Taking the Biscuit

[Sonsey]

The title is appropriate in so many ways. I am modelling a railway served biscuit factory, but when the wife commented that I really was 'taking the biscuit' when it came to the time spent on the project as opposed to my household chores, I knew I just had to use the name for the layout!

 

I am learning on the job with some apprehension about showing my efforts in public (warts and all)! I did have a LMS based model Railway set in the late 1930s under development in the loft (but did not get to the scenery). Unfortunately, it had to go because the loft was converted last year to a master bedroom and there was no way the other half was allowing my layout to be rebuilt in her new room. 

But I wanted to model, so stuck with limited space I decided to make a 2' x 8' layout over two boards, to be stored in the cold, dark and really cluttered garage (all that 'stuff' in the loft had to be stored somewhere), with the aim to occasionally bring it into the house for a running session. I was looking at a brewery layout because I enjoy shunting layouts and there is lots of inspirational brewery layouts on here, and then I got my hands on a lovely sound fitted Huntley and Palmers Peckett, which proved to be the catalyst for this layout idea. 

 

And the more I thought about it the more I realised the huge variety of goods which may have been shunted into a railway served biscuit factory, especially if I based the factory complex in the 1930s.

 

We bake a lot at home and I knew that the most basic biscuits require flour, sugars and some form of fats. I reasoned that eggs, yeast, salt, and various flavourings from chocolate, honey to jam may have also been used (the first chocolate digestive was sold in 1899 according to Google and English Heritage). I suppose grain may have been used and I will have milk tankers too, just because they look nice and I suppose milk is used to bake cookies which I believe were being baked in the US in the late 1930s (a tenuous link for UK purposes but still modellers license and all that). Then I thought about the packaging, and assumed that the larger biscuit factories may have made there own packaging on site too. This would mean wagons with timber loads, nails/staples to make shipping crates to send the biscuits around the UK and the World, the metal to make the tins to store the biscuits (1930s remember), the ink to decorate the tins and of course, Coal to power the whole lot. I am sure there is more goods which may have arrived on site and if I have missed anything obvious I would be grateful to here from you.

 

So there is a wide potential for interesting wagon loads to be delivered for me to shunt into the complex from an 'off board' exchange siding. Maybe one day I will be able to link it to a larger layout and model the exchange sidings too. 

 

I also reasoned that Mr Huntley and Mr Palmer would want to store their trains on site, in a small engine shed. But being enterprising Gentleman, the engine shed would also double as a workshop to repair their Huntley and Palmers wagons (Modellers License here again). 

 

So I came up with this plan (the dark blue line in the middle is the baseboard join which I used to workout the turnout locations). In my mind, it works in a clockwise fashion. Raw ingredients delivered to the bottom right of the plan, biscuits get baked in factories (off board) before arriving in the bottom left corner of the board where the factory crosses the canal and into the 'packing area'. To the right of the packing area is the raw materials to make the packages (timber crates and metal tins) and then some coal drops to the right of that. In the middle of the board is a run around loop and the engine shed complex at the bottom of board:

 

There probably is too much track work in the area modelled but it makes it interesting. The coal drops have to be accessed from the 'Packing Material' siding. Not ideal but its a compromise.   Here is the progress from a few weeks back:

 

 

And here is the progress on Board 1 now half term is over. The right hand side of the factory below is loosely positioned, not been painted and has half the windows missing (and I cannot find what I did with the windows since it was removed from the loft). I find black and white photos also hide a multiple of sins. 

 

 

 

This is a warts and all layout though and I have messed up on the water scene adjacent to the canal boat! I used woodland scenic deep water pour. The instructions said the bubbles would dissipate over time so I was not too worried when I first saw them, but then I realised that in all probability, the base of the canal was not as 'sealed' as I had assumed (although none landed on the card/old towel I positioned underneath as a precaution?). So I really don't think this was a problem with the product, it was my fault and I should have been more vigilant . Never mind, you live and learn; I have seen some people introduce ripples using various products and I might have a crack at that at some point. Here is the raw image in all its bubbly glory...Doh!

 

 

This is very much a recycling/test bed of a model for me to practice on. The factories were brought for the now demolished loft layout, but are now being recycled and used here. I am new to scenery and am toying with different materials for ground cover. The shed area is painted plasticard which looks okay but needs more work and I need to be careful that I don't rub the paint off when I clean the tracks! I never thought of that at the time!  

