Welcome to Lime Works

Welcome to Lime Works. 

This is the first in a series of posts on the construction of my new HO scale micro switching layout, Lime Works.

The planning

During last years lockdown I decided to build a micro layout using only the resources and materials I already had. I kept working through lockdown and other than a bit of planning this project got no further.

During this planning phase I found a plan from Peco - Peco Setrack OO Plan 30 Locotec and Dewsbury Cement Terminal. This plan is for a OO scale minimum space micro switching layout.

Drawing of the Peco Setrack OO Plan 30 Locotec and Dewsbury Cement Terminal.

Track plan for the Peco Setrack OO Plan 30 Locotec and Dewsbury Cement Terminal.

For some reason this plan has always caught my interest. As well as the plan and drawing, Peco supplied a short description for this layout as well.  

Baseboard Space Required - 122cm x 30cm (4'x1')

This is a basic design that can be used in two ways, both reflecting the prototype at Dewsbury Blue Circle cement terminal and Locotec.

First you can treat both the left-hand sidings as part of the terminal and shunt PCA wagons (Hornby) accordingly. Second, you could use the rear siding, left-hand side as the maintenance shed for Locotec, justifying the appearance of many different shunters. In both cases the right-hand end goods shed can receive single wagons carrying equipment or materials. A Peco SL-43 Loco Lift can be used as a short cassette to place and remove rolling stock inside the rear lean-to shed, having first created a suitable access hole in the backscene.

Not a large layout, but one that can be thoroughly detailed and extended when resources permit. (Peco Publications).

While this is a very simple track plan, it would give me the opportunity to work through all the different facets of constructing a model railway - baseboards, track laying, wiring for DCC, back boards, kit building, scratch building and scenery - in a short time.

I'm also a big fan of shunting locomotives and industrial buildings and sidings which this plan is ideally suited for. Because I already have some HO scale Australian V/Line T and Y class locomotives and wagons, the layout would be set in 1980's Victoria.

To further seal the deal I already had a simple 120cm x 30cm baseboard constructed for another project that never passed the plywood phase.

So the decision has been made to build this micro switching layout!

While the Peco plan is for a cement terminal I'd like to model a lime works such as the ones at Makareao and Weston in North Otago. These would fit in well with the Peco plan.

The Limeworks at Makareao sometime in 1984 or 1985. Photo by Richard Emerson from the Ghost Railways of Otago Facebook page. You can visit the page here. 

Next up in the series I'll show how I built the baseboard, laid the trackwork and burnt my fingers with a soldering iron as I attempted the wiring.

Ma te wa!