Boxford Junction is no more. A thorough review of the project concluded that radical surgery was needed: the existing design was too cumbersome. Since the proponents of the layout had long since departed the club, we no longer felt constrained to follow their fancies.

The agreed aim of the revised project is to build an exhibition standard layout of medium size which can be readily transported and set up. It is estimated that the operating team would be about four people. Operation will be based on conventional DC with two controllers in a flexible cab-control arrangement, so that the public side of the layout (had to watch the spell-checker there) can be fully entertained with traffic movements. Too many big exhibition layouts have recently been seen with 20 to 30 trains in the fiddle yard, nothing out front, and five operators chatting with each other, backs to the public. We are not going down that road.

The core of the layout as-retained covers a frontage of [ x ] with a short section placed L-wise at one end to take two cassette tracks and a pair of branch-line storage sidings. The original station and goods yard still form the centrepiece, but the double-track through line has been terminated at one end (Beeching et al). A branch still departs from the station. The era has been moved to more modern times. A national rail service will use the station and branch for passenger and some goods traffic. Intermingled with this is a preserved railway company’s operations, one terminus of which is conjoint. Thus, we hope to get away with running almost anything short of an IC125! We still have to agree a more detailed and convincing history and location.

Details about the former Boxford Junction layout:

"Boxford Junction" will be an "OO" scale layout set in the post-war era in Central Southern England. The heart of the layout is the double-track, through, main-line station.

The layout is a hollow rectangle, comprising of 11 boards, carried on trestles, all of which pack away due to the necessity of storage between club meetings.

The station and good yard occupy 3 boards, approaches and branch line 4 boards, and the fiddle yard a further 4 boards. The fiddle yard has 9 tracks and a nominal capacity of 18 trains.

Control centres will be based in the fiddle yard and the station/goods yard. A third controller covering the brnchline and overlapping the goods yard is also proposed.

The track, excepting some final touches in the goods yard, has been laid. Most of the point motors are in place, as is most of the continuity wiring.

Detailed wiring and testing of the most complicated sections, i.e. station and goods yard, is well under way. Scenery construction is being pursued in parallel and this activity is gaining momentum.

The construction team hope to be able to undertake test runs on the station and goods yard in early 2006, although the subsiduary control centre will have to be spliced in the later.

Overall, the completion date is still estimated as early 2007. The sighting of a 22xx Collett in action on the track proved to be merely the testing of a toy-fair purchase!

Baseboard construction - June 2003

Boxford Junction makes use of an open-top baseboard design in the front scenic area, to held reduce the overall weight of the boards. The photos below were taken before track laying started.