It's been a busy month for the still small team working on this layout. The first two baseboards have been built and the trackbeds cut out. As these tasks were done by two people and the pieces only came within touching distance on club nights, the process of fitting track bases to the open frames will happen in March. The construction of the baseboard frames using the sandwich technique has delivered light and strong baseboards. However some modification had to be made to the design to achieve the rounded corners desired.

This shot is taken from what will be the viewing side. The fiddle yard will be to the right and the backscene will be given a curve on the grounds that the sky has no corners. A more detailed view shows the construction details better

We've gone for DCC Concepts supplied baseboard aligners though stopped short of the super-deluxe version that also bridges the electrical track bus.

The track beds were marked out by reversing the Templot design and printing it back to front. That meant the paper templates could be stuck to the underside of the ply leaving the working side pristine. Ballast and paint covers a multitude of sins, but the concern was more about difficult to remove glue splodges. Templot can print the lines for the edge of the ballast and the total width of the track bed including the cess. The decision has been made to model the cess as photographic evidence suggests that track work on the Colonel Stephens lines was still generally in good nick in our late twenties period. Ten years later things might be different, particularly on basket cases like the Selsey Tramway. The same technique will be used next month to cut the cork underlays representing the ballast and then track-laying will start.

The kit building school

One of the aims of this project is to create an opportunity for members to develop and hone new skills, and the most enthusiastic take up has been from our junior members. We bought a selection of Parkside (from Peco), Cambrian and Slaters wagon kits and three of our juniors have taken some and built them under supervision. Club rules require a responsible adult to attend alongside our juniors, and that adult has also been the one supervising when things like knives are used. We think that is probably better.

These wagon kits are very good. The pieces fit together well, Parkside probably best of all, and some pleasing results are being obtained by these young and inexperienced builders. The first coat of paint was applied before the picture was taken.

So from left to right, Midland Railway 8 ton van (Slaters), RCH 1923 seven plank (Parkside), LSWR 10 ton van (Cambrian) and GWR open (Parkside). And the average age of the builders is not even in double figures.

Planning for scenery

Some more detailed work has been done planning for the scenic treatment on the first three boards. The plan currently looks like this:

Developments since last month are, firstly, that we have found a suitable prototype for the farm building. It's actually not far from the centre of Horsham and is today surrounded by the houses put up on what were the farm's fields in the 1960s. We found this atmospheric picture posted on the internet by our local newspaper

The spire of St Mary's Church can be seen in the mist behind, so avid followers of our summer game will also know that Horsham's cricket ground where Sussex played at least one county game a season until a year or two ago, is also in that direction. The Historic England website has a picture from the 1920s of the farmhouse from the front which is viewable via this link: https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/photos/item/BL25327/004

The image on that website shows the farm with a clapboard front but today that has been removed and the original medieval framing with plaster infill has been restored. We in the club are not architectural experts but this farm does look to be a typical hall house found all across the Weald in Kent and Sussex. As such it fits our aims.

One challenge it, and various other buildings planned, will give us is how to reproduce the local Horsham stone roofing. This is made up of sandstone slates 4 or 5 cm thick, so a bit over 0.5mm in 4mm scale. More on this next month.

In our researches we found something else unusual which is now the subject of experiments in how to make a model. On the outskirts of Horsham, one road over from the real Wimblehurst Road, there was a "Wood Hoop and Broom Merchants" in the 1920s. The brooms were besom brooms, or witch's brooms to most of us, and they were made on site. The birch twigs for the sweeping bits were collected locally, presumably, in the form of coppiced branches some ten to twelve feet long, and were stored on stacks the size of haystacks. The completed brooms were bundled up in dozens or possibly double dozens. We have a photograph but unfortunately not in a form I can load up here. If we can solve the issues of how to represent this works in 00 scale then it will be a very unusual addition.

Next month

The club has an open day on April 1st (we've heard all the comments already, thanks) so March's two long Wednesdays will be dedicated to seeing if we can get a bit of track laid for then.