Chart Sutton - Weald of Kent Light Railway

[Sophia NSE]

After spending ages in the modifying RTR section, the time has come to actually build a layout for my creations. So here is Chart Sutton on the Weald of Kent Light Railway.

The WKR took over the planned KESR extension to Maidstone and hoped to link to the mainline at Headcorn and to the line from Maidstone East to Ashford at Lenham. Finances dictated that the latter never happened and the Headcorn section was abandoned leaving Chart Sutton as the terminus of the truncated line.

Top left is to the fiddle yard, top right is the end of the line, bottom right will be a small engine shed and bottom left will be to a separate platform/loading area for hop pickers trains and the hops themselves. This was originally a passing station on the line and while the down platform remains, most of the up platform will have been removed, save for a small section used for normal goods.

Behind the station will be a low relief village street scene and a small signal box will hopefully hide the fiddle yard entrance. Any questions or suggestions feel free to comment!

[Sophia NSE]

I wasn't entirely happy with the trackplan as it was all too parallel to the baseboard edge so I had a play around and came up with a plan I much prefer

The platform will be long enough for a 2 coach train plus loco with a little bit to spare

Where the T9 sits will now be the engine shed and the R1 sits in the headshunt

The station building will be enhanced with some Wills clapboard sheets and a Hornby canopy with Wills corrugated glass sheets

[AdamsRadial]

Oh for an Oast house...

 

Although I can't remember seeing any that far North in Kent, the ones I remember were all further south and east.

 

Are you going to have special trains to serve Leeds castle?

Edited June 2, 2020 by AdamsRadial

[Artless Bodger]

13 hours ago, AdamsRadial said:

Oh for an Oast house...

 

Although I can't remember seeing any that far North in Kent, the ones I remember were all further south and east.

 

Are you going to have special trains to serve Leeds castle?

I can remember oast houses in Maidstone, on the corner of Loose Road and Plains Avenue (they burned down when I was a child early 60's), up Straw Mill Hill out of Tovil on the road to Loose, also some in the Ditton area as Reeds had their social club based in one. I also recall one up Weavering Street converted to a house, as I used to imagine trying to build a railway layout in a circular room, but the area has been comprehensively redeveloped, so I can't find it on google maps. 

 

Special trains to Leeds Castle - well that could be the excuse for that pullman in purple and cream (also serves as a directors' saloon?).

[Artless Bodger]

17 hours ago, AdamsRadial said:

Oh for an Oast house...

 

Although I can't remember seeing any that far North in Kent, the ones I remember were all further south and east.

 

Are you going to have special trains to serve Leeds castle?

Your post got me searching (I'm rather prone to running off at tangents), and found this oast house conversion between Sutton Valence and Langley Heath

 https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.2233084,0.5926311,3a,75y,278.46h,89.29t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1su55Q2Ax_haQ6WgEYNV02ww!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

 

However, thank you for the idea - because I could probably use one on my layout as the scenic side is still up in the air.

[david51]

Past houses were common all over Kent ,many have been converted to homes . There are many around Faversham and Canterbury , Faversham being the home of Shepherds Neame who still have their brewery there . There were oasts near Sutton Valence which is in the area served by your railway .

My old layout’Loose Road’ had much the same background as yours( I had a thread with some photos on RMWeb). There was a quarry near Sutton Valence which could be an extra scource of traffic.

In my scenario the proposed tunnel near Tobin has collapsed leaving a truncated branch from Headcorn .

My new vision of Loose Road is now in the planning stage.

good luck. 

[david51]

I hate predictive txt.

past should be Oast and Tobin should be Tovil!

sorry!

[Chris116]

22 minutes ago, david51 said:

I hate predictive txt.

past should be Oast and Tobin should be Tovil!

sorry!

You can edit the original post so it reads what you wanted rather than what the predictive text thinks you should have written.

[Sophia NSE]

Ooops, almost 3 months of silence on the layout. I now have the flexitrack I needed and have simplified the buffer stop end

The line on the right is a kickback to the goods yard/carriage siding/ engine shed area in front of the fiddle yard. I'm not sure what to do in this area but I do know that I want a WWII pillbox at the entrance to it!

[Sophia NSE]

I have been working on the layout, honest mister! Thankfully I had the foresight to buy the necessary equipment to continue on the baseboards and they now have some diagonal bracing on both boards

I've also been working on the station platform and roadway. The idea is that the road gently slopes down to a level crossing just past the station which gives access to the goods yard

I'm also going to future proof the layout just in case I ever have the space to make it a through station. There may be a little cheating later in life as I may occasionally use the layout as a preserved station so then I can run whatever I want!

This little beauty will probably be the star of the layout, a bodged and bashed ex SER Q1

[Sophia NSE]

Another quick update

 

 

 

 

The triangular gap at the side was initially a cutting cock up but to cover this I plan to drop interchangeable rows of shops depending on the time period being operated

[AdamsRadial]

7 hours ago, Sophia NSE said:

There may be a little cheating later in life as I may occasionally use the layout as a preserved station so then I can run whatever I want!

Actually, there was, in Kent, the perfect excuse to run what you want regardless of the setting. The Kent and East Sussex sometimes took trains that were out-of-gauge on the narrow tunnels of the line to Hastings, especially during wartime when they weren't too worried about the axle-loadings on the bridges, given the Luftwaffe was trying their level best to bust them anyway. Set your scene in WW2 and anything goes...

