Loftus Road
March 28, 2008
 
As this latest layout from Worthing MRC is my baby and Mr James Makin keeps plugging it in each of his many published articles in the model railway press, I thought I’d better tell you all what it’s about and where we are to date in its construction.
This layout is the first to utilise the modular concept of the former club secretary, Dave Kent. The idea is that there is a common 12’ fiddle yard along with two double track connecting ‘curves’ to which a 12’ long ‘scenic’ (front) section is added to form the continuous run.
Loftus Road is a through station situated on the West London Line between Willesden Junction and Clapham Junction and very loosely based on Kensington Olympia. The time line is late 1990’s through to the present day; this will enable a great variety of train movements, on the passenger side there are local suburban, north/south cross country services and empty Eurostar services, whilst on the freight side, Freightliner, aggregate, various Channel Tunnel bound services and even the odd nuclear flask. Add to this the various infrastructure trains and light engine movements the operational scope is very wide.
It has taken the best part of 2 years to get all of the track down, the miles of wiring installed and the complex control panels built on both the fiddle yard and the Loftus Road boards but we are just beginning the scenic side of things. Control is by either DCC or DC but DCC will be the preferred choice.
My fellow protagonists on this project are Chris Sweeney, Martin Browning, James Rann, Rex Morrison, Mike Denwood and James Makin.
The layout’s first official outing will be at the club show in September however we will be having a couple of test runs at the SRP Collectors fair in May and the East Preston village fair on 7th June.
If you have any questions please feel free to email me at treasurer@worthingmrc.co.uk
Pete Hollman
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