Hazelbury Junction (OO)

Hazelbury Junction is the OO Group’s exhibition layout and had its first exhibition at the Farnham Model Railway Club’s annual exhibition in the Autumn of 2023.

Hazelbury Junction depicts a station on a busy main line with its platforms situated on loops so as to allow express trains to pass local trains that are standing at the platforms. The station is the terminus of the branch line to Greystone End and the branch has its own platform alongside the main line Down platform. The Station has a Goods Shed to handle the goods traffic generated by the local brewery and other local industries and a coal yard to serve the Hazelbury Town population. There is a two row Engine Shed with its associated ash and coaling facilities for the freight locos calling at the yard. The station yard features the Town’s War Memorial with a pub, shops, bus shelter and taxi rank. As trains leave the station, they pass either the local park or the allotments depending on their direction of travel.

The other end of the branch line is the small station of Greystone End. This station has no facilities other than a run round loop to allow locos to run round their train. However, the trains to this station are normally short multiple units or push-pull trains so the run round loop is not often used. The station is also served by the local bus service and in the Station yard are a shop and café for passengers.

Hazelbury Junction is situated on a main line used at various times by trains of all regions of BR so a wide variety of stock will be seen passing through the station.

The Background or how the layout came about.

After exhibiting the Group’s previous layout, Greenfield Sidings, for over ten years it was decided to build a replacement. Greenfield was a “tail chaser” with two double track lines running roughly parallel and a dis-used low level station at one end. The sidings which stretched along most of the front viewing section were accessed from only the inner of the two lines. As there was no station, trains ran through the scenic section without stopping while the sidings were operated separately without trains accessing the main line.

For the new layout we decided that the layout would again have a “tail chaser” format but that there would be a station with a yard to provide more interest for both the viewer and operators. Rather than model a particular station accurately we chose to base the design loosely on a suitable location so that we could tailor the layout design to suit our vision. The branch line was added to give even more interest. Our initial thought was to use the Greenfield fiddle yard however during construction we found that this was not such a good idea so a new fiddle yard was constructed to suit the new layout.

The name of Hazelbury was chosen as there is no railway in the village of Hazelbury while Greystone End reflects the colour of the stone work of the station building.

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