 

Or then there's hop-pickers specials, of which Kent is again a perfect setting: Hawkhurst, which usually just saw an H-class tank on the passenger services and a C-class on the goods, saw some of the bigger 4-4-0's with lengthy trains taking families and friends to and from the farms.

 

The other way to justify it would be running powers... It's what I use on DeSawderLeigh Junction, which is inspired by the MSWJR, so apart from MSWJR stock (of which I have zero right now), there would be LSWR, MR and GWR locomotives and stock going hither and thither.

Edited November 15, 2020 by AdamsRadial

[Sophia NSE]

18 hours ago, AdamsRadial said:

Actually, there was, in Kent, the perfect excuse to run what you want regardless of the setting. The Kent and East Sussex sometimes took trains that were out-of-gauge on the narrow tunnels of the line to Hastings, especially during wartime when they weren't too worried about the axle-loadings on the bridges, given the Luftwaffe was trying their level best to bust them anyway. Set your scene in WW2 and anything goes...

 

Or then there's hop-pickers specials, of which Kent is again a perfect setting: Hawkhurst, which usually just saw an H-class tank on the passenger services and a C-class on the goods, saw some of the bigger 4-4-0's with lengthy trains taking families and friends to and from the farms.

 

The other way to justify it would be running powers... It's what I use on DeSawderLeigh Junction, which is inspired by the MSWJR, so apart from MSWJR stock (of which I have zero right now), there would be LSWR, MR and GWR locomotives and stock going hither and thither.

I was thinking of some old Midland coaches and an LMS van for a hop pickers special. The WKR haven't been able to afford an H class and so have to make do with an elderly Q1 0-4-4 built by the SER. They did purchase a couple of R1s, one of which is currently being extended into an 0-6-2

[AdamsRadial]

It can be a struggle finding pre-nationalisation RTR coaches, I've got a couple of Graham Farish 00 suburban coaches that I hope I can mod to come close to the MSWJR coaches, and I picked up three Ratio kit-built LMS coaches that are going to need some work before I can even run them. The Triang Clerestory coaches are possibly the easiest ones to chop around into SR stuff from between the wars, there were lots of articles back in the late sixties from Terry Gough on converting them, but I am still suffering from over-sentimentality: I have a drawer full of clerestories in GWR, Maroon, LNER teak and engineering department olive-green, but each time I open the drawer with a razor-saw in hand I hear these little voices telling me they're too nice to slice and dice.

[Sophia NSE]

I have the Farish suburbans too, one of which has been turned into a push/pull driving coach with an MJT cab from an EPB filed and grafted on. Should probably get myself a couple of clerestories too

[AdamsRadial]

That reminded me, I got two Triang maroon coaches with the end driving compartments a year or more ago, from ebay. I just looked underneath but there isn't an R number so I can't advise how to get the. The side number is M43171 but I doubt that's sufficient for identification. I ought to have a look for a similar coach without the end driving compartment, I'm sure they would have made some.

 

ETA checked the second coach and part obscured by one of the bogies is R120/222

[Sophia NSE]

I have one of those too. I did cut some side windows for the cab but they're about as straight as I am!

[Sophia NSE]

Ooooooh, I nearly forgot. Some fun things for the layout arrived today

 

The poster boards are deliberately a few years out of date as someone at BR forgot to send new ones to such a railway backwater!

[AdamsRadial]

Is that Donald Crowhurst setting sail in the Teignmouth poster?

[Sophia NSE]

21 hours ago, AdamsRadial said:

Is that Donald Crowhurst setting sail in the Teignmouth poster?

I have no idea who that is

[AdamsRadial]

Tried to sail around the world in the 1960s Golden Globe race in a trimaran, "Teignmouth Electron". Didn't make it back. Teignmouth hyped up the attempt for all it was worth.

 

I just saw the year ranges for the posters so no, it isn't him.

[RedGemAlchemist]

On 18/11/2020 at 19:32, Sophia NSE said:

but they're about as straight as I am!

Well, today I learnt something I didn't necessarily need to know

 

On 15/11/2020 at 16:11, Sophia NSE said:

Another quick update

 

 

 

 

The triangular gap at the side was initially a cutting cock up but to cover this I plan to drop interchangeable rows of shops depending on the time period being operated

Nice work there Sophia! Are those platforms plasticard or cardboard?

[Sophia NSE]

3 hours ago, RedGemAlchemist said:

Nice work there Sophia! Are those platforms plasticard or cardboard?

The platform and other edges are 2mm mounting card with the surface being 1mm card. The white parts are leftover 5mm foamboard and all held together with PVA glue, hope, and some unladylike language! Unfortunately the rear edge is 1mm too high. Measure twice, cut once, still cock it up 

[AdamsRadial]

6 hours ago, Sophia NSE said:

Unfortunately the rear edge is 1mm too high.

The toffee-hammer is your friend...

[Artless Bodger]

On 15/11/2020 at 23:04, AdamsRadial said:

Or then there's hop-pickers specials, of which Kent is again a perfect setting: Hawkhurst, which usually just saw an H-class tank on the passenger services and a C-class on the goods, saw some of the bigger 4-4-0's with lengthy trains taking families and friends to and from the farms.

The Hawkhurst branch also saw 4-4-0s on school trains for Benenden school, at the beginning and end of term. 6 coaches apparently.

 

Sutton Valence school could justify special trains to Chart Sutton. And luggage / parcels vans attached to goods trains for the scholars' trunks (as handled at Hawkhurst).

Edited March 9, 2021 by Artless Bodger
Added stuff, and spelling.