New Yanga ? BRMA.
Yanga is a layout based on an extension of the New South Wales Government Railways Hay line to Yanga near Balranald; a distance of about 100 miles. My initial version of Yanga had a Victorian Railways broad gauge connection, but this has been omitted from my new layout.
I have enjoyed my compact layout and I have operated it more than any other layout. It has been great to be able to switch on the power and run trains. It is the only layout I have spent so much time adding the finer detail to.
The layouts all have used an NCE Powercab DCC system with additional cab 06Ps. The layout is operated to a running sequence and wagon cards are used for train operation.
The major annoyance was the baseboards, particularly where the two sections joined. As I delved into how the New South Wales Government Railways operated and found more information I decided that the time had come to build a new layout to include a number of new operating requirements
I decided that this should be my last layout, so I wanted it to be one that provided reliable slow speed running and was enjoyable to operate.
A table in the Southern Division local appendix listed stations where extra coaching stock was stabled to meet unexpected passenger loading. This was justification to add the CX express lavatory carriage to the layout. As the layout represented a terminus station on an extension of the south western line from Hay to Balranald in far western NSW, over a distance of 100 miles the next addition required was a scale 50ft turntable. The Peco ?N? gauge turntable is an easy and inexpensive way to make a suitable unit. A small locomotive depot with coal and water facilities added more operation to my previous layout.
A carriage shed and siding is another addition for stabling the branchline sleeping carriage and a platform road with a longer platform to accommodate the new passenger train consist.
The basis of a good reliable operating layout is a proper baseboard so I found a local joinery business to construct the new baseboards. I had an additional section built with a transfer table so that in the future if we moved into a smaller home, I would still be able to use the layout.
All track is Peco code 75 Finescale track and their small radius electro frog points wired as per Peco?s instructions. When wired as per the instructions these points have provided good slow speed running which is important with locomotives fitted with DCC sound. I have also standardised on ESU sound and basic decoders.
Cobalt slow motion point motors have been used on this layout to make operation easier with the new track layout. The layout has now been running for a few months, (August 2025), and has been as entertaining and as enjoyable as the original Yanga.
Over the last five or six years there have been a number of smaller NSW steam locomotives released that are an ideal size for the compact layout. A good assortment of four wheel goods stock as well as some very nice passenger carriages have also arrived which has enabled me to run a good array of prototypical trains and consists.
Yanga has been the first layout where I have added as much detail to a layout such as locomotive crews, coal in the tenders, tail disks on goods and passenger brakevans as well as dummy point levers where required.
On one of our visits to the area we stopped near Balranald and took a few photographs of the country. I had a couple of the photographs cropped together and then printed on sections about 650mm long to form the backscene. This has been very effective and can be seen in some of the photographs.
The photographs on the website illustrate a selection of the locomotives on the layout, plus some of the rolling stock. A compact layout can provide many hours of enjoyment running trains; just do your research and do your planning before you start laying track.
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