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Meeth Halt


binesrail

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Yes its me again, and yes yet another layout! :lol:

This time i thought i would model a real station thanks to the insperation from Darren01 with his layout Torrington.

 

Here is just a quick history of Meeth Halt and what i plan to do.

 

Opened in 1925, Meeth Halt was a small railway station on the North Devon and Cornwall Junction Light Railway, a private line until it became part of the Southern Region of British Railways in 1948. The line was built in part over the narrow gauge line that was used from 1881 to take ball clay from claypits at Marland and Meeth to Torrington, which was until 1925 the terminus of a branch from Barnstaple.

 

The line was closed to passenger traffic in 1965 as part of the Beeching axe, but remained open for freight from the Meeth clay workings north of Meeth Halt through Torrington to Barnstaple up to 1982.

 

The station had a small single platform complete with waiting room and tool shed. There was also a single siding behind the platform for deliveries to and from the village of Meeth.

 

So, here is the plan, build the layout in four feet then play with it :P

 

Cheers

 

Speak soons and happy modelling.

 

Chris

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  • RMweb Gold

Hi Chris,

sounds a very interesting little project, not far from my present area of interest either, shall look forward to hearing how you progress with this.

Cheers, Matt

 

PS

A couple sites you may find useful though being 'local' you may know of em anyway! :rolleyes:

http://kenbaker.foto...et/c683001.html

http://northdevondiesels.webs.com/

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Good Luck with your layout. In the Peco Setrack book it says "the Meeth Halt in Devon consisted of a loop, with a covered china clay loading depot. The Meeth halt is several hundred metres away." So you could have clay traffic going through your layout.

 

Some Resources for you:

 

Branch Lines to Torrington (Middleton Press 1984)

&

Instow and Bideford Railway Preservation Group. www.semg.org.uk./location/bideford

 

Hope this info helps. :)

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Further sources-"Southern Country Stations:1-London and South Western Railway".Robert Antell,Ian Allan 1984.

"The North Devon and Cornwall Junction Light Railway".Whetmath and Stuckey,Forge Books 1980.

"Lines to Torrington" John Nicholas OPC 1984.

and of course a superb Branch Line video production-"Memories of the Barnstaple-Torrington-Halwill

Junction Lines".

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Looks an interesting project to get stuck into and with only 4' plenty of detail can be crammed in. Is there one or two sidings behind the platform?

 

Hi Worsdell,

 

Meeth Halt had only one siding, but it was used fairly often so the layout has a little bit if shunting opertunity (i hope! :lol: )

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Hi Chris.

 

Looks like a nice little project you got there.

Not sure if it helps, but i found this painting of Meeth Halt: Here

 

You will have to scroll down until you find it, its just over half way down.

 

Jerry.

 

Thanks Jerry!

I realy like thows paintings! especaly the one of Instow signal box whitch i consider my baby :P

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Thanks to everyone for there questions and sources for building the layout very much apreatiated :D

 

Here is a map/plan of Meeth Halt whitch was very kindly given to me by a friend, so hopefuly this should give you a good idea of what i am tring to do. What do you think?

 

Speek soons and happy modelling.

 

Chris

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello all,

 

Ive now built the main bacebored for the layout, this is made from MDF 4x2 bored and the frame and legs built of 1"x2" pices of timber whitch makes for a strong sturdy bored. The legs just simply slot into place but i have yet to build the cross bars to stop the layout from wobling. when the layout is fully assembled it will be 1x8 foot, the main bace bored being 1x4 foot and the two fiddle yards will be 1x2 foot at each end of the main bored.

 

I have a friend down from london at the moment bringing me all my lovely SMP track to go with the point i have already built from an SMP kit, so hope fully by the end of today we will have some track layed.

 

So keep an eye on this page ;)

 

Speak soons and happy modelling.

 

Chris

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  • RMweb Gold

Watching with interest...something fascinating about this line.

 

Earlier this year I thought of having a crack in 7mm at the stretch of the line (I guess it's near the station) which included a single siding and china clay depot....class 25, clay hoods all the trimmings as link below

 

http://www.derbysulzers.com/25080meeth80.jpg

 

But it got shelved for a rainy day.

 

Look forward to see the progress.

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Watching with interest...something fascinating about this line.

 

Earlier this year I thought of having a crack in 7mm at the stretch of the line (I guess it's near the station) which included a single siding and china clay depot....class 25, clay hoods all the trimmings as link below

 

http://www.derbysulzers.com/25080meeth80.jpg

 

But it got shelved for a rainy day.

 

Look forward to see the progress.

