Those North Coast trains...

Philden Beach displays its proud NSW roots with some train names from the past!

My layout now oozes a sense of history in its New South Wales North Coast line setting, thanks to some custom-made stick-on vinyl lettering that has dressed-up the layout fascia with some classic train names from the 1980's.

Much like I did when I decorated the front of my layout module back when it existed in its industrial inner-Melbourne guise, I carefully selected some appropriate lettering using various fonts to give my shelf layout a bigger sense of occasion than its simple 3.3 metre long appearance otherwise suggests. And as you can see on the end of the layout module, the Philden St. motif still stands as a reminder to this layout's origins. It is after all, still the name for the overpass that straddles the railway tracks at the fictitious location of Philden Beach.

As I wanted to steep my layout in the rich railway history of the New South Wales North Coast line, I chose the names of my favourite former passenger trains that I remembered watching ply the rails through my childhood hometown of Gosford, NSW, some of which I used to sneak out of the house late at night to watch as they passed through in the dark of night.

The ghost trains I chose to decorate the front fascia of my layout with are;

• NORTH COAST MAIL

• NORTH COAST OVERNIGHT EXPRESS

• GOLD COAST MOTORAIL

• BRISBANE LIMITED

• NORTH COAST DAYLIGHT EXPRESS

• HOLIDAY COAST XPT

There were of course other trains from the past that I could have chosen, such as the Brisbane Express, Expo Express, Murwillumbah XPT and the Grafton Express, but they wouldn't have all fitted on the 3.3 metre long timber fascia of my layout module and staging shelf.

The stick-on lettering came printed on double-sided tape...

...so the backing paper simply peeled off, the wording was positioned and the top paper peeled away.

I gave each name a different font that I thought best encapsulated the train's spirit.

Once affixed, they lent my layout an instant museum-like quality!

The names lend a whimsical sense of time and place to the layout, even when operating my full roster of modern 2010's era locos and rollingstock, as they create a false sense of history and a fictional story to go with my layout.

As you can see in the photo above, the small OO9 Welsh Highlands layout is still waiting for some spare time for me to finally wire up the loop of track and get stuck into terraforming the surrounding hills using some pink insulation board. While on the staging shelf I have a drop-in Sci-fi themed art piece slowly taking shape. The lettering on my layout fascia nicely complements my row of exhibitor plaques from previous model train shows that I once attended.

Going forward, I want to use my layout for some visual storytelling.

With the layout effectively finished, from this point on I want to use it for some visual storytelling to falsify a sense of local history on what is purely a fictitious layout. Where possible, I'm going to try to lean heavily on models that convey a sense time, like these louvered vans above that can quite easily be serving the same siding on my layout for the past 30 years.

Here's what an Eighties-era North Coast Daylight Express may have looked like passing Philden Beach.

What this does is open up my layout to multi-era operation. However, I'm mindful of how much of a rabbit-hole this could end up being. Even adding a new sound equipped loco and a small set of passenger cars such as above can quickly add up to $1K. I guess time will tell what direction this may or may not end up heading. For now however, Philden Beach can pay homage to the past thanks to the stick-on vinyl lettering that elevates my layout to a museum-like quality.