What I want from the layout
For my new layout, I’m currently thinking that I should follow similar ideas to those I had for the old layout but try to implement them better. My interest is more at the train set end of the spectrum rather than the fine-scale modeling end. I prefer to just watch trains go by rather than perform intricate shunting movements or running complete and accurate timetables. I’m not going to be creating vast scenic masterpieces or having prototypically correct signaling, I just want to run trains. I want to be able to have nearly full-length mainline express trains (8-10 carriages) and have a nice long straight run, so that rules out an industrial or branch line layout. I do, however, want to have some semblance of historical accuracy, i.e. not running stock from vastly different regions or eras.
Time Period
This time I’m not restricting the time period to the early to mid-1960s BR period so I can run late steam and early diesel locomotives, I’m going for a 10-year period from around 1959/60 to 1969/70. The area I’ve chosen to model did not change drastically during that period as the pictures below show –
Location
As before, it will be based on the four-track East Coast Main Line (ECML) but this time NOT based very loosely on Doncaster. It was over-ambitious of me to attempt a station as large as Doncaster (however much I tried to simplify it) and the new loft space I have is even smaller. So I have decided to base it just north of London and settled on Hadley Wood as the station for the layout. This has no points/sidings and has just the four tracks of the main line running through it.
Design
So, again I’m thinking of a four-track continuous loop with a large through-station on one long side and a section of line in a cutting on the other. I previously had scenic breaks of bridges and tunnels at the ends of each of these sections, largely forced by the structure of the loft and to hide sharp radius curves at the ends. This will be the same on the new layout and the shorter sections may also have to be hidden/non-scenic (one of them passes over the loft hatch). I would also like a large fiddle yard, an MPD, and a goods yard so the current plan is to build the layout on two levels with those on the lower level and long inclines joining them to the upper level.
Automation
Inspired by Chadwick Model Railway and Vintage 80s Loft Model Railway I’m thinking more about automating the layout so that there is a sequence of trains coming up from the storage yard, running around the layout, and then returning to the yard. This works with my DCC control but I will need to buy detectors and split the layout into blocks during the construction phase.