Nash Lane is an imagined outpost of the Birmingham Railway & Carriage Company (BRCW) in Acton, West London. BRCW were rolling stock manufacturers between 1855 and 1963 and had a large works in Smethwick, West Midlands. As well as building rolling stock (wagons, carriages and later on locomotives) they operated fleets of freight wagons for hire and managed these fleets for private companies shipping by rail. BRCW built not only for UK railway companies but also exported large quantities of rolling stock to foreign railway systems. Some of these vehicles were even tested on the main line in Britain before export.

In the scenario I have devised, BRCW established a repair facility in London for managing their hire wagon fleets and also undertaking repairs on behalf of the big railway companies or any other rolling stock owners as required. The site at Nash Lane, Acton is connected to the Great Western Railway's real Acton goods yard which being near to the North London Line gives easy access to most of London's railways. You won't find Nash Lane on any map of Acton however, as the name is just ficticious.

Birmingham Railway Carriage & Wagon Company by John Hypher, C & S. Wheeler

Inspiration for the layout came from a book about BRCW I picked up in a sale at Ian Allen in Birmingham. The vairety of vehicles produced by BRCW caught my imagination and at the same time I had a baseboard measuring 220 cm by 50 cm salvaged from a previous layout. One day on the train home from work I sketched out some ideas for a track plan and this formed the basis for what is now 'Nash Lane'.

The layout will eventually include: a wagon repair shed built some time in the 1860s with two roads each long enough for three wagons to be worked on, a carriage shed long enough for repairing two longer vehicles included as a later (1930s) addition to the site, a run round loop, an inbound goods siding for receiving supplies, an engine servicing area for looking after the site's shunting loco, and finally a scraping area for wagons that are beyond repair. The image below shows the track layout.