A twig off a Southern Branch

[CaseyJ]

I started my diorama to get some practice modelling in OO after a long period working in American N gauge.

I am building a model of the station that was at Westerham in Kent closed in October 1961. I have done a fair bit of research and came across the film clips of the Prescott railmobile and decided this would make a different piece of motive power to run on a 20" x 11" diorama.

After obtaining a couple of plans of Westerham from the National Railway Museum for my main layout I I chose a piece of the station by the signal box with just one turnout for the diorama. I hope I have captured the look of the signal box with its unusual vertical planking. I scratchbuilt the signal box even down as far as cutting some Wills windows apart and removing the vertical glazing bars and glueing the frames back together. I had a problem with the size of it working from David Gould's book and counting the number of planks I thought I had got a perfect scale model. Then I discovered that the Wills sheeting I used was not quite to scale and the box is slightly wider than it should be. When I put the verandah on it looked a little better and I am now reasonably pleased with it. I was unable to form the brackets to support the verandah in the time that I had so these are missing along with the signalman. I put a note in the original topic that the Westerham name board is missing as it must have been removed when the Railmobile film was taken. I chose to include a small piece of the platform to see how I could make the platform for my layout. I described scratchbuilding the station lamp and I'm very pleased with the way it looks although want to build working lamps for my layout. I believe the lamps for the 1930 era were different but that's research for the future. I also tried to scratchbuild the station fence but ran out of time to complete it, a small length is in place. I hope I have captured the rather overgrown look of 1962.

The railmobile was also a challenge but it does work and with the shuttle unit it can be left to amuse my stepsons who wonder how it works without a hand on the controller.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and have gained confidence from the work that I have done. Good luck to everyone who has taken part there are some magnificent entries.

 

Finally a piece of toilet humour seeing as several others have had a go! I built this although it can't be seen in its assembled position.