HANGING HILL |
A MODERN DIESEL DEPOT |
Hanging Hill is my new diesel depot layout, as you can see still in its early stages of construction. It is a replacement for my old layout, Pig Lane. I enjoyed making and operating Pig Lane. I also learnt many things with Pig Lane, these will be incorporated into Hanging Hill.
Hanging Hill will represent in model form my own nostalgic look at a 1960s Eastern Region diesel locomotive shed. These were my early trainspotting days, diesels were green in colour and very much the of “Modern Image” British Railways. At the time everything was “Modern”. Looking back I never realised how the world around me changed as I grew up. It was the era of the mini skirt, jobs for all, concrete and glass office blocks, transistor radios with pop music but the most important thing to me at the time was the new diesel engines. Cyril Freezer was right it was the era of the “Modern Image”. Hanging Hill is being modelled in 4mm scale (OO gauge). The track is Peco Streamline. The buildings will be scratch built and based on Eastern Region prototypes. The figures are going to be scratch built from Milliput, this ensures that each figure has his or her own character.
Pig Lane was limited in size and its capacity to display the various classes of diesel that could be seen in the sixties, I hope Hanging Hill will be an improvement by having longer and more storage sidings.
To speed up construction I have enlisted the help of my son Robert. Even at this early stage thanks must go to Richard Hall for providing the space on the web site and for the wonderful photographs. We both will endeavour to keep this updated.
For those who are interested in what has happened to old layout, it was carefully dismantled to provide bits for Hanging Hill.
Clive Mortimore, Witham M.R.S. and DEMU