Binge and Bracket

Binge may be an exaggeration but our regular visits to Glasgow, either to exhibit one of our layouts at the annual Scotrail exhibition or simply to seek out some of the cities fascinating past and present railway heritage, always include the sampling of some of the ever growing choice of excellent real ales created by local brewers from across Scotland. Well, somebody has to do it!  Our preferred drinking establishment is the majestic Counting House on George Square, conveniently situated between Queen Street and Central Stations.

So what about the Bracket you may ask? Something that was missing from the original New Mills layout was a colour light signal protecting the exit from the up loop which is tucked under the flying junction. It was probably ommitted first time round because few viewers would actually realise it was there, hidden under that bridge!  That bugged us particularly from an operating standpoint as there was no obvious stopping point for trains held on the loop. So we decided to introduce a signal on a wall mounted bracket and then set about identifying an example on the WCML.  The closest we found was a similar arrangement on the up side of Birmingham New Street but only rather distant photos could be found.

However, on a journey around Glasgow's Cathcart Circle we spotted this bracket at Crosshill Station. Not quite the WCML but spot on for our location.

Himself took measurements and the rest is history. A fully operating model was installed on New Mills a few weeks later. Rather nice to have a little bit of Glasgow on our layout!