1970s childhood layout in a caravan

[Harlequin]

Here's another view of the turntable in the terminus:

 

It's not very exciting but notice the Jinty body, the Adams (?) 0-4-4T, the small building covering yet more surface mounted point motors and the elephant in the room - a Saturn 5 rocket (and a couple of badly masked Shuttle boosters).

 

This was the age of Blake's 7 and spaceships were to become my next great interest. After the railway was sold off I used the baseboards to create a massive cratered moonscape using silver sand and concrete.

 

Edited August 28, 2019 by Harlequin

[Harlequin]

The penultimate photo:

 

The quality of this photo is worse than ever but you can see my bodged up 56XX in the foreground hauling a mixed goods through the low level station. The second wagon is carrying a load of wall plugs, which served as logs. (Wall plugs in those days were thick brown tubes of some unknown waxy material, not plastic.)

I made the smokebox saddle and the trailing bogie of the 56XX myself - not sure where the body came from.

 

In the bay platform (you've gotta have a bay platform - it's the law) stands our coveted Airfix 14XX sandwiched between two Airfix autocoaches. Proper Job!

 

The landscape has started to become brown and green instead of polyfilla white and we started a Nancy Kominksi style backscene painted directly on the caravan walls.

 

The large buttress on the side of the bridge/tunnel covers, you guessed it, another surface mounted point motor.

 

Edited August 29, 2019 by Harlequin

[Harlequin]

The final photo was seriously damaged and I've done my best to restore it but it's still worth including. (The left hand side of the photo was bright yellow.)

 

It's a close up of the small through station, using the same trains as the previous photo:

The Airfix 14XX is shown more clearly standing in the bay platform. There are three figures posed on the footbridge. Matchsticks have been planted as fence posts.

 

Finally, on the far platform, you can see a small signal cabin. (I know it's in a daft position.) It was purely imaginary and I scratch-built it from spare bits and pieces. I seem to remember that the downpipes were dry spaghetti! It had an interior that was lit by a grain of wheat bulb.

 

I was very proud of that little building because it was possibly the first model that was designed and built by me, not a kit, not someone else's conception.

 

I can't remember seeing it since the layout was broken up but maybe, just maybe, I've still got it stashed away in a box somewhere.

 

If I find any more photos of the layout I will post them here and I will try to draw a trackplan when I get time but, for now, That's all Folks!

 

[treggyman]

Hi

 

Really enjoyed your trip down memory lane.....

 

Thanks for sharing....

Hopefully you will find another pic or two hidden away......

 

Cheers Bill

[Rockets]

Just great to see, reminds me of a childhood building Airfix Trackside kits and dreaming of the layout I would build to put them on.

 

Thanks for sharing. 

[Harlequin]

Here are the plans, drawn from memory and from the photos.

 

And the lower level alone:

While Dad was working it all out on A3 graph paper I think at times the paper got so flimsy, and the surface so hairy, that the plans had to be completely redrawn. And maybe that partly explains some of the flaws, because continuing to redraw things might have seemed like more effort than it was worth eventually!

 

(The Magenta dashed lines on the hidden reversing loops show the isolated sections where the tricky electrical reversal took place.)

 

The horrible helix was the Achilles heel of this layout but I can see now that the plan was flawed in many other ways, as well...

 

I think I understand better now why it was never really satisfying to run and why the impetus to finish it waned.

 

Edited December 3, 2022 by Harlequin

[JohnR]

Seeing the plan, I dont think its that bad - in general. The idea of a large terminus feeding a lower level continuous run, with a return loop is fairly sound.

[Nearholmer]

I looked at this last time it floated by, and was impressed - I well remember the "lie of the land" at this sort of date, and getting a layout of this complexity to work well was no easy task, the sort of thing that tended to need either a very experienced lone wolf are the combined talents of a club. The rock cutting is definitely the stand-out feature, and I wonder if it was done using a method that was described in RM (in the 1960s IIRC), which was to use broken up pieces of insulation board, rendered-over with a good dollop of polyfilla, which was then worked while semi-set (the sort of polyfilla available then was much slower-setting than a lot of modern stuff).

[russell price]

Just found this thread, my father and I built our second layout in a 1964 Bedford SB Duple Bella Vega, which was great until the summer of 1976 did its worst to the track, it buckled in every direction!! Plan B was to build a layout in a caravan , a large old 1960s van which worked better until one afternoon in January 1982 when tha wind blew the caravan over!! I was in it at the time too!!! Not funny when the door is in the ceiling!! I have now 40 years later just built a new 30 x 12 foot railway shed in which I’m constructing a fairly accurate model of Welshpool station. Some of my rolling stock hasn’t run since then until now. 

[Flying Pig]

I missed this first time round.  I love the hillside over the tunnel - most model tunnels are in weeny little hillocks, so it's good to see some height above the railway. Your signal box is very convincing and reminds me of a North Eastern or Caledonian type.

[RJS1977]

Yes, just came across this now. The terminus looks nicely laid out (although I'm not sure about the rear platform), and, if instead of taking the approach roads down the helix, they simply doubled back into a fiddle yard along the back, could have made quite a nice exhibition layout.

[Neal Ball]

Morning Phil,

I too have just found the railway and have enjoyed going down memory Lane. 
 

One of my first layouts was in dads shed, which never really worked well as he would be doing woodwork at the same time.

 

I think went into an uninsulated loft, which of course was baking in summer and had hidden sidings at the back.

 

Thanks for sharing your photos and memories.

Neal.

[Biggles Dog]

Hi Phil,

I was given your contact details from Stoke Courteney as I want a Signal Box nameplate.

I have tried to order but keep getting bounced by an 'incomplete address' message

Would it be possible to contact me, please. I'm in Oz.

By the way, have you ever considered doing running in boards as the fonts are a problem !

Geoff

 

 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Biggles Dog
removal of email address

[Darius43]

What a fantastic thread.  It took me right back to building my first layout (and, come to think of it, my last before the one a friend and I are currently building) in the late 1970s/early 1980s - happy days.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

 

 

[RJS1977]

Just thinking about the 56xx body - could it have been converted from the Airfix 61xx kit? There was an article on doing this in RM back in (I think) 1964 and  I've built one that way 

[Harlequin]

3 hours ago, Darius43 said:

What a fantastic thread.  It took me right back to building my first layout (and, come to think of it, my last before the one a friend and I are currently building) in the late 1970s/early 1980s - happy days.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

 

 

Thanks Darius!

 

I hope that I'll find some more photos to share here one day.

 

Good luck with the new layout.

 

[Harlequin]

4 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

Just thinking about the 56xx body - could it have been converted from the Airfix 61xx kit? There was an article on doing this in RM back in (I think) 1964 and  I've built one that way 

Yes, you might be right - that sort of rings a bell.

 

I wish I still had that 56xx. It wouldn't be up to scratch these days but it would be nice to have a physical reminder of the old days.

 

I think I have got a motorised fish van somewhere (a fish van body plonked onto a class 47 power bogie) that I used to push around my Airfix saddle tanks. Nice idea, but due to the locos having plastic wheels and axles in a plastic chassis, It never worked very well! 😆

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Harlequin