Abbey Road
'00' scale London Underground model railway layout

Updated 24 March 2012

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'ITV London news' - December 2010	'Metro' newspaper - December 2010
'Hornby' magazine - Sept. 2010	'The Tube' - ITV & Sky television series - 2005/2006
'Railway Modeller' - DVD Xtra no. 5 - Dec 2008	'British Railway Modelling' - Annual - 2009
'Jack FM Hertfordshire' - Dec 2010	'The Telegraph' newspaper - December 2010

Abbey Road is a fictitious location somewhere in NW London on the London Underground network. The station building is based on the classic 1930s Charles Holden design. This sits over a split level four platform station. On the station road over-bridge are various buildings including a McDonalds restaurant, Marks & Spencer store, and a Tesco supermarket. To the left of the station area, the tracks head south, over reverse crossovers, passing Abbey Road signal cabin before disappearing underground into deep tube tunnels heading towards Central London.

Abbey Road - train diorama - Dec 2010

Rolling stock is predominantly Metromodels 1972, 1992 and 1995 tube stock in the current day LUL red/white/blue livery. Various heritage and engineering trains can also be seen.

Layout & track plan:-

Abbey Road aerial views - under construction (Mar 2004) - following completion (Mar 2010)

The layout is built on four plywood base-boards each measuring 5ft wide x 18 inches deep. Each of these boards are joined together, using brass alignment dowels and wing nuts/bolts, to form an 'end to end' layout that occupies a space of 6m x 0.5m (20ft x 18in). This consists of a central 10 foot scenic section and two 5 foot sections at each end which house the hidden fiddle yards.
Trackwork is Peco Code 75 Finescale which has been glued to a plywood track base and then ballasted using Woodland Scenics ‘N’ scale ballast. The ballast has been painted with various shades of brown modellers enamel paint. The prototypical conductor rails and insulators/chairs are also from the Peco range.

Scenic detail:-

Tunnel approaches under construction - Jan 2004

Station platforms under construction - Feb 2004

The grass is made from the now obsolete brown hessian backed carpet underlay. This has been glued down using white PVA wood adhesive and then sprayed using various colours of green/brown aerosol auto paint. Trees and bushes are generally Peco and also include our own Metromodels hand made trees. Buildings are a mixture of kits and scratch-built. The station building and signal cabin were scratch-built using plastic sheet, clear plastic and brick paper whilst the ‘Canon’ warehouses were made using old Airfix garage kit parts together with additional scratch-built items. The trackside retaining walls and tunnel mouths are from the Exactoscale range of embossed engineers blue brick paper. All other weathered brick surfaces were produced from scanned images which were then printed onto on photographic quality paper using a PC and colour ink jet printer. The line-side cable posts are from the ex Harrow Model Shop range whilst the line-side section switch cabinets, the LU station name roundels and the overhead cable gantries are by Metromodels. The station platform posters were made using digital pictures of the real advertisements or were scanned from magazines, etc.

Rolling stock:-

Most of the rolling stock is from the Metromodels range of etched brass, ready to run tube trains. Battery locomotives are from the ex Harrow Model Shop range whilst the ‘Heritage Trains’ are EFE models. All trains are powered using Tenshodo SPUD motors and have extra weight in the form of old roofing lead fitted to the underside of each chassis, to ensure smooth operation. Some trains have interior and directional head/tail lamp lighting fitted whilst others have driver cab mounted train cameras which transmit the driver's eye view to an LCD screen on the layout!

When we are exhibiting the layout we operate a variety of trains including normal passenger trains & various engineering trains.

Station building and platforms - Feb 2005

Metromodels 1992 Waterloo & City Line Tube Stock - Mar 2006 (image courtesy of Ian Turner)

Metromodels 1995 Tube Stock & graffiti 'tags'- Mar 2006 (image courtesy of Ian Turner)

A veteran 'Ever Ready' tube train made in the 1950s is used for special workings on Abbey Road. This model was made around 50 years ago to promote the PJ996 battery. It was sold as a 3 car train set consisting of 1 motorised DM car & 2 non-motorised trailer cars which operated on a 6v DC power supply. It came complete with a battery operated controller & a circuit of track all of which was packed into a neat cardboard box. The car bodies & chassis were made from aluminium whilst the bogies were made from either white metal or tin plate dependent on whether you purchased an early or late model. Early versions came in a nice blue Ever Ready printed box but later models were supplied in a rather ugly, plain looking brown cardboard box with a small label stating what the box contained!

The model is based on the 1930s Southern Railway Waterloo & City tube stock albeit in the incorrect red LT livery and fitted with Bakerloo Line 'Stanmore' destinations!
We plan to re-paint another set into the ex BR blue, white & red Network South East livery in which the units operated, sponsored by Allied Lyons, until their withdrawal in the early 1990s.

Unfortunately, due to it's age, the original 3 pole motor & bogies have become life expired. To enable it to run, the car bodies now sit on adapted Metromodels etched brass chassis and it is now powered by Japanese technology!

The 'Ever Ready' battery company tube train - the first commercially made '00' scale London Underground train! - Aug 2006

'Victoria' from the Underground Ernie family of tube trains! - March 2007
Victoria is currently being converted into a working model being a cheap childrens toy purchased for £5 on EBay!

Electrics & control:-

The layout is, in effect, two layouts in one. The upper level and lower level tracks are operated totally independently of each other. In normal use, two operators will control the layout, one controlling the top level and the other the bottom level. This enables us to keep the trains moving! Power & control is provided by 'Clipper', 'Duette' & 'CU1' hand held units from the H&M range of transformer/controllers. These were produced over 30 years ago and are now only available 2nd hand. More information is available via this link.

Platform building work is underway - Mar 2006 (image courtesy of Ian Turner)

Each section of track is individually powered allowing trains to be isolated via a switch as required. This is known as ‘CAB control’, a tried and tested means of operation. At busy periods trains are held in section awaiting the passage of a preceding train.

Abbey Road wins the 'Most Appealing Layout' trophy at the Farnham Model Railway Club annual exhibition - Aldershot, Hampshire - October 2006

Abbey Road won both the 'Visitors Choice' trophy (as voted by visitors to the show) & also the 'Pete Lindsay Shield' (as voted by the club members) whilst exhibited at the Exeter Model Railway Society's 2007 exhibition (image courtesy of Kevin Staddon/Exeter MRS)

Weed-killer train formed of converted 1938 Tube Stock - Mar 2006 (image courtesy of Ian Turner) & Schoma diesel locomotive no. 4 - March 2007 - both built by Roger Tuke

The colour light signals are prototypical, fully operational LU signals hand made by Roger Murray Signals. They are a mix of semi automatic, automatic and junction types each having a unique signal number, including a cabin code, based on LU practice.

1992 stock waits in the platform underneath the station over-bridge - April 2006 (image courtesy of Aryan Snowsill)

In the late summer of 2008, we decided that the time had come to undertake a complete re-wire of Abbey Road. This was due to the increasing number of electrical faults that we were experiencing. Three of us removed all the old wiring & installed over 150 metres of new wiring in only 4 days. It is all out of sight underneath the layout - the layout runs a lot better as a result!

Re-wiring work by Roger & Howard - October 2008