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Spurn Head Military Railway


Dickon
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I've been overawed at the craftsmanship, imagination and, on occasions, humour of entries to this challenge for months and wondering what I could chuck into the ring that hasn't been done before and was unlikely to be attempted by anyone else.  So, as a lifetime sailor  with the additional benefit of 30 years service with the RNLI, I thought it would be fun to try and model one of the sailing trolleys or bogies used on the Spurn Head Military Railway when the trains weren't running. 

 

For those who don't know the place, Spurn Head is the long spit of land that encloses the north part of the entrance to the River Humber. The old military batteries, light house and RNLI lifeboat station are right out on the end of the point and were connected to civilisation by 3 3/4 miles of standard gauge railway, which was dismantled in 1951.  The lifeboat crew and  their families lived in  a terrace of cottages next to the lifeboat station;it being the only permanently manned lifeboat station until lifeboats were put on the Thames in central London in the aftermath of the Marchioness disaster.

 post-22897-0-46788900-1521647949.jpg

 

The military had a couple of small tank engines on the railway and a petrol railcars.  There was also an old Itala racing car on railway wheels, which was apparently capable of charging up the line at 60 mph!

 

The photo shows a mock up of the scene with a cardboard cut-out lighthouse in the distance.  The cocktail stick mast is way too thick; I just grabbed it while a being of about the right height.  The other spars are bristles from an old yard broom, which are probably not strong enough as a mast.

 

I have already started to build a better light house.  The sail  trolley will be built of timber on a oo gauge loco pony truck with a paper sail crewed by a motley of suitably clad figures.  The only figures in oilskins and souwesters I have found so far are 1/72 scale lookouts from the bridge of a German U boat.  Other crew with bare heads or flat 'ats will be from ModelU; their figures look so natural as they are scanned from living people.

post-22897-0-37208600-1521648602.jpgpost-22897-0-09436900-1521648673.jpg

 

Sail trolleys were by no means unique to Spurn Head. 

Edited by Dickon
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I've been overawed at the craftsmanship, imagination and, on occasions, humour of entries to this challenge for months and wondering what I could chuck into the ring that hasn't been done before and was unlikely to be attempted by anyone else.  So, as a lifetime sailor  with the additional benefit of 30 years service with the RNLI, I thought it would be fun to try and model one of the sailing trolleys or bogies used on the Spurn Head Military Railway when the trains weren't running. 

 

For those who don't know the place, Spurn Head is the long spit of land that encloses the north part of the entrance to the River Humber. The old military batteries, light house and RNLI lifeboat station are right out on the end of the point and were connected to civilisation by 3 3/4 miles of standard gauge railway, which was dismantled in 1951.  The lifeboat crew and  their families lived in  a terrace of cottages next to the lifeboat station;it being the only permanently manned lifeboat station until lifeboats were put on the Thames in central London in the aftermath of the Marchioness disaster.

 attachicon.gifspurn.jpg

 

The military had a couple of small tank engines on the railway and a petrol railcars.  There was also an old Itala racing car on railway wheels, which was apparently capable of charging up the line at 60 mph!

 

The photo shows a mock up of the scene with a cardboard cut-out lighthouse in the distance.  The cocktail stick mast is way too thick; I just grabbed it while a being of about the right height.  The other spars are bristles from an old yard broom, which are probably not strong enough as a mast.

 

I have already started to build a better light house.  The sail  trolley will be built of timber on a oo gauge loco pony truck with a paper sail crewed by a motley of suitably clad figures.  The only figures in oilskins and souwesters I have found so far are 1/72 scale lookouts from the bridge of a German U boat.  Other crew with bare heads or flat 'ats will be from ModelU; their figures look so natural as they are scanned from living people.

attachicon.gifSpurn Head.jpgattachicon.gifSail trolley.JPG

 

Sail trolleys were by no means unique to Spurn Head. 

Very nice Dickon. Can you tell us more about the U-boat lookout figures in oilies please? I will need a few crew members for my 4 mm scale lifeboat station in due course. I'm aware of the Dart Castings fishermen but a bit of variety might be good.

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Very interesting. What kind of scene will you be setting it in?

My current plan is to get as close as I can to the old photo above.   But as reproducing it precisely depends on forcing the perspective to put the lighthouse in the far distance, it may have to evolve a bit.  I'm hoping that tapered sand dunes will lead the eye to the lighthouse without stretching credibility too far.  The actual lighthouse is 170 ft (edit: about 130 ft) tall so the image above is about half N scale while the sail trolley and figures are   OO.

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Ken Hartley's little book on the Spurn Head Light Railway is worth finding if you can. The line had some unique features.

 

Dava

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I have recently cadded up the engine shed - as I was going to build Spurn head in O gauge, as usual I didnt work got in the way, so if you need drawings I can send you the cad / a PDF etc  and scale it to what ever you require. I also have drawings for the lighthouse. 

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I have recently cadded up the engine shed - as I was going to build Spurn head in O gauge, as usual I didnt work got in the way, so if you need drawings I can send you the cad / a PDF etc  and scale it to what ever you require. I also have drawings for the lighthouse. 

 

Thank you for your kind offer.

 

Spurn head in O gauge would be quite something.  A rough calculation says that the lighthouse would be about 2'6" tall!

I have enough gen to build the lighthouse to the scale I want, but would love to know more about the engine shed even though I probably won't use it on this model.  Was it at the landward end of the spit or out on the headland near the batteries?

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Agree the book is well worth getting hold of.

 

Some of the original rail was visible a number of years ago following some stormy weather.

 

The LNER locomotive was a Y8 and part of its journey was on an LNER low loader and images exist in the book.

 

I think a suggested plan was in Railway Modeller many moons ago too.

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Another source of 00 figures is the Airfix LCT (Landing Craft Tank). Two figures with the kit are wearing sou'westers and what looks like naval duffle coats. What I believe to be the remains of the petrol railcar may still exist. When the line was closed this was transported to IIRC Bicester where it was stripped down for use as a crane runner. It was offered up for auction within the last 5 or 6 years but I don't know if it was sold or scrapped.

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  • 6 months later...

Much as I loved the idea of this model, I'm afraid that I've been unable to force the perspective and maintain credibility. The lighthouse and sand dunes were relatively simple, but getting the track to taper towards a credible vanishing point defeated me as composing the scene on a a square of just under 8" with the foreground supposedly a hundred yards or so wide and the back to front dimension being a couple of miles or more just didn't work.  Not only do the rails need to draw together as they go away from one's view point, the sleepers need to get closer and closer together and reduce size in 3 dimensions as also do the rails.  I tried playing around with photos of track disappearing into the distance but however low I placed the camera to get the sense of distance, it was still far too obvious that my 'track' was flat, so the whole thing looked just didn't look right.

 

I should perhaps have tried a long narrow scene that would pack down into a standard cakebox, but that thought occurred to me only as I was writing this!

Edited by Dickon
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