Jump to content
 

Holman's End - The Kent & East Sussex Railway in O Gauge


BG John
 Share

Recommended Posts

You may remember my attempt to build a quick O gauge starter layout, that was too small and was starting to get complicated. Well that's history now, and I'm just starting on "Holman's End, The 2nd Attempt". I've drawn up a wide variety of plans, to fit different sized baseboards, but all to a similar design. There wasn't a lot of variation in the design of Kent and East Sussex Railway stations, so that's not too surprising! Trying to get the right compromise between a practical size, and a layout that's interesting to look at and operate, has taken a while, but I hope I'm there now.

 

Yesterday, I made temporary space for the scenic area, and put what may become the baseboard on a table. This morning, I printed out the track plan, placed it on the board, and started mocking up the scenery. It's early days yet, but I'm happy with what I've done so far. Here are some photos:

 

post-7091-0-77489400-1511796559.jpg

 

post-7091-0-39313200-1511796561.jpg

 

post-7091-0-50014300-1511796562.jpg

 

post-7091-0-63283000-1511796563.jpg

 

The baseboard is currently an old internal door, 6ft 6in x 2ft 6in. As I'm new to 7mm scale, my brain still works partially in 4mm scale, and this is roughly 3ft 9in x 1ft 5in in 4mm, so it's not exactly big!

 

There are three main buildings. A corrugated iron station building, a loco shed, and an oast house to set the scene firmly in the right area. On the mock up, the station building is one I made in card some time ago, the loco shed was knocked up using fake Lego this morning, and the oast house is a low-relief card building I made for another mock up layout, with a paint tin and jar for the kiln.

 

I'll go into more detail a bit later.

  • Like 12
Link to post
Share on other sites

This is the current track plan, drawn in SCARM. To make it fit, I've had to get a bit creative.

 

post-7091-0-34293100-1511809016.jpg

 

The points are based on a 48 inch radius curve. The biggest locos on the layout will be Dapol Terriers, so this should be no problem. In earlier versions of the plan, I tried using Peco Set Track, but they are a bit tighter, too rigid, and produce a six foot substantially greater than 6ft. So I've drawn my own from flexi track, using a 48 inch radius curve, and making them flow how I want. I imported an earlier SCARM plan done this way into Templot, drew a new plan over it, and it worked out remarkably well. Once I'm happy with this plan, I'll do the same again, to use for track building.

 

I've saved a worthwhile amount of length by using a sector plate at the end of the loop. The Colonel wouldn't have had anything so sophisticated on one of his lines, so it needs to be hidden. Using a few old trees from the EM layout I built around 40 years ago, it looks as though trees and dense foliage should work. I curved the plan to get the sector plate right into the front right hand corner, so it's not visible from any normal viewing angle. Although I'm not planning this as a Cameo Layout, I'll put wings on both ends of the scenic section to provide a further view blocker. I'm not certain whether it will be a sector plate or a traverser yet. I need to see which will fit best, and what's involved in building them. Whatever it is, it will be motorised, as the layout will be radio controlled so I can operate it from any location.

 

I've used the loco shed as a view blocker where the main line goes into the fiddle yard. Using the fake Lego shed I knocked up this morning, it looks as though this will work quite well. I want to make sure that it's not possible to see the hole in the backscene the train passes through from the right hand end of the layout. The wing, and the trees hiding the sector plate/traverser, should help with this.

 

The line at the front of the layout is a private siding to a mill, inspired by Hodson's Mill just outside Robertsbridge. Earlier plans used the mill to hide the fiddle yard, but I don't know if I'll actually do that, or just run the siding into the fiddle yard. It should add a fair amount of operational interest. The exit to the fiddle yard can be fairly well hidden by the wing, and some trees.

 

There's quite a lot of track in a small space. I think this is mainly given away by looking at it from the ends, views that will be blocked. The layout is set around 1905, and at that time the track on the K&ESR was ballasted over the sleepers. I think this will make the track a lot less prominent than it otherwise would be.

 

 

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

Your idea of a sector plate is an excellent one. The fact that Col Stephens seems not to have used one, does not mean he would not have, if it meant saving money on land purchase! The particularly incompetent company that built the IOW line to Bembridge, used a sector plate at Bembridge, because (according to legend, but with some compelling evidence) they got things wrong in their initial plans and had the substantial station building (which was constructed before the track was laid) the wrong way around and in the wrong place. Without a sector plate, they would have had to either extended the line into a road opposite a rather large hotel construction, which would have cost a fortune in alternative road space and possibly compensation to the hotel, or would have needed to extend the platform in the Brading direction, and bought extra land to accommodate the coal staithes and the spur for the goods sidings, or would have had to diverted the toll road from St Helens, into the seashore, to allow the track to go on the north side of the station building, where the architect had assumed it was going originally.

 

I accept it would have been far cheaper for Col Stephens to knock down the corrugated shed and re-build it in the right place, but maybe you could assume that would not have been possible. Plus there are so few sector plates modelled. So I would leave it visible and adopt Rule 1.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I want to produce a convincing model of what I know actually existed, rather than coming up with a convincing argument for something that might have existed, but didn't. In this case ;). You can't see it in the photos, but behind the layout, and at a much greater height, is the board for the mock up of my Cameo Competition entry. I'm intending it to have a feature that I've seen described as something that viewers of the layout would find so unbelievable and ridiculous, that they would think the layout builder was mad. I've also seen a comment on how it's a feature that someone just has to model. I have photographic evidence it existed, it's referred to in a booklet I have, and I'm quite happy to be considered mad :).

