Liljeholmen.


The last depot of Liljeholmen, raized in 1959.

Pics from 1990

The main yard.


View towards the city including the bridge over the sound of Hornsundet.

Liljeholmen.

Switching yard in the city
It is hard to think of any railsite with as much varied history than Liljeholmen in Stockholm. Once a part of the mainline which after major relocation became small yard serving industries to the 1990.s. Today it is mostly used as a storage terminal for the new lightrail system built in the city.

The colorphotos (not very good ones) here are dating to the 1990, when the yard was still active as yard, but more less of the indsutries it once served.



Turning 180 degrees view against the switchback and the tunnel.



A view closer to the tunnel. The track seen left is the lead for the switchback.



This is the very end of the southern part of Liljeholmen. Note the swithcback track and the main on higher elevation. The other side of the tunnel is a large switching yard of Nyboda.



Just a few hundred meters back to north is location of this street overpass over the track. Classic!

Switching layouts = plenty operation on limited space!

Shallow width layouts on shelves could be an alternative for modeller who really lacks space. City and industrial yards with tracks taking off to warehouses and through brick and concrete canyons will provide any modeller alot of fun in operation that lasts. Unlike basement empires these actually have chanche to be completed and by starting small and giving a track a provision for future expansion and double the fun.

To elimate picking off equipment by hand you have to think about stageing. This can done in several ways. You can add a separtete shelves to adjoining wall or loop the trakc behind the scene or using a helix and have the stageing under the layout. The stageing will present the world outside the layout where the trains orginates and after leaving the layout terminates.

Real prototype for a challenging switching railroad!

Inmagine this, a dockside layout, near downtown, with 45 degree curve like on a modell Railroad. The second pair of plusses are the connection to the rest of the railnet is by a tunnel, just like a common way hide the entrace to the stageing and to make things even more interesting, at the tunnel side there is a switchback to a spurs serving a plant famous for "Absolute Vodka".

It features also once a busy freight station that would be perfect for all kind of detail in its haydays or as a bit rundown as it appeared in the 1990.s.



The lower end of the switchback, the track to the right is to the destilator and its docks.



Back at the northend, where the tracks turn to the left. The highway bridge is typical, yet interesting design of early twentiteth century, during the 1930,s a second identical span was constructed as the traffic increased within citylimits.



Cars handling pressured gas were common on the yard, appearently they were stored at site when the traffic dwindled.



he back of the freight station would add a lot of detail if the the 45 degree corner is placed against a wall, with the sound and the cityscape as the backgrund.

Setting the mood.

Like the most docksides this was a rough neighborhood. With rundown residences that attracted less fortunate people around, even before the area was developed. In 1910.s military post was needed to contorll people entering to city from here. There was a lot of dark alleys, with allmost no people in sight and crimes was not unusual. Yes, this was close to the skidrow. But this unpleasent fact is playing for us odellers, the buildings were rundown, with lots of litter everywhere. At the loading docks scrapped pieces loading material is swept away by the wind, occational wrecks of unused cars and trucks are parked where ever there is a spot that is not to be used in near future.

The sound of cars and the ruttle of trams crossing the highway is there 24 hours a day, adding the dust kicked by the wind. Perhaps nearby an enterance of a corucated shed there is a small rough club out of reach of the law and police.though the area is patrolled by cruising police cars.

During the day time it is a different scenes in the yard the the engine is busy shifting the cars, the depot is busy loading and unloading freight cars and trucks. A number of the trucks, delivery vans and pickups keeping the streets occupied,and the workers are fed by the local lunch stops and cafees. Liljeholmen was a major junction terminal for tramlines diverging to various destinations of the suburbs. The terminal area is still busy today but the trams are replaced by subway and buses.

You got to like to build structurers, details and weathering for a layout like this. But unlike most layout set in downtown or a city there are more typcal scenery as there is plenty of rock walls in the area.



The sole block of flats
Located next of the freight station is this block of flats, which is a one of the highlights on the area at this date, as the it towered over the industrail buildings and sheds that were at he area. Today the area is totally reconstructed and new office buildings have come to the neighborhood.


At the freight depot.


















Modelling ideas.

Even the airly small yard as this tends to be much larger than most of us can handle. To able to modell most of it you need at least small leg to left at the freight station and a small leg to right at the opposite direction. The idea of including all is in the other word impractical..

Though the switchback is interesting feature on this, I would drop it in favor for the tracks at the freightstation and perhaps include small strech to the concrete pant few hundred meters west. The swithcback would just be scenic or you could use a bit of own ideas to as hide the track to the destilator plant through a loading door. The freight station looks like a typical building of the early ninties in Sweden and you could replace it with one from Faller old time factory (#980 as L-sahped) or any you like. Remember the feight depot was stil important such in a lage city well into the 1970.s when gradually businesss was shifted to new and more rational terminals nearby.

As for the wall along the main wall would use brick of walls made from DPM and also by using background building kits from Walthers. Some of the tracks went to courtyards in these blocks where the loading docks were located. During the very early days, this wall was dominated by various shop buildings, some of the may have remained few years after the shops were relocated to Hagalund north wet in the city, but as the aera was by then higher value real estate they were rather quickly replaced by factories and warehouses. So if you are in to using the yard as a pure swithing yard as the yard was after 1930, remember to use architecture of 1920s or later. Today most of these second generation buildings are repalced by new postmodern office buildings in glass and steel. One of these is an official fashion center, so you get the picture that there have been some changes lately. The waterline on the leg with the freight staiton would give possibilities on small ship building, as the dock is filled of various house boat projects few completed by in most cases in "under construction" phase. Many of the veterans will never be more than battered hulks.
The block of flats, which was for a long period of time the sole townbuilding could be kitbashed or just repalced from a couple of Vollmer kits(#) or by a pair of Pola/Faller corner house kits(#). I would try to locate this on the front at a corner if possible of the layout as it is a landmark of the area.

The highway bridges are infackt sing bridges ath the waterway this could be modelled by a set of boom s from road crossing and a small swithingtower. The bridge it self would have to be scrachbuilt as ther are not mayn iron bridge around, and none of them is a highway bridge.

One interesting detail is the catenary poles without the catenary when the line became entirely under diesel operation during the seventies.











The rail related equipment.

One bad thing in modelling Swedish prototype is that there are not much available commerically unless it is expensive kit or hadbuilt model, usually with different opertional failures. But there are some models you can use right of. The typical Swedish concret hopper car is a twin round cylinded with two axle underframe. And a number of these ahve been prodced by Roco. Most of the versions are only available in Sweden so you have to contact these. One car that is right on is the postwar Gbs.type of 2-axled boxcars made by Lima, and if modelling fifties the Limas O-class car with collapsable condola sides is right. As power you have to rely on offerings from Jeco. They offer pewter kits on 0-8-0T N-class steamer that is right on this layout to the late sixities. Even the siderod C-axled elecric switchers saw duty her, later replaced by diesels of which Jeco offers T44 as kit, using a Roco drive. The electic is also offered this way using a SBB E3/3 drive.

But the site could rather easily transfered to other parts of the world. Using samll switchers of SW 1500 or older Alcos you could transform this in to a very crdible US layout. Using V60 from DB you could model portion of portlines in Hamburg in western germany.