Castell Sofia 
Roger Davies OO gauge 4mm scale
Castell Sofia the layout is a terminal station with parcels depot and servicing facilities for sleeper coaches. The concept of building Castell Sofia came about after a holiday in Scotland in 2017 with a visit to Fort William and a ride on the West highland line. Whilst waiting for our train the Caledonian Sleeper Service arrived behind one of the rebuilt class 73 locomotives.
The class 73 promptly uncoupled from the train and ran into a stabling sidings and a Westcoast Railways class 37 later coupled to the other end and hauled the train out of the station. After clearing the points the train was then pushed into a sidings for servicing.
I then thought that I could model something similar in four millimetre scale with a shunting of the sleepers adding an extra bonus.
Being Welsh myself the setting of the layout had to be in Wales and a suitable name found for it. With homage to the name Fort William I decided upon Castell, a fortress or castle and Sofia, my granddaughters name and merge the two together
As well as a sleeper service other commuter and intercity trains come and go from the station all by various diesel hydraulic and diesel electric locomotives along with DMU’s use for the local services.
Most of the locomotives are painted in British Rail blue but the occasional loco in maroon or green may appear.
The busy parcels depot provides further interest by allowing trains of vans and wagons to be shunted into the yard for unloading and eventually being reformed into trains to leave the depot.
Being Welsh myself the setting of the layout had to be in Wales and a suitable name found for it. With homage to the name Fort William I decided upon Castell, a fortress or castle and Sofia, my granddaughters name and merge the two together
As well as a sleeper service other commuter and intercity trains come and go from the station all by various diesel hydraulic and diesel electric locomotives along with DMU’s used for the local services.
Most of the locomotives are painted in British Rail blue but the occasional loco in maroon or green may appear.
The busy parcels depot provides further interest by allowing trains of vans and wagons to be shunted into the yard for unloading and eventually being reformed into trains to leave the depot.
