Brooklands Park is an OO gauge eastern region layout which is 29ft long and 12ft deep. Brooklands Park features a large through station with a locomotive depot in one corner. The locomotive depot features a two road shed, a water tower, a coaling tower and a working turntable.
There was a small goods yard running along the inside of the running lines with coal drops, goods shed and provender shed and a siding with a dummy wagon turntable which fed into a large (low relief) warehouse. Many of the buildings have been modified in some way and have also been made to look like they have been there for a long time.
As ‘high speed running’ was envisaged from the outset, the curves at the ends of the layout were canted (banked) as per the prototype, with the fast lines canted more than the slow lines. With trains travelling round these curves it gave the appearance of the banked curves at the former Brooklands racing track, and with a station on the GN main line called Brookmans Park, the name Brooklands Park was suggested and stuck. Incidentally, the canting on the fast lines proved to be too excessive and was later reduced to match that of the slow lines.
Electrical control of the trains is from hand held controllers, one for each of the 4 main lines and one each for the shed and yard, common return being used throughout. The system used is a type of cab control with the controller being automatically selected by the setting of the points, thus doing away with the need to select a controller and then switch it to the required sections.
Due to the size of the layout the club is able to run near scale length trains which proves popular with both adults and children at exhibitions.
At present the layout is undergoing an overhaul to increase operating potential and viewer enjoyment. The overhaul has included an extension to the length of the layout, taking the layout from 21ft by 12ft to its present size. Most of the layout has also been rewired to improve reliability and to cater for new track and points.
Due to the design of the layout it can be made ready for running in aroung 20 minutes by a team of 3 or 4 operators.
A full history of the layout may be found here:
https://norhams.org.uk/wordpress/brooklands-park-a-full-history/