Peter Denny's Buckingham & baseboard made from Weyroc

[Combe Martin]

Needing amusement while in the process of moving home (so railway packed away), and being locked down too,  I've been wading through my pile of  old Railway Modeller magazines (far too many) to see what could be discarded (yes, a sad necessity I know) to make a bit of space.

 

So I've come to the September 1969 issue and Railway of the month is 'Buckingham Renewed' by the Reverend Peter Denny.  The article describes him building a new version of the Buckingham part of his layout which by then was much more than just Buckingham. 

 

He describes using 3/4 inch Weyroc for the baseboard, but can anyone tell me what Weyroc is ?

 

But what I find astounding is that he started on this new version in the summer of 1967 and in September 1969 it looks finished.   There is no ready to run track used. He soldered it all up himself  including  some complex pointwork  at the station throat.  Everything is scratch built and only a few bits and buildings have been used from the old version of Buckingham.   The whole Buckingham station is completely new.  What an incredible modeller Peter Denny was, and he was still working at the time.     

[Podhunter]

4 minutes ago, Combe Martin said:

can anyone tell me what Weyroc is ?

Chipboard by another name.

[t-b-g]

It is indeed a brand name for a type of smooth faced good quality chipboard and it is still nice and flat 53 years later.

 

He was indeed an exceptional modeller and capable of building things very quickly without impacting on the quality.

 

In one place, he wrote about taking a week to scratchbuild a loco.

 

I wish I could work like that!

 

 

[Stanley Melrose]

Maybe being a CofE vicar helped in terms of time available?

[Michael Hodgson]

14 minutes ago, Stanley Melrose said:

Maybe being a CofE vicar helped in terms of time available?

Yeah, they only work on Sundays .... even I know better than to make a comment like that - and I'm a heathen!

 

I remember reading that article, and I've probably still got the magazine. 

Great model, would like to have seen it.

[t-b-g]

I did actually get to have these sorts of conversations with Peter, his family and his operating teams down in Cornwall.

 

He wasn't hugely overtaxed by the general parish work but he took on some quite hefty additional responsibilities in terms of serving on various church committees, such as administering pension schemes.

 

The Bishop used to visit once a year for a sort of annual appraisal and Peter told me that every year the discussion was the same. The Bishop would ask Peter if he would like to move on to somewhere busier, with more to challenge him and Peter would reply that he didn't think his work was quite finished there. He smiled and said the the Bishop knew exactly what he meant and the "business" part of the visit would end with a glass of sherry and they would spend the rest of the day operating the layout.

 

Most of his output was down to the speed he worked at and the fact that he was known to work well into the night. I met one chap who had stayed at the vicarage as part of a trip to see the layout (Sylvia Denny did B & B as it was huge with plenty of rooms). He had to get up, as we do sometimes, at 2am and heard a strange noise up the corridor. He investigated and it was Peter using his fretsaw machine.

 

It is a great joy to me to have the layout and to have had the chance to get to know Peter a little bit and to have the stories to go with it.

 

This is a fairly recent snap although it is already 7 years since I took it. Where did that time go?

 

 

[Pacific231G]

21 hours ago, Stanley Melrose said:

Maybe being a CofE vicar helped in terms of time available?

Well they do tend to have a day off in the week in lieu of working on Sunday so, with everyone else at work, probably a good day to get some modelling done but, that apart they seem to work a lot more hours each week thana  typical nine to fiver. 

 

ISTR a comment whch I think was from Peter Denny himself that he only did a few hours modelling each week but, having quickly achieved a modelling standard he was happy with, rarely wasted anything he'd already built. Tony would know how much noticeable difference there is between his earlier and later models  but I believe, for example, that the original Buckingham station building is now the Leighton Buzzard station building. 

 

It's interesting that a similar approach was taken by the great American modeller John Allen. He certainly had more time to devote to modelling though he was heavily involved in the NMRA and he died at a comparatively young age.

The original Gorre and Daphetid was a 6ft 8in by 3ft 8in folded oval and you could see that original layout incoporated, though heavily modifiied, in the scenic empire that the G&D eventually became. I think his original couple of locos and coaches also formed part of the stock of the final layout. 

 

Weyroc  seems to have been  sold as a flooring material. It was manufactured  by the Airscrew co. Ltd (makers of wooden propellors) originally of Weybridge- hence the name. At one stage it was owned by Bryant and May the match company. The timber products side which produced Weyroc was eventually based in Hexham and in the 1990s sold to the Austrian Egger company (any relation to  Eggebahn?) who as Egger (UK) are still in Hexham. Egger's product range includes moisure resistant chipboard flooring branded as P5 and described as "Enhanced moisture resistant chipboard" and avaialble in 18mm (3/4 inch) and 22mm thicknesses. It looks particularly smooth faced so may well be the same product as Weyroc. I couldn't see the cruder types of chipboard used on buildng sites or to replace broken windows on their website though they do have a chipboard substitute "EGGER OSB HDX is a 30mm heavy duty, load bearing OSB panel for areas where previously 38mm chipboard would be used"

Edited January 15, 2021 by Pacific231G
added information about Weyroc

[john new]

The first layout my late father built for us was on Weyroc; proprietary name for a very heavy version of densely squeezed down chipboard. Far better in quality than the modern less dense and crumbly stuff most DIY shops offer these days.

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by john new