steve howe

We are delighted to announce that Squires Tools & Crafts will be attending our show next April! this is exciting news for all modelmakers in Cornwall as Squires are one of the largest suppliers of tools, equipment and materials to the hobby - Helston Community College Church Hill Helston Cornwall TR 13 8NR April 27 & 28 2019 start making that list now! Steve

A Model Engineering Weekend is being held at Falmouth Maritime Museum on Saturday & Sunday November 17 & 18 2018. It showcases many aspects of modelmaking not just engineering. Several model railway clubs will be featured including Helston & Falmouth MRC with their 00 finescale GWR branch terminus 'Trenance' and a demonstration of modellling buildings and P4 in minimum space by Steve Howe. Those listed to appear are: Clubs and societies attending include: City of Truro Mariners David Fortey with his model of the Aircraft Carrier Ark Royal Helston and Falmouth Model Railway Club Falmouth Society of Railway Modellers West Cornwall Model Railway Group (N gauge) RC Cornwall Flyers Redruth District Model Flying Club Camborne Pond Hoppers Hayle Model Railway Club Hayle Model Boat Club Norman Leighton with his model trains Falmouth Model Boat Club Mick French with his model Ocean Liners Richard Bowden with his model ships Perranporth and District Model Engineering Society Cornish Scale Modellers/IPMS West Cornwall Caen Model Club The Falmouth Maritime Museum is well worth a visit, more info here: https://nmmc.co.uk/2018/01/model-engineering-showcase-weekend-november-17-18/

Ha! This is not trackwork....by God its knitting Sir! - knitting! I have informed the W I.... Steve

Sorry there was a bad link to the Club website, here is the Show line-up for 2019. Layouts :- Wyevern Wharf O gauge Billington Road O gauge Horsley Bank P4 Brixham EM gauge Saint Martin’s Square. OO gauge Hounslow Sidings OO fine scale Forest Green OO gauge Creedyford OO fine scale Elmsbridge OO fine scale Streatwell Green OO gauge Pendoroke OO gauge Kingswear 2mm fine scale Brinklow. 2mm fine scale Ardcree N gauge Traders:- Squires Tools & Crafts - NEW FOR 2019! Kernow Model Rail Centre Aspires Gift and Models Andy Lynch Fred Elton Books Platform 3 Models NEW FOR 2019! Great Western Scale Models Atwood Aggregates MERG Societies:- Helston Railway Bodmin & Wenford Railway Demonstrators:- Mel Mayfield Weathering Geoff Stephens Aspects of scratchbuilding John Greenwood Modelling in 2mm scale Jerry Clifford Modelling in 2mm scale

We are pleased to announce the layouts and traders for our forthcoming Spring Show on Saturday & Sunday 27th & 28th April 2019 See the Helston & Falmouth MRC website for further details: http://www.hfmrc.com Steve

Oh yes...….. 😁 and that's all I'm saying! steve 🤐

So whats the verdict on secondhand Centenary/Riviera stock? Hornby or Airfix/Dapol? Steve

