Overall design
Buckland is a modular layout in 5 pieces designed to be dismantled and reassembled at exhibitions etc.The overall base board plan is like a shallow inverted "U" shape as illustrated below. The width is 5 metres by 2.4 metres deep. The boards are also designed to stack into one unit like a large rectangular prism on castors for ease of transport in a standard box trailer.

PEMBREY AIRFIELD - LATEST PICS
Some of the details from boards one and two are shown below.

Prototype & Geography
While the actual setting of this reailway is fictitious, the prototype is British, Great Western Railway (GWR) between about 1942 and on into the first year of peace-time after WWII (1946). It could be located somewhere in the South of Wales or possibly in Cornwall. The landscape it decidedly rural with long winding track sections, forests and streams, castle ruins and farms.

Stations and Villages
There are two main stations, one at the right hand (eastern) end of the layout, complete with engine shed, sidings, turntable, and goods yard. This is Buckland-Under-Edge.

The other is a small suburban station with up and down lines and spur, situated right in the middle of the layout. This fictitious station is called Woodhall, and it services the nearby Pembrey RAF Base (not fictitious - in fact for an interesting rundown on the history of this base, click the link and visit www.kidwellyhistory.co.uk/Industry/RAF.htm).

A further siding has a small unmanned halt and cattle loading dock (Ashwater halt) which services St Joseph's Parish Church and the surrounding farming community of Ashwater. The St Joseph's Church is actually modelled on a real church in Gloucestershire at a place called Harescombe. Here are a couple of pictures of the real thing.

Construction and Evolution
Like many model railway projects, this one began small and grew. Originally intended as a single 5' x 4' base board with a double loop, goods yard, and a couple of sidings, it developed into a 5 board demountable exhinbition layout, which is incidentally still under construction. The pictures below show some of the first pahses of construction. As can be seen, the first section was built on castors and the board was designed to tilt from the horizintal to the vertical for ease of storage.

I still think this is a fundamentally sound idea and I only moved away from it as I wanted a larger layout. The pictures below show some of the stages in construction as the project moved from the first baseboard to 3, 4 and finally 5 boards.

The track is pretty much down now, with point motors installed. Now its time to build new control units and make sure everything is working well. Then it will be tuunnel portals, chicken wire and papier-mache, scenery, building construction and final detailing. I reckon there's at least a couple more years work, and then who knows. By that stage it might be time to tear it all up and start again. Such is the nature of railway modelling. Rest assured if you watch this space you'll see all the ongoing developments as they take place.