Buckland Hard
Buckland Hard
I want a test track – I want to try out building styles and materials – Scalescenes stuff needs experimentation – but above all I need to have somewhere to run something without mounting the whole layout while I get the stock built.
But I also want to have somewhere to play.
Buckland Hard is part of the fiction of the passing of the Buckland Regis and Coombe Barton Railway Act in 1853. Both lie along the River Sether (look up a Cornish dictionary if you’re still in any doubt where it’s based). The line from Buckland to Coombe passes through Bishops Compton which used to boast an abbey before the Dissolution. Buckland Regis at the tidal limit of the River Sether. The hard was built before the Railway, having existed as an import point for all manner of materials. Deforestation, agriculture and mining resulting in silting of the river have all taken their toll of the efficacy of sea and river borne trade.
The railway serves Buckland Hard via a small branch from the main line. There is one engine in steam regulation and traffic consists of coal, timber (for the furniture factory) seed, fertiliser (it’s an . agricultural community) and previously limestone and lime, as there are now disused limekilns.
There is a six foot long windowsill beside my desk and workbench – type on the laptop on the desk, swivel the chair and there’s the workbench – and quite conveniently have had to scrap items that have yielded some 3ft by 18 in hardwood frames. Quite convenient. From the end of the windowsill there’s an area over my desk that can serve as a fiddle yard. The track is all inset (cobbled surface) and built using copperclad sleepers. Turnout control is by wire in tube controlled by a Scalefour Society lever frame. Electrics are DC, gauge of 18.83mm. Couplings are Alex Jackson.
The track plan incorporates complexity – it’s a test track – and with it I hope to prove what I’m doing before putting Coombe Barton together.
Rough plan
Buildngs from left to right
- Black – disused limekilns and coal merchant with stables (Totnes Plains and Lostwithiel Brunel Quays for the idea)
- Light Grey – Furniture Factory (Staverton for the idea)
- Black and Dark Grey – Warehouses – Totnes Quays and Sutton harbour for the idea (or maybe a dock office)
- Light Grey fading to backscene - Pub - Sutton Harbour for the ideaand Padstow for the road behind the building fronting the harbor
- Light grey Island Building – Seed/Fertilizer merchants
- Brown – Turnpike Bridge – Totnes for the idea
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