After various delays and setbacks, nothing to do with model railways, I have finally started my contribution to the Cameo Challenge. From the outset I wanted to do something I hadn't attempted before which was to create a scene which deliberately deviated from the accepted cameo 'norm' of viewing a model as a set piece as though in a theatre. I have built several layouts in the past based on this concept and they have all been satisfying both to build, operate and view, but I felt the time was right to break out of the prescribed mould and try a bit of thinking 'outside the box' as it were. There's not a great deal of physical evidence to see at the moment as baseboard construction is at an early stage, and the philosophy for the layout's design will become clear in due course. So, to be going on with, and show that I have actually done some thinking, if not much actual work, on this project, here is the 'Rationale' to set the context for what I hope will be this Winter's project. Whether it gets finished in time (or ever!) for the Organiser's deadline will remain to be seen! The Red River Valley Light Railway Part 1 A Little Real Background The Hayle Railway was an early railway in West Cornwall, constructed to convey copper and tin ore from the Redruth and Camborne areas to the sea ports of Hayle and Portreath. Coal, sand and lime, along with domestic commodities were carried inland. It opened in 1837, and carried passengers on its main line from 1843. The ‘main line’ had several branches: Tresavean, serving the mines around Carnkie and Wheal Buller on the slopes of Carn Brea; Portreath, connecting the line to the busy sea port on the north Cornish coast; Roskear, a short branch serving ore processing mills at Roscroggan and the important boiler making factory of Holman Bros. on the outskirts of Camborne; and the North Crofty Branch serving the Dolcoath and North Crofty mines. This branch was opened on 23rd December 1837 and together with the other mineral branches in the area remained standard gauge throughout its life. It is this line that forms the basis of this particular flight of fancy. The North Crofty Branch left the main line by a trailing junction just east of Camborne station and ran through the mining landscape heading in a generally northerly direction. At only 48 chains (0.6 miles) long, the branch was more of a twig on the main system, however it served some of the most prosperous mines in the area; at 17 chains along the branch was Cooks Kitchen Siding, a loop which handled the traffic for the nearby mighty Dolcoath mine. At 37 chains was Tuckingmill Mileage Siding which handled coal traffic. Here the line crossed the main Redruth to Camborne road at the summit of East Hill (and from 1902 the tracks of the Camborne – Redruth Electric Tramway) to serve North Crofty Mine. The track north of the road was removed in 1937 and the branch was closed entirely on the 1st December 1948 and dismantled on the 7th November 1949. Diagram Ctsy. Cornwall Railway Society The line terminated at North Crofty mine in an area known as Tolvaddon overlooking a shallow valley marking the course of the infamous Red River. This stream derived its name from the iron oxide and ochre waste generated by the numerous mining and ore processing works along its course. These operations used the river as a source of power in their processes and as a convenient means of disposing of the polluted water once it had served its purpose. Generations of Cornish residents will remember the thick red water making its way down to the sea at Gwithian beach and the great plume of sediment spreading out across St. Ives Bay. Nowadays, following extensive environmental measures, the Red River runs clear, and has subsequently been adopted as a nature reserve. The dune system, which stretches between Hayle River in the west, and the Red River to the east on the southern side of St.Ives Bay, was worked for centuries for both sand and mineral deposits, and a large sand quarry operated until recently at Gwithian beach. After the First World War, and with the development of more efficient extraction methods, it was considered worthwhile re-working the mineral rich sediment brought down by the stream for tin and copper along with other metals which had been lost by the older, more primitive ‘streaming’ methods. Subsequently tons of ‘slimes’ as they are known in Cornish mining, were dredged for re-processing at an extensive streaming works just inland of Gwithian beach. And now some fiction... In my alternative universe, a new company – Red River Aggregates & Minerals Ltd, was established sometime around 1890 with a view to exploiting the sand deposits for building and agriculture. Around the same time the Light Railways Act had just been passed relaxing the stringent processes of getting a railway built in the hope that more rural and otherwise less economically rich areas could be connected to the main railway system. The Management of the RRA&M approached the GWR, then the owners of the North Crofty Branch, with the proposal that they (the GWR) extend the Branch along the Red River valley to Gwithian Towans in order to facilitate the removal of the sand and dredged minerals. The GWR saw little profit in such a limited traffic, particularly since the history of Cornish mineral extraction is littered with supposedly lucrative schemes, which, in reality, turned out to be anything but, and accordingly the proposal was rejected. Undeterred, the RRA&M sought its own Light Railway Order and set about constructing a private line which ran from the GWR’s sidings near the main road at North Crofty mine and followed the course of the Red River all the way to Gwithian beach. Here they erected machinery for extracting and grading the sands, along with loading silos where the sand was discharged directly into railway wagons. Further negotiations with the GWR allowed an end-on connection to be made to the North Crofty Branch with exchange sidings from where their wagons could be worked back to the main line. Click on the map to enlarge The Red River Valley Light Railway was built to standard gauge to facilitate through workings of wagons without the need for laborious trans-shipment, although a 2’ gauge system connected the sand quarry with the processing plant. Track was very light flat-bottomed rail spiked