About Lynneton Yard

As a railroad town there is a keen interest in their history and there is a very active 'heritage' railway. This interest is mainly centred on preserving the 'older' diesel locomotives although there is the occasional visiting steam locomotive. The heritage railroad also renews old railcars and it is in often used by film crews and photographic charters to re-create scenes from different periods of history, ranging from the 1950's to the present day.

Lynneton Yard in an older, out of the way part of the town. Goods to Lynneton Yard are delivered on a regular basis in a variety of box cars with the occasional gondola or tank car load. One loco is all that is required to work this yard, usually the first one that the duty crew can lay its hands on. This may be a CN or a UP loco but the heritage railway's close links with this part of town means that they will often use one of their heritage locos to earn revenue on the Lynneton Yard run. This is mutually beneficial as the main railroads get cheaper motive power while the heritage railroad get to 'run in' their latest restoration project.

New brakemen are sent on the Lynneton Yard run to learn their trade. The brakeman's job is to help the engineer 'spot' the cars in the right place ready for loading and unloading and to remove any cars that are ready to be returned to the main marshalling yard. It is your first day on this turn. You are working with an old time engineer who is determined to give you a 'baptism of fire' and will not give you any help unless he can see you're making a complete mess of the job, and even then it will only be the minimum until he can see you are back on track.

When you come to Lynneton Yard you quickly realise that the small sidings will only take a limited number of cars, and you will also need to allow space to get the loco to the other end of some cars to be able to spot them. The task is further compounded by the fact that there is engineering work taking place at the entrance to the yard, giving you less space than normal to leave cars while you spot the others. You must also be careful not to block the grade crossing as the railroad company have received complaints from local motorists.

The engineering train will move in about 30 minutes time to allow your train to leave or you will be have to wait until they have finished their work which may take several hours. Your engineer is anxious to get back as quickly as possible and woe betide you if you can't get this done in time. Your train orders tell you what cars go where. What do you do?

This layout was built while I was recovering from an operation to fit a new knee joint. It helped me test some of my construction ideas. The whole thing fitted onto a piece of plywood that I had lying around that had not been taken for use in my loft layout. I used No 5 switches so that I could test all my rolling stock through them. Since joining South Shore railway club the layout has had the mechanical point operating system linked with electrical micro switches, providing a simple, effective method which seems to stand up well to the rigours of exhibitions.

The current, non scenic, ‘staging yard’ section will have some additional track work and scenery added making the potential for the problem to get even more difficult. The whole thing will be completed and scenery completed in time for the March 2009 exhibition.