The Story so far

After watching a few friends blogspots I figured out I may as well have a go at making one for my layout, so here it is.

This post is just a brief introduction, I'll have to take some photos & publish them next, and then draw the plans of the layout as it stands so far - it will be a slow process but hopefully will get there eventually.

I have the beginnings of a layout in an attic, when I first started it, it was to be based on the South Coast of NSW from Bombo thru to Bombaderry, then I gave a presentation on Cement Traffic in NSW at one of the conventions and as part of my research came across Portland, I then realized this would be a neat little line to model, so I scrapped any ideas I had on the South Coast & started researching the Mudgee line.

Some of the following is what I like about Mudgee :

• The fantastic station building - going to be a lot of fun building that.

• The cement works @ Portland & their exchange siding and private locos.

• That Mudge has it's own loco depot and locos where changed there in the era I will be modelling.

I wanted to make a dual level layout to allow maximum use of the space I have available. A major constraint I have is that the layout is in it's own purpose built room in the attic and thus I have sloping walls to contend with. To start with I made a small module with the two levels and left it at that for a few months so I could get a feels for it, after a few adjustments on the module I started on the main layout benchwork and am pretty happy with the outcome so far.


The layout has been under construction for the last 7 years, it is still very much a plywood central at this moment - as mentioned it is a double level layout, the lower level is 1050 mm (3 foot 5 inches) above ground level, the upper level is 1440 mm (4 foot nine inches) above ground level, giving a gap of about 320mm ( 12 inches approx) between the two levels (allowing for the framework). The two levels are connected by a 3 turn helix with about a 1/48 grade.

That all for now...