Ronnie's permanent N-Gauge layout
View of the layout built on a plywood interior door
Introduction
I was interested in railways from the age of three, encouraged by my father who grew up in an age where
most little boys wanted to be a train driver.
My N gauge layout is built on a plywood interior door with a track plan from an Atlas catalogue.
The layout was started in the '80's and has been upgraded many times, it even spent over ten years in
storage while my children were growing up. It is basically a double track oval with additional sidings which
form a preserved railway and a loop that goes round the harbour area.
Track is a mixture of Atlas set track for the sharper curves and Peco points and flextrack for the
sidings and harbour. Points are hand operated and there are no signals yet. The scenery, buildings,
locos and rolling stock are all typically British and mainly steam. The locos are mostly Graham Farish and
Minitrix with a couple of the new superbly detailed Dapol locos. Early British N gauge outline locos were
renowned for poor running but through a process of careful buying I have very few duds, even among locos
dating from the seventies. The layout is run on DC, I have no plans to go digital as decoders are tricky to
fit into N gauge locos and most of my locos are worth less than the average chip!
My 600 x 1200 N Trak harbour module was built to fit into the N Gauge Guild's modular club layout.
It is built out of superwood and conforms to N Trak standards. The module features the standard 3 track
mainlines and a siding that leads to a harbour side good shed. The lighthouse has a flashing light.
The harbour contains a kit built fishing trawler heading out to sea and a tug boat moored at the dockside.
Both ships were built from Revell kits, the tugboat being kitbashed to look more English, as it started life
as an American tugboat.
I have another 600 x 600 N Trak module, 'Coronation Street', which is an exercise in seeing how many terraced
houses I could fit into such a small space! The module is bordered by two viaducts, one a high level canal and
the other a railway viaduct. This module was built on a tight budget using second hand buildings, scrap pieces of
cardboard and brick paper. It portrays a typical urban working class area and there's not a tree in sight.
There is a pub called the 'Rivet Counters Arm's' and there's a suitably grey sky overhead.
My 00 layout was an experiment. A fellow N Gauge Guild member had made up two layout boards from standard pieces
of polystyrene which he'd framed with Meranti. The design of the layout was dictated by the size and shape of
the two boards. Scenery was built from more polystyrene and the track was laid onto Woodland Scenics roadbed.
The scenery and rolling stock are all typically British and steam again. I'm very pleased with the way this
layout turned out, I had very few problems building it and it is light and easy to transport.
I even turned it upside down to shake of excess scenery materials when it was under construction!
Ronnie is also a member of the South African N Gauge Guild and for more information click here
Ronnie's permanent N-Gauge layout
View of the layout built on a plywood interior door
600 x 1200 N Trak Harbour Module
The tug boat waiting for the next arrival
Coronation Street
Terraced houses bordered by two viaducts
The 'OO' layout
You can not miss the Royal Mail Land Rover
Ronnie also collects unique train sets
Here is two wagons of a non-powered train set