A view from the line #2. The shed at Fisherton Sarum itself.

The shed opened in 1901 at Salisbury was the fourth to be built and replaced the two older sheds that were near the Station itself (on what then became the west yard) that were together known as Fisherton shed (Fisherton Street being the name of the road next to the station, and forms one of the reasons for my layout being called what it is). Just in case you were wondering, the first shed (of the four) was located at the original Salisbury Milford terminus.

The London and South Western Railway realised at the end of the 1800’s that they required larger engine sheds and servicing facilities at Basingstoke, Eastleigh,Salisbury and Plymouth Friary. All of these sheds, despite being of differing sizes for example Salisbury at one of the scale had ten roads whilst Plymouth Friary at the other had three, were built to a common ‘house’ style in substantial brick with large arched style windows, slated covered gable style roofs with longitudinal glazed sections, glazed end gables, ventilators running the length of the shed atop each gable. Each shed was provided with wooden smoke troughs over each line and a number of offices including those for the shed master, timekeeper, washroom, stores and mess room. There was also a sand drying room with its associated furnace and chimney.

Using original drawings of the shed at Plymouth Friary along with measurements and photographs of the foundations still evident at Salisbury itself I was able to build, mainly from Wills embossed plastic sheets of the two different brick bonds and slates etc, a representation of this classic style of LSWR shed for Fisherton Sarum. Some Slaters plasticard and other plasticstruct / microstrip of various shapes and sizes were also used.  I used sixteen Peco inspection pits to form the track and basic floor of the shed infilling with plasticard to represent a concrete floor.

Even though this is much smaller version of the shed from the original it is still nearly three feet long and the roof in particular and therefore access inside the shed was always going to be a challenge. I therefore opted to make the pair of gables roofs removable providing access to the interior of the shed, At shows more often than not I leave at least one half of the roof off to allow visitors to view inside, usually because if I leave it on they ask me anyway if they can look inside…

General shed clutter, work benches, tools, lathes, water taps and hoses etc. have been made from a mixture of GEM, Langley Models, Springside and scratch built parts.