Sarum Road Depot - A (fairly) New MRC Layout

BR Southern Region 1956

Sarum Road is a model of part of a locomotive depot set in the year 1956 in South London. The yard is small but busy, with a selection of Southern and BR types, as well as occasional LMS and NE locos that have crossed the Thames on transfer services. On the viaduct is a shuttle passenger service to a small, temporary station - the area as a whole has still not been rebuilt from bomb damage sustained during the war. There is also traffic on the running lines behind the viaduct.

The layout is operated from the front, but can be viewed from both sides with movable backscenes so that the loco shed becomes an industrial works with typical small locos in the yard. It has been built so that even the wiring can be viewed on the underside of the boards.

Sarum Road is designed to be light at under 30 lbs (13.5 Kg) for portability on public transport, only 9' (2.74m) long to fit in a small house and to be fairly easy, ie quick, to build. The lightweight baseboards have been built from 3mm ply and a PC used to generate drawings, architectural details (eg the viaducts), wiring schedules and the control panel. The scenery has been created with a number of unusual techniques such as foamboard for the viaduct and a novel method for the general yard area.

The project has not needed any specialised tools (with the exception of the traverser) and has been built almost entirely in the dining room on an old(!) dining room table. It's construction is being serialised on this website. The articles give the ideas behind the design of the layout, details of how the baseboards were built, the wiring, the construction of the traverser, suppliers, etc. These can be found here.

Photos above by Guy Stamford and Mike Joseph