I HAVE LONG FELT that small individually built layouts are an ideal way to encourage modellers to dip a toe into our scale; a practical demonstration of the old principle – if you only have limited room, then consider O gauge. With this in mind, I have exhibited small layouts at locations ranging from Ely Cathedral to the Scottish Exhibition Centre and many places in between. However, after a move to a small apartment in a sheltered housing development, the apparent lack of space there put a big dent in my optimism, and I was layout-less for some years.

It was the 2020 Covid pandemic and the need to find diversion within the home that encouraged me to have another look as to what might be possible.

In my small study, room had been found for an old oak blanket chest that had come down through my family. While the interior stored various things that did not need to be accessed very often, its top measuring about 1250 x 550mm, could provide a firm base. The eventual layout, consisted of three bolted-together sections, measures 1850 x 330mm and, despite overlaps at each end of the chest, nothing is lost in terms of stability.

What, in terms of railway infrastructure, could be fitted into such a limited space? The honest answer was “not much.” Nevertheless, I recalled the ideas of Colin Morris, sadly now a deceased Guild friend. He had found a late vocation as an art teacher and was able to enthuse his young students with an unconventional creative approach. He was not afraid to experiment with unusual methods and materials. Colin also took this outside-the-box thinking to his 7mm modelling and produced a layout that proved to be an exhibition winner. In terms of movement, this offered nothing more than a O16.5mm train running around a continuous circuit. What caused the paying public to linger, however, was the exquisitely modelled townscape through which the train wound its way. An extreme example perhaps, but railway modelling almost always requires some clear compromise with the real thing both in scenic context and in operation; our degree of comfort, or discomfort, with this is really a matter of personal choice.

Donald Shaw’s 1989 book (referenced at the end) sparked my interest in the Caledonian Railway’s branch line that wound its way southwest along the banks of the Water of Leith from Edinburgh city centre to the village of Balerno under the Pentland Hills. In this book there are several pictures of the small industries that grew up, initially, because of power gained from the fast-flowing river. These were later served by the railway and included paper and flour mills and, most esoterically, one devoted to the manufacture of snuff. Could something of the flavour of this railway by-way be re-created in my tightly constrained space?

Although there is a small fiddle yard, there was no room to provide a run-round loop. It was at this point that it occurred to me that the two on-scene roads did not actually have to be physically connected and transfers between them could be part of the function of the fiddle yard. Each road would have length enough to include a turnout, thus providing me with two sidings facing in opposed directions. One siding would have to be very short, giving standing for only one vehicle, but the other could be made longer with a reasonable head-shunt length.

Having settled the basic track plan, I then moved on to trying to fit this into a plausible Balerno-type branch scenario. Due to limited flat ground within the incised valley of the Water of Leith, goods and passenger facilities at the prototype Balerno station were set obliquely at some distance from each other. The same sort of situation could be postulated for the (fictional) intermediate station of Rowan Green. What you see is the rather limited goods operation at this location. The existence of the nearby passenger-carrying line is hinted at by a distant semaphore painted on the back-scene. The long siding leading to the previously mentioned sub-diorama has been modelled to suggest that it is now semi-derelict and once continued off-scene to some vanished industry. The only traffic to be seen now is the occasional wagon supplying some tumbledown coal enclosures.

To add a bit more visual interest to an otherwise very modest railway infrastructure, I have painted a series of watercolours on white board attached to the back-scene, suggesting a proper Scottish context. The longer board includes views of a couple of small industries copied from illustrations in Mr Shaw’s book as well as a spur of the Pentland Hills. The break between the two scenic treatments is made by a strategically placed footbridge and an oblique partition one side of which has a distant view of Edinburgh and Arthur’s Seat, and a more local sylvan scene when viewed in the opposite direction.

With the back-scene of the sub-diorama I used a little more imagination. There is a stucco mediaeval merchant’s house with a roof of red pantiles, based upon buildings to be seen at Culross in Fife, and a typical Scottish pub inspired by one to be found at Canonbie in Dumfriesshire.

The naming of the latter gave me some amusement. One of the miscellaneous facts that I have learned since coming to live in the west of Scotland, is that Muscovy Cat is a local name for a tortoiseshell moggie. What better name for a pub? If you look hard enough, you will also see such a cat featured here.

As so often the case, I have more rolling stock than can possibly be justified in a spread of this size. Motive power is shared between 439 Class 0-4-4T No 440 and 0-4-0T Pug No 612. Representing 782 Class 0-6-0T, I also have a locomotive unfortunately numbered 231. Such was the erratic Caley numbering policy; it was only after ordering and fixing the plates that I discovered that a block of numbers in this class started at 232. However, since it would be too much trouble to change the number plates, I am hoping not a lot of people know that. Freight stock is a mixture of Caledonian and North British types with PO wagons of the Edinburgh and Alloa coal companies. Very occasionally I sneak in an odd passenger vehicle with the pretence that temporary storage was needed when siding space in the off-scene Rowan Green passenger station was full.

In conclusion, my little creation probably falls short of the usual expectations of layout builders but, at least, I have a railway within the tight limits that were available to me and that is better than having no railway at all, is it not?

The Balerno Branch and the Caley in Edinburgh, Donald Shaw, 1989, ISBN 0853613664 (Oakwood Library no 77). Oakwood Press