Northwick is a main line terminus to fiddle yard layout based on a “might have been” seaside resort on the Bristol Channel. The station has three platforms, a goods yard and a servicing point where visiting locos can be turned and prepared for to their return journey. The scenic part of the layout comprises of four boards totalling 21 ft by 2 ft (6.3m x 0.6m), a small scenic extension piece beyond the buffers and an 8 ft (2.4m) cassette based fiddle yard; the whole neatly fits into a microvan for transport to exhibitions.

Plain track is standard SMP code 65, but the pointwork is handbuilt using SMP rail and copperclad sleepers. To increase realism the points are operated by Tortoise slow action motors, whilst the buildings are a mixture of scratchbuilt and kitbuilt. Heavily muted colours have been used throughout and a “wash” of bonfire ash has been used to weather both structured and ground cover leading to a prototypically dirty look which was typical of BR in the mid 1950s. The layout is fully and accurately signalled, although the operation of the semaphores, using R/C Servos, is still to be completed.

The natural operating pattern of the layout requires many on scene movements which keep the attention of onlookers. Operation requires a minimum of two people, but is better with three, and the control panel has been designed such that a DCC system can be substituted for any, or all, of the three inbuilt controllers; thereby allowing mixed conventional and DCC operations.