Coal!
During the Newport show I had an interesting conversation with Ian Pope of Lightmoor Press who was exhibiting his collection of private owner wagons. I'm explained that I was interested in building some coal wagons for Sherton Abbas and would like them to depict coal merchants that were trading in the Somerset/Dorset area circa 1905. He recommended a book on the topic http://lightmoor.co.uk/books/private-owner-wagons-of-somerset/L9877 and said that he would do some research for me. True to his word a couple of days later I received an email from Ian not only recommending likely wagons, but also letting me know that 7mm scale versions were available from POW sides http://www.powsides.co.uk/www.powsides.co.uk/info.php?p=2 I can't thank Ian enough, he's a very useful chap to know!
The wagons have been ordered and once they arrive I'll put a post in the blog about their construction. Ian also sent me a splendid picture of Axminster station at the turn of the last century which depicts a couple of Private Owner wagons.
Axminster Station Image courtesy of Lightmoor Press
In addition to the pair of Private Owner wagons the picture contains a wealth of information that I find of interest, the lime washed cattle wagons and that lovely tall lattice post signal for example. I was also rather taken with the heaps of coal along the back siding, no orderly coal staithes, just piles of coal at the trackside. I decided that I would like to represent this on Sherton Abbas and started by carving some dome shapes from off cuts of polystyrene. These were positioned on the layout to check their size and once happy with the appearance were fixed in position with PVA white glue.
Polyfiller was then used to coat the polystyrene mounds and blend them into the landscape.
Once the filler had dried over night the surface was painted using matt black acrylic paint.
I combined my outing to the SWAG event with a visit to the West Somerset Railway and spent a very pleasant Saturday riding up and down the line. During my travels I found a lump of coal which once back home I broke into scale size pieces using a hammer. These pieces were then sieved and fixed to the polystyrene mounds using PVA adhesive. I wanted the yard to have piles of different types of coal, so used "coal" scatter from Woodland Scenic's which has a particle size of about 2mm to represent Anthracite.
Once the glue had dried excess material was removed using a vacuum cleaner. I'm toying with the idea of building a coal merchants horse drawn wagon to add to the scene, I think S and D models do a white metal kit that might be suitable.
Until next time!
Best wishes
Dave
- 13
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