It's been a while since I announced that after just a couple of days of operation, I had decided to rebuild the two stations.  Since then progress has been glacially slow, partly due to weather as I like to have the door open when flinging paint and glue around, and with it being autumn, it's been a tad windy, which would mean here in Fairbourne my door would probably be ripped off the hinges and be deposited in Barmouth across the river.

However, I have managed to grab the odd hour or two here and there.  All the track is now in place, the signal has been re-installed and the tunnel portals into the Old Town tunnels have been fixed in place.  The station has now been relocated to the top of the tunnel, and the site formerly occupied by the Bank of Bitch is now a row of four lock up shops.  the bank now occupies the site of the lower station entrance, so I now have space for a surface level car park next to the old goods shed wall, serving the Civic Centre.

I've also made progress on "New Wombourne".  The halt has been relocated, and the site of the previous station is being turned into a larger engineers yard and a small car repair workshop.  The new "Wombourne" appears from behind a backscene from the fiddle yard behind, about half-way down the shed, so is shorter than previously but still the same length of platform which can just accommodate a 2 car Class 150.  Everything works as it should so now it comes down to grabbing time between gales to do the scenery.

First a map showing where "Wednesford and Wombourne" relate to the real life rail network.  Whether the GWR would still have built the SVR had this LNWR line hit Bridgnorth first is a moot point, but given the "Stour Valley" (the line between New Street and Wolverhampton) is so called because the company building the line, the Birmingham Wolverhampton and Stour Valley, had powers to build a line towards Stourbridge via the Stour Valley but never used them, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to imagine they sought an amended Act to revise the Stour Valley plans to strike off towards the GW/LNWR joint line at Church Stretton to provide a link to their South Wales route to Swansea and the valleys, thereby giving the Midlands and the South Wales copper and coal industry a slightly less circuitous route than having to go up to Shrewsbury to head off via Newport to Stafford.

A very broad schematic of the new track plan.  The area blocked in grey is the scenic part of the layout, all the junctions are actually the fiddle yard.  The idea is the two single bore tunnels under the market place were a constraint and as the southern most tunnel had also suffered bomb damage in the war, and had to have strengthening added within the tunnel, there was insufficient space to give OHLE clearances so the north tunnel was rebuilt as a single bi-directional line.  The southern portal was used to run the ex Dudley loop, which had been cut back to serve some industrial users just outside Wednesford, through on an independent line on which goods could be held awaiting a path.  As this wasn't electrified, we've got the odd situation of a single electric line and a single diesel line.  I got the idea for this from Walsall, and it fitted my rationalisation agenda.  Wombourne shuttles between 1967 and 1986 will pull up in the east end of the platform, whilst a connecting EMU will sit at the other end.  The Wombourne service will have been halted just before the tunnel before being called on by a subsidiary calling on head, conveniently located off scene, saving me a few quid.  For 1993 and 2006 though services will run through from Wombourne straight through to Birmingham.  Constructing the EMU will be my Spring project.



"New" Wombourne, still being worked on, hence the wonky paving.  I'm modelling the scene as if the station had been built on the trackbed of the two track section into the old station, just before a level crossing, and in a section where there was an entrance to the old goods yard.  There is a Hornby derelict signalbox behind the two old farts wondering if they have time for a pie and a pint before the Twirly Curfew kicks in and their passes cease to be valid during the rush hour.

A better view of the old box.  Being a model of a ground level disused box I thought it perfect for a crossing and siding box.  The backscene is sticky back plastic, I've learned my lesson this time, and is mounted on the old kiddy-guard from King's Oak.  I'm sure I am a re-incarnated salvage officer from WW2, I seldom throw things away.



The bubbles in the sky are my fault, I didn't stick the backscene on the side I had cleaned so some bits didn't stick properly.  Pin needed to pop the sky bubbles.  Again, the scenery is only loosely in place for now whilst I work through my ideas.

Overall view showing the way the line emerges from the backscene halfway down the baseboard.  In order to avoid the impression that the train is disappearing behind the world's biggest advertising hoarding, I will be "planting" a copse of trees and shrubs around the backscene which adjoins the footbridge to soften the edge a bit, which should fool the eye into thinking it's a wood not a piece of Perspex with sticky back plastic on it.  That's the theory.

The footbridge is a Ratio kit but I hadn't realised it was for platform mounting.  I'd bought it years ago so rather than waste it I salvaged some redundant bits and bobs from previous kits and with some suitable weedy growth and once fully scenically treated, should look OK.  The path from the footbridge is a right of way, which looks particularly grim and used to run alongside the goods yard, hence the concrete fence.  The cars are parked on the old siding accessing the goods yard, and the area alongside the old signal box was a siding for the shunting loco to stable.  The overall impact is to try and recreate the kind of dereliction that often surrounded stations that were clinging on to life in the 1960s through to the 1990s.

The site of the old goods yard is now split between an engineer's compound, with more room for dead track, old crossing gates, signals and the engineer's road fleet (ignore the gap in the backscene, it'll be hidden by trees eventually) and part of which is rented out to a mechanic, including an old corrugated iron workshop.  Again, scenery is loosely laid for now whilst I finalise the concepts.



The "Anyscale Models" resin made tin workshop which I have painted a typical, rusted, faded shade of green.  The area around the shed will be painted in a mix of texture asphalt, cracked texture mud and littered with rusty oil drums and old tyres.  Opposite, he'll have a few old rotbox bangers for sale.  Again, the scenery isn't completed yet.

Hopefully you can get a better impression of the changes I've made.  I'm actually happy I did bite the bullet and undertake the rebuild, it might seem a bit wasteful and it's definitely poor planning but I think it'll make for a more engaging, flexible yet entertaining layout.  And, actually, despite having to rip up several yards of track and scenery, surprisingly little has actually gone to waste, most of it has been salvaged and can be reused.