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Your idea of a sector plate is an excellent one. The fact that Col Stephens seems not to have used one, does not mean he would not have, if it meant saving money on land purchase! The particularly incompetent company that built the IOW line to Bembridge, used a sector plate at Bembridge, because (according to legend, but with some compelling evidence) they got things wrong in their initial plans and had the substantial station building (which was constructed before the track was laid) the wrong way around and in the wrong place. Without a sector plate, they would have had to either extended the line into a road opposite a rather large hotel construction, which would have cost a fortune in alternative road space and possibly compensation to the hotel, or would have needed to extend the platform in the Brading direction, and bought extra land to accommodate the coal staithes and the spur for the goods sidings, or would have had to diverted the toll road from St Helens, into the seashore, to allow the track to go on the north side of the station building, where the architect had assumed it was going originally.

 

 

It was always a turntable*, never a sector plate, at Bembridge and, since there was another one at the other "country" terminus at Ventnor, one can be fairly certain that installing a turntable was the original intention. It is, though, true that the station building was erected back-to-front (compare with the still existing one at St.Helens), probably an error by the contractor. The railway company owned just about all the adjacent property, bar the Royal Spithead Hotel, including the road and harbour foreshore; the road remained a BR-owned toll road until 1971, 18 years after the railway closed.

 

* The original small turntable was replaced by a slightly larger one in 1936 to enable O2 tanks to work the branch. Although normally used as if it were a sector plate, locos were turned on it occasionally - if a loco due for shopping at Ryde Works was found to be the wrong way round it was allocated to the Bembridge branch duty for a day and was turned last thing at night, prior to working the goods to Sandown and thence running light back to Ryde.

 

Subsequently edited to correct minor errors!

Edited by bécasse
Link to post
Share on other sites

It was always a turntable*, never a sector plate, at Bembridge and, since there was another one at the other "country" terminus at Ventnor, one can be fairly certain that installing a turntable was the original intention. It is, though, true that the station building was erected back-to-front (compare with the still existing one at St.Helens), probably an error by the contractor. The railway company owned all the adjacent property, bar the Royal Spithead Hotel, including the road and harbour foreshore; the road remained a BR-owned toll road until 1971, 18 years after the railway closed.

 

* The original small turntable was replaced by a slightly larger one in 1937 to enable O2 tanks to work the branch. Although normally used as if it were a sector plate, locos were turned on it occasionally - if a loco due for shopping at Ryde Works was found to be the wrong way round it was allocated to the Bembridge branch duty for a day and was turned last thing at night, prior to working the goods to Sandown and thence running light back to Ryde.

 

I accept it was operable as a turntable, except that the change from 17ft6" to 25ft, to accommodate the 02's, took place in 1936, although it was commonly known as a fan-plate (my father lived in Bembridge and worked for the SR in the 1930's, so I have his recollections as well as books and websites). The original TT at Ventnor was replaced fairly soon after by a three way point. The road outside the Bembridge station entrance was not owned by the IOW Railway, as its patronage finished at the toll booth, on the seaward side.

 

I had never heard or read your contention that Bembridge was used to turn locos, although that certainly makes sense. As the only remaining TT on the island, one wonders what they did after 1953?

 

Anyway, clearly John does not want to reveal it on his K&ESR layout, so it is of an academic interest only!

Link to post
Share on other sites

Anyway, clearly John does not want to reveal it on his K&ESR layout, so it is of an academic interest only!

I like the idea of hiding things, which is why there's a traverser under the train shed on Small, Broad & Totally Pointless :).

Link to post
Share on other sites

I accept it was operable as a turntable, except that the change from 17ft6" to 25ft, to accommodate the 02's, took place in 1936, although it was commonly known as a fan-plate (my father lived in Bembridge and worked for the SR in the 1930's, so I have his recollections as well as books and websites). The original TT at Ventnor was replaced fairly soon after by a three way point. The road outside the Bembridge station entrance was not owned by the IOW Railway, as its patronage finished at the toll booth, on the seaward side.

 

I had never heard or read your contention that Bembridge was used to turn locos, although that certainly makes sense. As the only remaining TT on the island, one wonders what they did after 1953?

 

Anyway, clearly John does not want to reveal it on his K&ESR layout, so it is of an academic interest only!

 

You are quite right in stating that the turntable was changed in 1936, a momentary memory lapse as our Bembridge P4 layout was set in 1937 (to allow everything to have settled down post the change). My understanding is that the road outside was originally, at least, in railway ownership as it was built under the Act that authorised the improvement of the harbour, it was though available for unrestricted public use.

 

Between 1953 and 1956, any locos that required turning ready for Ryde Works were turned using the Sandown-Newport line, the use of which being the reason that some locos ended up the "wrong-way-round". When that line closed in 1956, care was taken to ensure that every loco was the same way round - bunker first to Pier Head.

Link to post
Share on other sites

You are quite right in stating that the turntable was changed in 1936, a momentary memory lapse as our Bembridge P4 layout was set in 1937 (to allow everything to have settled down post the change). My understanding is that the road outside was originally, at least, in railway ownership as it was built under the Act that authorised the improvement of the harbour, it was though available for unrestricted public use.

 

Between 1953 and 1956, any locos that required turning ready for Ryde Works were turned using the Sandown-Newport line, the use of which being the reason that some locos ended up the "wrong-way-round". When that line closed in 1956, care was taken to ensure that every loco was the same way round - bunker first to Pier Head.

 

Ah, you were part of that team - that was a beautiful layout, which you must be very proud of. It captured the scene extremely well. Brilliant.

 

Sorry - we have both strayed OT.....

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...