this embankment which is, in effect, a continuation of the original embankment that carries the branch line along the back wall.

As you can see we have removed Lake End, the former branch line terminus, and taken up some of the track at this location. This station will now be moved slightly to the right and positioned, on an angle, in front of the electric sockets. It will then be renamed Anchwood and become an interchange between BR trains, running up from Gunnmere, and steam trains running on the 'preserved' extension to a new Lake End. This station is just visible, in the distance, in the second photograph.

In the third and fourth photos you can just make out the corner of a large baseboard which will contain a central loop connected to the main line via two single line sections - one of which is visible in the last photograph.

These lines will cross the gap via a couple of removeable bridges before returning to double track once they are on the other side. 

We decided to make these two crossings single line because, firstly, it was easier given the space limitations here and, secondly, we thought it would actually be fun to have a couple of single line sections, much like there is on Brunel's Royal Albert Bridge at Saltash in Cornwall.

As you can see from the bottom photograph, it has made for an interesting tunnel with a single portal at one end and a double portal at the other, as the main line goes under the branch for the first time.

Does anything like this actually exist on the railways I wonder?

Once all of the cleaning, planning and marking had been done we then began to lay the first section of track. This will be continued next weekend as we make progress towards the new Davemoor.