 

Adjacent to the shed area I experimented with Polyfilla with a healthy dollop of PVA glue mixed in: I like the texture of the latter, but I am not good at getting it even, and it went everywhere I didn't want it to go! I am not a tidy modeller. The Woodland Scenic's 'smooth it' might have been a better option in retrospect. 

 

 

I will also try cobblestones (sheets on order) in the white plasticard zones in the photos above. The white plasticard is to bring the land level with the sleepers. I will see how this looks when they arrive. So this is very much a trial and error layout. I did my first piece of static grass the other day too and it looks okay for my first effort. Need to add a bit more colour maybe (excuse the white plasticard off cut which got into the blurry photograph below, it most definitely is not my finger nail). 

 

The layout is DCC, and the turnouts are all cobalt digital motors (expensive but marvellously simple to wire and program). Most of my stock is LMS. I know Huntley and Palmers was based in Reading, but modellers license, means the LMS will be heavily represented on the Wagon front. I will also use some of my LMS stock to shunt. Next job is to clean the track of all that paint and rogue Polyfilla blobs. The wagons run okay on the tracks (even where the Polyfilla has been used) but I suspect I will need a stay alive the size of a car battery to get a train over the current paint blobs on the track! So cleaning is next on the agenda before work continues on board 1.

 

If you are still with me, thank you for your interest. I will update as and when I can between shuttling 3 kids around various clubs and engaging with those household chores, before the wife accuses me again of 'taking the biscuit'.  

 

Thanks 

Soney

[Sonsey]

I hope everyone is well.

 

Some more Progress with the biscuit factory.

 

I added some detail inside the factory. Once I have finished I will need to hoover it (it's really dusty) and then construct a removable roof. The floor here is 3mm ply scored to represent wooden planks as it the platform tops. In retrospect they might be a bit wide but, this is all a learning curve. 

 

The Gents below are getting ready to load more biscuit crates into a wagon for their onward journey around the UK and beyond. 

 

 

I added some plasticard sheets to raise the level for the floor ready for the cobbled sheets

 

 

 

Then I added the cobbled sheets and painted them up. I wanted them looking quite grubby but varied in colour reflecting the areas more heavily used than others.

 

 

Photos on my iphone are generally not that good; it does not pick up the colours that well and the lighting in the room is terrible. However, I am not sure what I did below, but this one came out quite well (I have subsequently touched up the visible white facing part of the plasticard on the left hand side). 

 

 

I now need to add details. The platform in the background in the above photo needs to be packed full of timbers and tin sheets. This is where the raw materials arrive to make the tins and the shipping crates. In the foreground will be crates, crates and more crates on the basis that it is a nice day and they can load more crates loaded with biscuits into the wagons by using the space. I have no idea if this happened in reality but seems to makes sense to me and gives me the chance to add more details. 

 

I then joined the two boards together, to play trains (I mean to make sure everything worked as it should). I made some amateur errors. Two point motors are getting a bit stuck. One in the engine shed area and another in the yard. The engine shed one is ballasted (I have never done this before) and it seems I was not as careful as I had thought with my application of the glue. I will sort it. The other must have been tagged by a bit of glue when I was laying the cobbles. I am working on it, it is getting looser.... The cobbled sheets were also fowling the train (but not the rolling stock) so I had to make some amendments by hacking the underside of the cobbled sheets between the tracks! I also spent an hour cleaning the tracks. Performance was awful until I cleaned them! 

 

Here are the two boards together. The grey building on the right is the access to the exchange siding (fiddle yard). It's been primed but needs to be painted. But I want to finish board one before I get stuck into board 2. To finish board 1, I need to find the windows for the building being held up by the poly filler tube. I cannot for the life of me find them anywhere so I might have to get inventive.

 

 

I am pleased with the progress. I was though instructed to remove board 2 from our front room by the Mrs. It was admittedly a bit cramped in the room with both boards in place, and I don't want to be accused of 'taking the biscuit' again. 

 

More progress soon I hope. 

 

Thanks for reading. 

 

 

[Chris116]

Very nice. Just need a pack of ginger nuts and we will all want to join you in taking the biscuit 

[The Johnster]

I'm a custard cream man, myself, and not averse to a jammie dodger.

 

My colliery extension on Cwmdimbath is nearing the 'burying everything in plaster and hoping for the best' stage, and should look a bit like your half term photos in about a week...