STUART JORDAN is looking at one of nearly 20 layouts on show, which depict railways from around the world; built to different scales.
In the run up to the show, RIGHT LINES we will be looking at a few of the many superb model railway layouts being exhibited over the weekend.
This issue, we are looking at Mill Falls - a HO Scale American layout built by Mike Carter. Here, he tells us about the fictitious location of the layout and what is featured on it.
Mill Falls is a fictitious busy manufacturing hill-town with industries involved in the production of carpets, furniture, beer, confectionery and spinning machinery. Set in the late steam/early diesel era of the early 1950s. It is somewhere close to Route 1, which links Boston, Massachusetts with Bangor, Maine.
The eastern seaboard of the USA was the original manufacturing heart of the USA and New England was its heartbeat. By the early 50s the area was rundown and not too tidy. The structures have been deliberately constructed to look a little worse for wear.
The majority of the buildings are either "limited-edition" craftsmen kits – from Fine Scale Miniatures, South River Modelworks, and Foscale (a plan and lots of wood), laser-cut wood kits or scratch-built.
The layout features a water scene with two typical New England mills. The buildings are truly representative of the area – for example Mill Falls Spinning Ring Co is based on an old mill from Whitinsville, and Mill Falls Fine Carpets from an old mill in Thorndike – both in Massachusetts - while the Mills Falls depot (station) is the Queen Anne-style train stop at Crawford Notch in New Hampshire on the old Maine Central. Stuffy’s Brewery and Currier Cabinet Makers are typical of small industries that could be found in old Boston.
Mill Falls is operated with a Digitrax DCC system, which allows independent control of the locos, most of which are fitted with sound decoders. Switching (shunting) is accomplished by using Kadee automatic couplers together with magnets concealed underneath the track.
Sound effects are featured with the sound of water rushing over the falls, a honky-tonk piano in Stuffy’s bar and timber being cut in the furniture factory. Lighting effects include working signals, flashing crossing lights, and a road traffic accident.
The devil is in the detail – can you spot the following:-
53 figures, 8 pigeons, 7 dogs, 3 cats, the moose, the stag, the car licence plates, the newspaper vendor, the shoeshine chair, the manhole covers and drains?
