The railways in the UK would not have been built without the labour provided by navvies. Navvies were hard working ground workers digging cuttings, boring tunnels and building embankments with shovels and barrows.

Now serious navvy work is not something you normally associate with model railways but over the last couple of days I have been doing some industrial scale topographical remodelling on Bosmelin. OK, I’ll admit it’s not navvying but the principals are not dissimilar.

The river end of Bosmelin has, as previously explained, two bridges which cross the river as they diverge from the junction. The height of the line above the water level us quite high. Although I have tried to find out exactly how high it is I do not know what it is although on a field trip I estimated it to be at least 30 feet. In 4mm scale 30 feet is 120 mm and this is why the track bed has been elevated on struts as this facilitates the landscape being below the railway.

I am using the circular baseboards I had originally used for simple test running for the curved ends of Bosmelin (photo above). And this is where despite my long and almost interminable planning I had overlooked the depth needed at the River End where the bridges will be on the curves. So the navvies have descended on one of the boards; digging out the river valley, sinking piles and shuttering. Well actually lowering the sides of the board and adding bracing. This one board is going to be an interesting construction! Here’s a couple of pictures showing the impact so far.

More soon.

View the full article