Workbench – Page 12 – noun: A bench at which practical work is done

Micheldever Oil Terminal

Post author By John
Post date January 3, 2011

I’m in the slow process of planning a successor to Phoenix Yard.

Having enjoyed the operation of the inglenook format, I want to stick to that. However, I do want to draw some scenic inspiration from the real railway.

Thinking about locations that had a simple lineside set of sidings, I remembered Micheldever Oil Terminal:

View 51.187521, -1.258965 in a larger map

I travelled past quite frequently in the 1990’s, and it seemed to be sporadically active. More recently it seems to be used for occasional storage of surplus stock.

The facility seems to be a large concrete bunker built into a chalky hillside. There is a handy photo at Geograph, which I’m using to understand the relationship of the concrete bunker to the surrounding chalk hillside.

Miscellanea

More stock arrives

Post author By John
Post date June 7, 2008

It was a sunny day recently, so time for some more photography. As you can see, I’ve bought some more locos recently!

Trackwork

Track Plan

Post author By John
Post date February 18, 2008

Track Plan

Looking at the shunting puzzles site, and the collection of track I had, I realised I had enough bits to build a Timesaver, but it looked very complex for a layout I wanted to finish quickly. Therefore I decided to use Inglenook sidings as my base. Looking at the 2 pieces of foamboard I wanted to use to build the baseboard, butting them together would create a 1680mm length that would be easy enough to manoeuvre around the house (for storage, etc).

I wanted the layout to look relatively modern, so I wanted to use longer wheelbase wagons than the very shortest found on British railways. If I wanted the 5/3/3 proportions of the classic Inglenook plan, I needed to allow 8 wagon slots and one loco slot within my 1680mm length. After allowing for the classic BR class 08 shunter, pointwork and buffers, that meant an average wagon length of 143mm – big enough for long wheelbase modern wagons in 4mm scale.

I added the kickback siding with a fuel depot to the ‘classic’ plan, as many others do, to add more visual interest. I realised later that by using 2 locos I could shunt a tank wagon in occasionally to fill up the fuel tanks, for more operational options.

The final board ended up at 1685mm because my trackwork overhung by a millimetre or so (sloppy work on my part), and a shim was needed to allow me to fit a fascia.