to sleepers obtained second-hand from the GWR and, with little in the way of earthworks, and the ease of working in the sandy terrain in the valley, the line was completed in less than a year and opened in 1898. The Company invested in one steam locomotive, a Hudswell Clarke 0-4-0 saddle tank, and around a dozen 8 ton wagons acquired secondhand from the Cambrian Railway. Traffic was moderate, and trains ran as required amounting to around 100 tons of sand a week being shipped out, mainly for agricultural use. Tourism in Cornwall, particularly in the more industrialised areas, was still in its infancy in the early 1900s and the little sand-carrying railway went about its business largely unnoticed. However, locals looking for a day by the seaside, began using the empty wagons returning to the sand pit as an impromptu means of getting to the coast at Gwithian which boasts a particularly fine stretch of golden beach some three miles long. In the opposite direction the rocky cove and island of Godrevy with its lighthouse, made famous by Virginia Woolfe, and the magnificent 200ft high cliffs at Hell’s Mouth made for good coastal walking. The Company was prepared to turn a blind eye to this practice until an intrepid travel writer published a piece in the national press about his trip to Gwithian Sands by …..‘an archaic little railway – one rides in the empty wagons! such primitive fun for a trip to the seaside!’ Given the rising interest in visiting the coast, the RRA&M began to consider if they might not have un-tapped potential in their railway enterprise. In 1903 they undertook modifications to the trackwork at Gwithian to re-align the run-round loop alongside a low platform and erected a basic wooden and corrugated iron building which served as a booking office and waiting room. A wooden tea hut was also added and two rather basic carriages were acquired from a horse tramway in the North of England which was being electrified. Whilst the lower terminus may have had some picturesque appeal, located as it was among the sand dunes and within sight of the sea, (if one ignored the sand processing apparatus and streaming works nearby), the upper terminus situated amid industrial wasteland did not, and the company applied to the GWR for running powers over the North Crofty Branch to a more convenient location. As other traffic on the branch was light and relations with the RRA&M were amiable, the GWR agreed to allow trains to run as far as the sidings at Tuckingmill. Here the Company built a platform with a wooden ticket office and waiting room adjacent to the main Redruth – Camborne road. The upper terminus was conveniently situated close to the main road, (later to become the A30), above Tuckingmill, a mining village that had grown to become a suburb of Camborne, and which was served by the newly opened electric tramway, making it reasonably accessible to day trippers from both towns. Unfortunately, the trams did not serve either town’s main railway stations, so visitors from farther afield faced a complicated journey by train, foot, tram, and foot again. To overcome this the RRA&M hired a horse bus to ferry passengers to their station from Camborne, a service that continued during the summer months up to the outbreak of the Great War, but was never resumed thereafter. Thus the railway was poised to enter the summer season of 1903 with a passenger carrying service. Advertisements were placed in various periodicals, national railway timetables and the Press. The first trains ran on Whit Saturday 1903 and with the promise of tea and buns at the beach, the service was highly popular, so much so that the original timetable was abandoned over the weekend and the train shuttled back and forth almost continuously. In time, the railway settled into a more sedate routine. It was always intended that the passenger ‘trips’ would only operate during the summer months, there being little reason for anyone to need to use the line other than to visit the beach. So services began at Easter, were suspended again until the Whit Bank holiday, whereafter trains ran daily every two hours until dusk. Trains also ran on Sundays, much to the disapproval of the local Wesleyan community, but nonetheless were well patronised especially in the afternoons by those seeking respite from interminable Chapel services. During the summer it became clear that one locomotive was inadequate to manage both the passenger and the more lucrative minerals business, and so a second engine was purchased, second hand, from a firm of Contractors. This was a neat 0-6-0 Manning Wardle ‘I class’. These locomotives were highly popular with civil engineering contractors for their reliability and rugged construction. The Company constructed a locomotive shed and workshop on their own land close to Roscroggan stream works, and erected covered accommodation for the carriages along with water and coal facilities. Passenger services were suspended during the 1914-18 war, and resumed in the summer of 1919. A third locomotive, a 'Terrier' class 0-6-0 was purchased from the London & South Western Railway which was busy rationalising its fleet of small tank locomotives. This engine proved popular with the crews for its increased haulage power and quick acceleration,and was used extensively during the summer months. Sand and mineral traffic continued as before although the metalliferous mining industry in Cornwall had been in terminal decline for years and many of the stream works along the Red River were falling into disuse. The electric trams ceased in 1927 but bus services now at least served the mainline railway stations, and tourist traffic in the 1920s and 30s increased markedly, largely due to the vigorous publicity campaigns run by the GWR promoting the scenic attractions of the Cornish coast. The line even got a mention in Bradshaw’s Guide – the terminus with its tea shack at Gwithian being described as “Primitive, but tea!” The railway continued to provide a viable summer passenger service to the coast for tourists and Sunday trippers alike up to the outbreak of the Second World War when services were again suspended and, with the track in a poor state, lorries took over the sand transportation, and the line was quickly reclaimed by nature. Plan of Proposed Layout and yes, that is going to be the baseboard...…….

