Making room for Denley Moor

Denley Moor is a round-the-room 00 gauge DCC layout based on the scenarios created by Michael Palin and Terry Jones in their Ripping Yarns series (specifically the Eric Olthwaite and Golden Gordon stories.)   The date is 1958 –  for the usual reasons of  steam era but with both early and late liveries and logos available – and is set in a ficticious part of South/West Yorkshire featuring both a colliery scene and moorland scenery as well as a town station (Denley Moor) and adjacent MPD known as Scarsdale .  The main emphasis is on realistic grime!  I had the pleasure of working for BR in the late steam era in South Yorks. and particularly remember the stygian gloom of the line leaving Sheffield Midland towards Leeds via a mass of  steelworks and then collieries since killed off.

The layout is still very much work in progress.  The main constraint is that it has to share a spare room with occasional visiting grand-children.  To this end I purchased two sets of metal framed bunk-beds which have been raised up about 10″ on wooden blocks – the girls sleep on the top bunks via a removable wooden stair and the busiest part of the layout lives on the lower level where baseboards replace the bunks.

I hope to show various stages in the progress of the build on this site.  To kick off I thought members might be interested in my viaduct section –  I have more or less finished this as a project in its own right and it forms part of a narrow rural diorama  opposite the town section. I wanted a deepish valley with a passing resemblance to Monsal Dale where the line emerged from the steep craggy mouth of Headstone tunnel virtually straight onto the viaduct across the river Wye.  The model has to be shallow and reasonably child-proof and to this end I bought a cheap ‘door and drawer’ kitchen unit in a sale at my local DIY store and modified it to contain the valley behind a false front  –  the original door can be replaced if needed as protection.

The viaduct itself is bashed from 2 Metcalfe kits, a modified photo back-scene is used and the valley is built up from cork bark,  wire mesh and sack-cloth finished with modelling plaster, acrylic paints and commercial flocks.