Introducing ... Stourpayne Marshall
Entry posted by Barry Ten
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Be it through the work of Ivo Peters. Norman Lockett, or any of the other renowned photographers of the Somerset & Dorset, it's often commented that the northern section of the line was rather better documented than the southern half. Lacking the drama of the ascent over the Mendips, with generally less dramatic scenery, and fewer goods trains, perhaps it's no surprise that the locations south of the border were not so well captured. Even allowing for this, few stations were as shy of the camera lens as Stourpayne Marshall, despite having all the hallmarks of an attractive prototype (and note please the correct spelling of Stourpayne, a local quirk), with a station building in the Dorset tradition and strikingly similar to that at Shillingstone.
All right, that''s enough made-up cod-historical cobblers, what's going on here?
Hopefully, both more and less than meets the eye!
Back in the dawn of time, when I started this S&D blog, which has been dormant since 2013, my intentions were clear. I was to build a new layout in a 12.x11 foot room which would be a strong nod toward Shillingstone, while incorporating aspects of one or other S&D locations in the same neck of the woods. My affection for the S&D has been nearly life-long and rooted in strong personal connections. My dad was a native of Shillingstone; my great grandfather was a porter at Blandford, and I myself was born in the week that the S&D closed. As a consequence, my significant birthdays all fall happily close to major celebratory galas at the West Somerset Railway.
Having made progress on the Spring and Winter modules of my layout, both of which were intended to evoke S&D locations, I started major work on the summer module in 2012. There I made what was either a fatal error, or a lucky masterstroke: in getting a feel for what the eventual scene might look like, I plonked a pre-built model of a GWR station on the platform. Suddenly it hit me: it was going to take years to scratchbuild the S&D structures, but I already had more than enough GWR stuff to complete a reasonable station scene. The plan then took a swerve: while the objective was still to go S&D in the long-run, for the "time being", I'd use GWR fittings and run GWR stock. To aid this, all company-specific fixtures such as platforms, buildings and signals were made removable. When the time came, all I'd need to do was swap a complete new set of platforms, etc, and off I could go with the S&D.
But for some reason this has never happened.
As time has passed, I've been doing s bit of introspection and asking myself what was the flaw in the original plan. Eventually I realised that there was never going to be a time when I felt like building a completely new set of platforms: just far too much work for any given weekend, when I could be doing something else.
So with that in mind, I decided to back off and re-think my parameters. What did I really want to achieve? After a while I decided that while I still liked the idea of running S&D trains, I could afford to be a bit "broad brush" in my interpretation of the scenery. It's not an exhibition layout and it's not being presented as a paragon of finescale modelling, just a setting in which a variety of trains won't look hideously out of place. So could I get away with using the existing platforms, including the fences, painted in GWR light stone? The Southern used a shade of light stone for fencework, and while I'm not sure what painting instruction held sway in pre-nationalisation, perusal of photos of ex-LSWR and S&DJR subjects suggests that faded stone doesn't look out of place, especially if contrasted with lots of green. I also satisfied myself that, while wooden fencing was widely used, iron fencing shows up a lot as well.
With that settled, I decided to begin developing a set of replacement parts to enable King's Hintock to be quick;y switched to Stourpayne Marshall. The steps so far are roughly as follows:
Above: the layout in GWR mode.
Next step: swap running in boards, remove water cranes (replaced with drop-in patches on the platform) and swap the main building for a shelter. This little shelter was cobbled together very quickly using some recycled parts from my old layout Wyvant. Bachmann made a nice model of the Shillingstone shelter, but I wasn't quick enough of the mark with that.
The next step sees the removal of the GWR shelter on the other platform.
And its replacement with a new length of fencing, plugging in to holes in the platform. I damaged this bit during photography so will need replacing.
The GWR pattern footbridge is then removed, and a newer one put in . This Ratio bridge is quite LSWR-like in its design and was in fact the original bridge on King's Hintock, before being repainted into Southern colours. The lighter shade is still GWR stone, which I think sits surprisingly well with the green. However, covered bridges were not typical of the S&D so a concrete example is likely to end up here, which will be more in keeping with the theme.
Attention then turns to the goods shed and associated yard.
The shed and its foreground area are removed, leaving just the long siding running the length of the platform. What to do about that?
Nothing, is the answer. The siding remains, but it now appears to terminate at a loading dock. The rest of it runs hidden under the raised forecourt of the new station.
To which Bachmann's Shillingstone model is added (announced long after I started work on the layout), along with Ivo's Bentley and a Hants and Dorset bus!
One minor headache is the buffer stop at the end of the long siding, proking out from the edge of this grassy knoll!
However,, thanks to a free gift from one of the magazines, a grounded van body comes to the rescue. I cut a notch in the hidden side of the van so that it can drop over the buffer stop and screen any sign of the rails.
Much more remains to be done, of course, but hopefully these images give an idea of the plug-and-play philosophy. The signals are still GWR lower quadrant, and for the time being that;s how they'll remain, standing in for LSWR block-post lower quadrants. Luckily both upper and lower quadrant signals featured on the S&D, right up to closure, so they don't snag my eye as being obviously out of place.
Thanks for reading, and I look forward to continuing with my S&D adventure ... a mere seven years later than anticipated.
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