Few years ago the club created a layout group, a sub-group of the club.
The goal was to create a club layout on which
the members could hone their layout building skills. The result was to be
a layout of a rural station on a secondary line.
Since then, Much Muddling has evolved from a preliminary
Club layout into a mature concept with room for expansion. The aim is to
recreate a 'generic' English feel to the layout with the features that many
of us have seen and experienced whilst living in the UK or when visiting it
on holiday. This will enable trains from all regions of the UK to run
happily together without it being too strongly biased towards one area.
After finding a place to build and store the layout, and a slow start with
baseboard design and construction, track laying commenced. In 2006 momentum
increased so that we could exhibit the result at Supertrain in 2007.
With the experience of Supertrain 2007, and baseboards that had not
surrvived well, the layout was started afresh.
After a summer of planning, a more flexible track plan including a
branch line extension was drawn up.
New baseboards were built to be stronger but light and with room for
expansion in the future. The electrical system has been designed to enable
future use of DCC.
In the following years
we have continued to add to the layout, add scenery and improve the
electrical systems.
We still plan to add more of the town of Muddling on the Sea,
and an elongation of the main line and/or the branch line.
Many thanks to Chris Jessop, John Lund, Caroline Dawe, Karen Dawe, Craig
Kirkland, Graham Fenton, John Maze, Ian Mears and Martin Dawe for their
help in making this layout a reality.
The beaches of Muddling on the Sea
The station approach of Muddling on the Sea
The station of Lesser Muddling, a branch line from
Muddling on the Sea
The new layout has two parts: the main line and the branch line. The branch is the most complete as can be seen here. However, there are thoughts to expand the branch by adding a viaduct or even another station along the way.
We have a long way to go for the main sections of the layout. We need to replace these temporary station buildings with quality purpose built structures, to balast the track, to weather everything, to add signals and signal-box.
On the other hand the scenery, while not yet to the level we are aiming, is already much more developed than we had last year.
Overall view of mark I of the club layout
Testing the completed station
Information for viewers
The photos on this page taken and provided by Chris Jessop
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