STUART JORDAN takes a look at this charity layout which was on display at the Warley Exhibition.
Project 45C is a layout building project with the sole aim to raise money for The Royal Marines Charitable Fund.
The project was started by Tom Snook, an ex-Marine himself, and built by a group of volunteers including Tom's son Neil.
The layout saw its first proper outing at the 2015 Warley Model Railway Exhibition back at the end of November. It represents freight movement and secondary routing of passenger traffic, with locomotives and stock from 1955 to the present day.
The total size of the layout is 34' x 13'6" (with operation from the centre space), which allowed a lot of spectators to crowd round! One of the long edges represents an 11 road steam marshalling yard, with two 8 bay engine sheds at each end. The other has a Gronk depot, a TMD, a wagon repair depot and a paint shop, with fuelling points.
The short edges represent a nuclear fuels loading/unloading facility, and a Network Rail facility and oil terminal. There are many cameos scattered around the layout, as well as fantastic lighted areas to catch the eye.
The layout is made up of nine 3' x 7', two 6'6" x 3', and two 2' x 3'6" sundeala baseboards, with marine ply frames.
The trackwork is mainly Peco's, utilising Peco and Gaugemaster's SEEP point motors, and Gaugemaster's CDUs. The layout is DCC controlled, using Gaugemaster Prodigy.
It was really great to see this layout well received by the public at Warley, and hope that they raised lots of money for their worthy charity. If you would like to know more about this layout, CLICK HERE to visit the Project 45C website.