Wow, I forgot I had this blog, such is the kicking to my life I've had over the last half-decade.

Well, since the last entry I've even managed to lose the independent roof over my head and I'm having to rent a piddling little room in a friend's home as a lodger while all my stuff sits languishing in a container at a storage site, so all modelling has come to a complete stop. It's not fun for so many reasons

However, from time to time I still think about modelling and building a model railway, in the hope that one day I will have somewhere to do such. Consequently I've been thinking about something without any specific known history in order to just 'use what I have' rather than try to build to a known history or geography.

I've come up with a reasonable length (20+ miles) fictional heritage line that would be somewhere on the 'Wessex' coast, but it wouldn't be in the specific geography that actually exists, though it would be inspired by that. This allows me the freedom to create locations as I see fit.

As a heritage line I can get away with stations closed having been demolished. These could consequently have been replaced either with imported buildings from other parts of the country, or 'new builds'. It would also allow me to run what stock I want (it's not intended to entirely reflect any known heritage running practice). This will allow me to use buildings and other items 'willy nilly'. Perhaps that's not to many people's tastes, but it uses up existing resources rather than either leaving that stuff in boxes or selling it off at a loss.

I do want to do something different though, which is to have some 'commercial' freight traffic on it. I don't know of any heritage line that was closed, reopened as private preservation, then added commercial operations (with the possible exception of the GCR that does some testing). There are lines that have been freight only but then added heritage operation, but that's not the same thing. For the 'Wessex' coast, I think stone (think Purbeck and Portland) and clay are most suited. Oil and/or gas (think Wytch Farm) was a thought, but I don't think a heritage operation with steam could ever combine with that safely, so I'm not putting that into the mix. I put a port at one end, so some kind of occasional import/export traffic could run too. The other end would connect to the national network, allowing some kind of non-heritage scene to be modelled as well. I don't have a specific time period for what that might be, but it could vary from 1980s blue/grey, through a bit of NSE and Regional Railways in the 90s, to early/mid 2000s.

This is all high level thinking at the moment as I can't do much else, but at least it keeps my mind occupied with something other than the vicious circle of worry, depression and anxiety that otherwise dominate my current everyday life.

Ian