Busy Day at Sutterby – an O Gauge Garden Railway

GBRailways video: A Busy Day at Sutterby Junction.

Sutterby Junction is a fictitious main line station on an extensive O Gauge main line garden layout, loosely based on a flavour of the ECML in the late 1930’s to late 40’s. A scale 2 miles run round the garden enables Pacifics and the like to stretch their legs with scale length trains at scale speeds of up to 90+mph and long goods trains to trundle round to their hearts content. The main track work is now complete, just the branch line to be rebuilt. Whilst there is still a good bit of work to be done around the railway in the form of scenic work, the main line is now fully operational. Comprising mainly of twin track, with up to four and six tracks wide in a number of places for around 50% of the layout, giving excellent operational opportunities. Long approaches to the main station (housed indoors) and multiple roads in the cutting area, allow plenty of scope for complex running. One of the main features of this railway is the emphasis on scenic work, something usually only carried out on indoor railways and is very rarely attempted on garden railways. The scenic side is being constantly improved, to give a little more “real feel” to an outside line. The railway is run quite a bit during the summer months (good weather permitting) and remains in place throughout the year, only the outside buildings being taken in in the winter from around the end of November to beginning of March. There are one or two other items added to give a little more “realism” to the models. The smoke effect at the tunnel exit and, on a few occasions, a lively fire can be seen in the cab of the V2, especially when stood off the end of the platform at Orby Bank.