N Gauge Club Layouts

New N Gauge Layout - Exceat Bridge

One of the baseboards under construction [photographer: Gary Kerr]

After the success of Neece Creek, the N Gauge section of the Hillingdon Railway Modellers decided to come closer to home. We are presently making progress on building what the team aspires to be, an exhibition standard layout of a (might of been) railway on the south coast of Sussex; had the expense of tunnelling under the South Downs not been so expensive. If you look at a map of Sussex you can see that the termini at both Seaford, to west, and Eastbourne point towards each other, albeit some fifteen miles apart. The team is working towards creating a fictitious line linking the two and the start of a branch line that runs up the Cuckmere Valley, in particular the section crossing the River Cuckmere and the valley at Exceat, hence the layouts' name, 'Exceat Bridge'. The branch line serving the Forestry Commission exporting timber from Friston Forest at West Dean and the wayside stations at Litlington and Alfriston on the way to it's junction with the main Lewes to Eastbourne and Hastings line at Berwick. In the world of 'might have been' though, that branch line disappears into the backscene, a short distance from Exceat Bridge.

Progress to now (April 2024) has the baseboards construction complete, the track laid, point motors installed, wired up and tested. A start has now been made on the scenic side of the layout. More photos can be seen on our Photo Gallery page.

The bridge and river under construction [photographer: Gary Kerr]

The four baseboards, all 2ft x 3ft (600 x 900mm) have been sized to make them easily transportable.

N Gauge Layout - Neece Creek

Coal hoppers waiting for collection [photographer: Gary Kerr]

Its was time since we've had a N gauge layout (mainly due to no one in the club modelling in that scale at the time), but now, as we have a few members that do, a new layout was created. Its loosley been set in North America around a coal loading facility with a small chemical plant, associated warehousing and grain loader. In addition its been arranged to allow a continious run of track just to 'watch the trains go by'. To speed up contstruction the layout was constructed using Kato unitrack.

N Gauge Test Track

N test track [photographer: Gary Kerr]

Our N gauge test track consists on three loops with a fourth set up as an 'inglenook'. All can be operated under DC or DCC control. The test track is available for public use on our running days, see our home page, for dates.