Midsomer Brevis. An essay in O-16.5

[Hroth]

Midsomer Brevis.

 

The terminus of a narrow gauge light railway set in the county of Midsomer.
I think you can see where this is going...

 

The first layout

 

The layout was a single 4'x2' board laid with settrack points that were to hand, and scraps of flexitrack from other projects.  Points were controlled from the non-viewing side by underboard rods. Terra Fiddleyardis Incognitia lurked at the end. The arrangement was nothing special, just a platform line with a runround loop and a solitary siding.  It was influnced by Bembridge IoW, without the small turntable at the end of the loop instead of points and the omission of the small siding on the platform side. Designed to be "multi purpose", the only fixed thing on the layout was the track.  Everything else was mounted on removable boards so that the character of the layout could be changed to suit the stock being run on it.

 

Midsomer Brevis Mk1, with cereal box buildings to judge sizes.

From L-R:

 

An Agricultural Engineers workshop where A Body has been found, with dodgy bloke at door. Water tower and grounded van body. An Inspector calls in his brand new Austin Cambridge. Various items of rolling stock, Wooden station platform, the "modern" station block has been swept away, the station will be a larger version of the brick hut next door. Weighbridge and office bottom right.

 

This is set in the early 60s, with a Preservation Society trying to bring the moribund railway back to life.

 

Using that single board multi-purpose layout has been scrapped.

 

Midsomer Brevis will now use the Peco O-16.5 track range. The plan will remain more or less as the original, with an extra siding and be built on two 3'x2' boards. The route to the fiddleyard will also extend too, with a halt to be named "Drovers Road" on the way, modelled on "Sidestrand Halt", near Cromer. The extended layout will comprise of a corner piece, and an additional 2'x3' board for the halt and environs, before the Fiddlery.

 

I've introduced this topic to encourage me to move forward...   

 

A Cakebox Challenge snap of a loco and mates, posing around a bit...

 

 

Edited May 1, 2021 by Hroth
Added photo, some more descriptive text.

[Hroth]

The convoluted back story, or why oh why was such a railway built?

 

A brief History of the Midsomer Light Railway

Some notes on the background of the railway, its history in private hands and its reincarnation as a preserved line.

 

Part 1

Introduction

 

In the dying years of the 19th Century, The Light Railways Act 1896 (59 & 60 Vict. c.48) was enacted to encourage the building of light railways to help remote communities.  One gentleman of Midsomer, Sir Henry Petherington (like his father before him), had been a persistent petitioner of the main line railways that bordered the region of his seat to bring a branch line to Midsomer Brevis but nothing ever came of his efforts, the truth being that even in that golden expansionist age, Midsomer Brevis had no particular industries  to provide the traffic to make a railway a financially succesful concern.

 

And so there it lay until 1896.

 

The act galvanised our heroic gent, and his friends in the county to form a company and to employ a surveyor from Causton to determine and cost a suitable route and apply in 1898  to the Light Railway Commissioners for permission to lay a narrow-gauged line across privately owned farmland, largely in the possession of Sir Henry, from Midsomer Brevis, through the hamlet of Drovers Rest, together with several small sidings serving various farms along the railway, to the town of Midsomer Magna to terminate at a former timberyard, adjacent to the goods yard belonging to one of the main line companies. This route had been chosen because to approach the station of the other company concerned, despite only being half the distance, the River Wamble would have to be crossed at some expense in embankments, brick and girder work and extra land would have to be purchased.  The Commissioners worked reasonably quickly and after the obligatory public meeting raised no major objections, the Order was granted.

 

Thus work began.  

 

By mid-1901 the line had been completed, stations built at Midsomer Brevis and Midsomer Magna, and a timber platform halt at Drovers Rest.  Initial rolling stock comprised of some open wagons and vans, together with a brakevan, two enclosed 4-wheel coaches and an 0-4-0 saddle tank bought secondhand from Pecketts of Bristol.  On a breezy October day, the line was inspected by Lt Col Druitt and passed fit for traffic.

 

1901 - 1913:  The railway began operating a timetabled passenger service between Midsomer Brevis and Midsomer Magna, intially using the Peckett. The rolling stock and locomotive were sufficient for the traffic handled by the railway but in addition, Sir Henry had visited the Paris Motor Show in 1904 and had been so impressed with a rail motor car  built by Turgan, Foy et Cie for the C.F. de la Drome, that he had ordered a similar vehicle for the Midsomer Light Railway.  This was delivered during the summer of 1905 and used for the passenger services as it was cheaper to run than the steam locomotive and carriages.  The rail motor service was so popular that a trailer car body was obtained with facilities to control the rail motor from either end, doubling the capacity.

 

1913 - 1919:  During the Great War, the railway carried on as best it could. Luckily, as it was so small and had no apparent military use, it wasn't brought into the ROD sphere of influence.  As it so happened, the flat lands around Drovers Rest had become the site of an RFC training camp and sidings were laid to bring small scale supplies in for the base and the railway was in some demand as transport to the fleshpots of Midsomer Magna and beyond.  In 1919, the camp was closed, the extra sidings lifted and used to relay lengths of the main line. The land the sidings occupied was returned to agricultural use.

 

1919 - 1939:  As the 1920s progressed, times became harder for the Midsomer Light Railway.  Ex-Army lorries were being sold off by the War Department at knock-down prices and soldiers trained in their use and maintenance bought them and setting up small haulage companies as they were demobilised.  Midsomer was no exception to this and the small hauliers took away a lot of the outside business from the railway.  The Peckett was mothballed and a small Ruston locomotive obtained to tow the couple of vans and wagons up and down the line as occasion demanded.  Passenger numbers held up fairly well and the old rail motor and its trailer continued to carry passengers from Midsomer Brevis to Midsomer Magna as it was quicker and more frequent than the bus service.

 

1939 - 1960:  If the inter-war years were bad for the railway, World War 2 was even worse.  The railway barely kept running, mainly transporting milk and other produce from the farms and between Midsomer Magna and Midsomer Brevis, but like the Peckett, the rail motor was mothballed as passenger numbers slumped.  This situation  continued after 1945.  By 1957, the family had lost interest in the MLR and the last trains stopped running in November of that year.  The Railway lay moribund.

 

This was the time before the wholesale redevelopment of towns and villages in the Midsomer countryside and so the stations lay shut up and unmolested and the track became hidden under the grass.  Small trees began to sprout between the rails...