APPLEDORE(North Devon) |
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Appledore, in North Devon, was originally served by the Bideford, Appledore and Westward Ho! Railway but this closed in World War one. The rolling stock and track were recovered for the war effort. The layout from here on in, is based upon a fictitious history where the London and South Western Railway built a new line from their Bideford station to Westward Ho! and Appledore mainly to tap in to the ship building traffic. Later on the LSWR added a direct link towards Torrington allowing clay trains from Meeth and Passenger trains from Halwill Junction to run directly to Appledore. The Southern Railway rebuilt the station to cater for increased holiday passenger traffic in the 1920's hence the art deco station similar to that which existed at Seaton. Various types of traffic can be seen at Appledore including through coaches off the Atlantic Coast Express from London Waterloo station and also local passenger workings from Barnstaple Junction and Exeter.Freight traffic is also varied serving the industries mentioned above. This layout was originally built as Appledore but some years ago was converted to a 1980's diesel era called Boscombe and at one stage could be exhibited as a circular layout. Click here to see location map
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The layout has now gone back in
time to its original name and era of the early 1960's. Both steam and
early diesels can be seen on the layout. The track plan is
similar to its original form but with some changes. The biggest change
is the addition of part of the town with the railway running in the
street to the dockyard.
Most buildings have been scratch built from plastic sheet. Some of the street side buildings have been kitbashed from Dornaplas building kits. Plain track is by SMP Scaleway with turnouts being scratch built. Most turnout motors have now been replaced by SEEP solenoids. Train control is by Gaugemaster handheld controllers.Rolling stock is a mixture of kit built and modified ready to run. Rolling stock has now been fitted with Kadee couplers The uncoupling magnets have been retrofitted in to the track, hidden with fine ballast and walkways from the signal box. The little magnets were obtained from Squires tools in Bognor Regis. These couplers have made operating the layout so much more enjoyable and do not look as ugly as the tension lock couplers. DCC sound has now been installed in a number of locos. See the rolling stock page.
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Just a few photos showing progress on the layout - Kadee couplers have been fitted since these photos were taken.
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Click on a photo to see a larger version |
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