Hi.

Time now to go from the sublime to the ridiculous, "The Liquorice Line". Where on earth did that come from? Rewind to 1995 I was in my second year of retirement and off to Australia with my wife spend a few weeks with her Sister and Brother in law..One of the places we visited was Melaeuca Station. This was part of a Tea Tree Oil Plantation. You boarded a narrow gauge train which took you on a large continiuous circuit. The train stopped at various points and a train crew member explained the growing and processing of the oil. This excellent operation was filed away in the back of my mind for future reference. Fast forward. Over the years I have built three of the Avonside geared locos. One for the AVR in 4mm scale, one for Semerdale in 3mm and one in 7mm, the latter for the enjoyment of it as I didn't have a line to run it on. After some time I got round to thinking of the Melaeuca Station as a simple line to run the Avonside on.but I wanted to Anglicize the operation. Chewing on a pomfret cake it came to me, a liquorice plantation. Pontefract in Yorkshire was the top area in the country for growing liquorice. Sadly it;s no longer grown in this country. However as railway modellers we don't let small details like that get in the way.The layout was ultra simple. An oval with just three points, One to the engine shed, one to the carriage shed and one to the factory. The sheds were just low relief fronts with the tracks going through cut outs in a backdrop which divided the layout. The opening did have doors. There were four locos. The Avonside called "Callard". A second loco was a Bachmann Porter which was used as bought apart from adding the company logo and name "Bowser". Callard and Bowser are the makers of some excellent liquorice toffees. A third loco was a birthday present. This was the loco from the Fleischmann Magic Train set. This was called "Haribo" after the makers of super pomfret cakes. There were two further items of motive power, both utilized Gnomy toys. The lorry was converted to a railborne vehicle with a simple scratch built chassis. It's called "Spanish" which was and may still be, the colloquial name for liquorice in Yorkshire. It would do several circuits then stop behind the backdrop to be loaded with liquorice root to deliver to the factory. The fourth loco was a customised Gnomy tram fitted with a Spud unit. It was called "Bassett". Rolling stock. Two Magic Train set coaches. Three Gnomy push and go trams fitted with Triang chassis. There was also a workman's coach and a water tanker. Operation was pretty simple. Sightseeing trains, the lorry collecting liquorich root and the water tanker doing a turn round. Notwithstanding being a bit of an oddball layout it was well photographed. and I hope to attach a few of them.

Cheers. Derek..