I understand there's something called the Forty Year Rule that says the most popular period for model railways is forty years before the present as that's when the people buying model railway stuff were at an age to become interested in trains. Right now that would be 1984 or so but I'm going back a decade further to the early 1970s.
My layout will be in 1/76th scale and will feature a fictional works somewhere within Birkenhead docks. There's a family connection as my folks had been in Birkenhead for generations until I emigrated to Yorkshire. The Confectionery Works will consist of a cluster of brick-built factories and warehouses served by a narrow gauge railway and with a single, standard gauge line capable of delivering raw materials via a loading bay in the front wall.
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| Liverpool rather than Birkenhead but I plan to make the front edge of my layout resemble this dockside |
The plan is to produce (at least initially) two modules that, when bolted together, will form a small industrial site with a fiddle yard hidden within a large warehouse. Domestic space being limited, these modules will be sized to fit inside 33 litre Really Useful Boxes that can live under a spare bed when the layout's not in use.
I plan to get over to Mersyside and take some shots but in the meantime, here's a very young me with my late sister with Liverpool in the background. I wonder if I could 3D print some bollards like that?
In future posts I'll share some info on the rolling stock I already have and the progress I've made so far on building the basics.