This is a very good point and its what makes up the charm of the inter-War years trains, particularly the secondary cross-country services. Watermouth is a medium sized branch terminus somewhere on the Devon/ Dorset coast somewhere west of Bridport (think Kingswear, Kingsbridge and a bit of Weymouth) but is also an embarkation point for passengers to Europe, so it could see at least one train a day with some fairly prestigious coaches in its make-up complete with destination boards. Conceivably a coach or two from the 'Riviera' could be worked through on an otherwise normal branch working, although I think a 'Boat Train' might be pushing it a bit far! Is the current RTR Centenary/Riviera stock worth looking at with a view to an upgrade? Steve

Thanks for the info on Centenary coaches Chris, we opted to take advantage of a bulk-buy deal from Kernow and get some new Hornby Collett bow enders as (you correctly say) they are so good and need relatively little work, in fact my fellow P4'ers tell me that the wheels can be swapped without the need for modifying the bogies (which are spot-on). I shall add more undergear and proper corridor connections and probably better buffers in due course, but the paintwork I'm leaving well alone! steve

Hi Rob, Its a kind of moss that grows abundantly in the wet woodlands around here, we've had a bit of a discusion on this on the Scalefour forum https://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5924&p=62751#p62751 I use oil based enamels as it seems to keep the moss supple, I think acrylic might work too. Separate the fronds and dry the moss first, then soak or spray with your chosen colour. Steve

Its the good old Airfix body. Excellent for its time and still dimensionally accurate today. Its been heavily re-worked with the Mainly Trains detailing kit (now available from Andrew Hartshorne I believe) new smokebox door, chimney, safety valve, whistles shield, tank fillers, finer handrails,lamp irons cab interior etc. etc. I removed the top feed to put her back to 4835 which was based either at Truro or St. Blazey (can't remember which) between the wars. Steve

Thanks Rob, We'll be at Scaleforum with it in September and Great Electric Train Show in October, might even have the couplings fettled by then.... Currently getting a High Level 14xx chassis kit finished - is that man a genius or what?! Even the tiniest parts fit where they are supposed to, I doff my cap to the Wizard of Wearside Steve

Hmm, so might be better searching for deals in the new Colletts range? Steve

I am looking to get some rtr coaches with a view to upgrading them to suppement the coaching stock on our P4 club layout 'Watermouth' I don't know a lot about proprietary RTR stuff and looking on Ebay there seems to be a lot available which would lend itself to upgrading and repainting, new bogies, door handles, flush glazing etc. Can anyone please advise on the attached pics as to their origin and period? I am looking for 1920s - late 1930s stock, and I can't identify these coaches. I thought they might be Centenary stock, but I thought Centenarys had recessed doors at the ends? or are these the Cornish Riviera coaches? Thanks Steve

Thanks for that Bob, most useful. I suppose if these vehicles had been downgraded to branchline work by the early '30s some of them might have retained their earlier livery, I wonder how the printed panelling would stand up to scrutiny under a layer of weathering?

I think yours may be the older former Tri-ang coaches which were around for years in various guises and rather 'generic'. The later Hornby ones were specific diagrams I am told, but the panelling is printed. I will try and make some enquiries via the Scalefour forum about the 247 developments etches. May be a long shot! Steve

Can anyone advise on the Hornby GWR clerestory coaches (not the good old ex. Triang things! the later Edwardian liveried versions) I am looking at a few on Ebay for potential up grading, but never having seen one in the flesh am wondering about their general accuracy, specifically, is the very nice looking panelled livery moulded or just printed? do they conform to any known diagram? and are they capable of being taken apart? Any pointers greatly appreciated. Steve

The overall length is 3m x 400mm, in two 1500mm sections, can't remember off hand how much of that is scenic, but from memory the fiddle/cassette deck is 900mm long On plan the fiddle area looks disproportionately large to the visual bit, but the scenic area works out proportionally about right. The trouble with narrow layouts is if they are too long your eye can't encompass the scene unless you can break it up into smaller chunks with buildings, trees etc. Steve

Ouch! Railwells is always worth visiting, I have never been to a duff one yet! Indeed, my family business were millers and I can well empathise

Yes they are home made. Roll out a strip of Das to about the thickness of a cigarette or slightly thicker, cut into about 15mm lengths with a scalpel, squeeze one end slightly flat and form a couple of 'ears' at the bottom, use a cocktail stick to model a little topknot and some creases to represent the tied neck. In some cases corn sacks were stitched along the top so just pinch a crease and model a couple of 'ears' on the top corners. The trick to get them looking 'heavy' is to gently press them together while still soft, then they sag in all the right places (know that feeling!) and settle naturally. Colouring is watercolour with the pattern/lettering done with a fine brush. A light dusting of talc tones it all down. Steve

Hi Steve, If I remember right the Bulldog is a Finney kit, I also have a Mallard Duke waiting its turn, but I suspect much of it will need modification in the light of current kit standards! Steve

Finally some finished pictures of Lower Rose Goods, for more detail refer to the June issue of Hornby Magazine to whom my thanks for these images. All photos by Trevor Jones The motley collection of lock-up sheds that comprise the goods storage facilities Yard clerk George Worrel discusses the state of the world with the goods guard as 2721 places a couple of wagons Bulldog class 'Blasius' (presumably on a running-in turn) The appearance of an unusual locomotive attracts the attention of the local Spotter The end of the loading bank, horseboxes would not have been a regular sight at Lower Rose. General view down the yard. The middle line continues to Wheal Hope mine further up the valley 4545, the regular branch engine, propels the morning train into the loop. "The ploughman homeward plods his weary way..." ​4545 heads off with the afternoon train for Truro via Shepherds Station and Chacewater. Lower Rose Goods will be at Railwells in August.

I don't propose to join the arguments, I'm too busy building things. Steve