Waking the dead

[bécasse]

Looking for something else, I opened a dusty box the other day and out tumbled a couple of "skeletons" - two scenic items for a never completed and long lost American layout in NFS.

 

Back in 1974, having just exhibited Bembridge in P4 at Central Hall for the second time, I was looking for a new finescale project that I could manage on my own. I quickly realised that the American model trade produced some excellent offerings, both locos and stock, in N or 1:160 scale where the 9,00 mm track gauge was as close to the real thing as 18,83 mm was in P4. Furthermore, KD offered working buck-eye couplers that actually looked like the real thing, and one UK retailer (Millholme) offered code 40 FB rail which, soldered to specially-ordered scale copper-clad ties, would produce track which was very close to scale too. The wheels on the trade offerings left something to be desired but I reckoned that, by joining the 2mm Scale Association, this hurdle could be overcome fairly easily too.

 

The Model Railway Club library subscribed to both Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman, and a trawl through back numbers quickly firmed up the idea of modelling a simple short-line depot which took up little space and could even be easily transported without a car. I was working in the Kings Cross area at the time and lunch time visits to Bernie Victor's little cubby hole (the rest of the shop sold vinyl records) in Chapel Street market quickly convinced me that the proposition was workable.

 

I built a baseboard - and hit the first snag, Millholme had no code 40 rail and said that production was so erratic that it might never appear again, so I used code 55 rail instead which still looked a hell of a lot better when laid than the code 80 rail typically used in N at the time. I scratch built a 4-wheel caboose and a snow plough to prove to myself that I could scratch build rolling stock in the scale, and both looked nice and certainly ran well so I started to acquire freight stock, largely but not totally, box cars and a loco. Ideally I would have acquired a SW1 for the sort of short line I had in mind, but nobody made one and I had to make do with an Atlas SW1500 which wasn't too far off in appearance but was really too modern - snag number 2.

 

Those MRs and RMFs provided me with scale drawings for scratch building both items of rolling stock (that caboose and snow plough) and for suitable buildings and these were the next to be tackled. The depot building, a water tower and a through girder bridge (from a Heljan plastic kit) were built. Then I started to get cold feet, the code 55 rail looked over scale for a short-line, the SW1500 didn't look quite right either, work started to get very busy and I moved from the London suburbs to Hove and became a "long" distance commuter. Eventually the layout stalled, although it was only actually thrown out when I moved to Belgium some years ago and the "skeletons" that fell out that box are all that remains now.

 

Inevitably, they have sustained some damage during the course of four decades and three house moves, and I could certainly make a better job of that tarred-felt roof on the depot today, but when I looked at them I was astounded by the standard I could reach then, I am almost certain that I couldn't do it today in that small scale. They were almost totally constructed from Plasticard and other Slaters' products - micro strip and rod.