 

Yes i totaly agree!, i love this line (mainly because i live in the area) it was such a shame that it shut so late (1982 if you didnt know)

Yes Wooladon clay pits and Meeth Works were not very far away from Meeth Halt at all only about a mile or so. Would be nice to see a model of this...

 

Chris

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What you have all be waiting for! some progress on the layout! :lol:

 

Over the last two days i have been working on the layout for a fair few hours on track work, mounting the point motor and a little bit if wireing.

As i have said befor all of my track is SMP fine scale code 75 bullhead rail, this has the correct sleepers that are slightly wider, longer and spaced ferther apart than the Peco code 75 track has on it, this is alot more true to scale.

The point kit was another SMP creation and i have to say that if you are thinking about going into the fine scale side of things then that is a good place to start.

The point motor is from H&M (i think <_< ) and has been mounted away from the under side of the point and joins to it via a roding systme on the top of the bored (you can see what i mean in the photos if you are unsure) and despite it being over 20 years old it still works fine! it also has polarity switches built in for the live frog.

Also i have made a start on the wireing but shall not continue now until i have built my controle panel whitch will be very bacic with only two switches, 24AC transformer and controler sitting ontop, but i have had a loco running, sorry but i could not resist! :P

 

Speak soons and happy modelling.

 

Chris

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Ive been busy busy over the last few days...

 

My ballest arived from C+L and so i set to work ballesting! The ballest its self is C+L 2mm light grey ballest and looks very nice when stuck down. Bescause the underlay for the track is fome to give the track some movement up and down the ballest could not be stuck down with the normal 50/50 PVA mix as this would be to solid and brittle and would make the point of laying the fome underlay pointless, so i did exactly the same mix but insted of PVA i used Copydex to give the ballest some flex. This worked very well and the track still moves the same as befor i layed the ballest but the whole lot is suprizingly strong. :)

Ive also put a pice of bolsa wood in the centre of the two check rails i soldered on for the level crossing, and after some sanding and some glueing it fits well and just needs a bit of paint. :D

 

Also went to the local libery and found some very good books about the railways in the area, whitch i was hoping had lots of lovley photos of Meeth Halt in them! I cant say i found alot of pics but i did find a few whitch is amazing considering that Meeth was a fairly out of the way station in the middle of nowhere!

 

The other two photos of the layout show the newly ballested track. (the photos realy do not do the ballest justice, STUPID FLASH!)

 

Speak soons and happy modelling.

 

Chris

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  • 1 month later...

Hello all,

 

Just a short update seeing as i have not done one in a while.

First of all ive got the main road (A386 In real life) mostly built up, and just need to make the ramp going off of it into the yard behind the station. I think for the road and yard surface i will use C+L Yard Ash painted and weathered to suit the area of road e.g. the road will have a cleaner finnish (the idea of the road surface came from Darren01 who as you all probibly know built a model of Torrington)

Also i have a new loco to add to the list, i mannaged to pick this one up at the Warley on the Bachmann returns stand almost brand new for only £45 thats almost half price! :D and i know they never went through Meeth but they did get very close, as they used to go past Halwill Junction fairly regurly, so i think she will fit in well.

The job at the moment is to try and map out all the fence's, bushes and telygraph poles in and around the station site. (this should be fun <_< )

 

Speak soon and happy modelling.

 

Chris

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Just a quick post to show off my 3MT, i must say it has to be one of Bachmanns finest locos! But there are a few little niggles i and probibly anyone elce who has one has found that the interier of the smoke box is all wrong because the tube plate is right behing the smoke box door, im guessing this is so thy can fit in some extra waight which is like a house brick! so no problems with the loco waight there then. But Bachmanns City of Truro has full detail inside the smoke box and the tube plate is in the right place (behind the chimny)

Another little niggle is that it wobles alot, i dont know why it does this, fine tolerences perhaps? First of all i thought it was only my one that did this but after looking through the interwebs i found that other peoples 3MT's do it also. It doesnt seem to afect the running at all so i think its best to leave it be. :rolleyes:

But all in all a great loco and defonatly one of my faveruts. :D

 

Speak soon and happy modelling

 

Chris

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  • 1 month later...

After several hours of thinking and reserch i have decided to stop building Meeth Halt and build a layout that is totaly to scale. I am saying this because if i was to model Meeth Halt in true scale it would be 14 feet long! and i have tryed to compress it into 4 feet! and this has not worked. :angry:

I have been doing my home work on another station on the line and recon i can do that one to scale.

 

watch out for a new layout coming soon!

 

Chris

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  • RMweb Gold

Please dont - I was looking forward to seeing this reach completion, as its a lovely location on a fascinating line. Your point about Meeth needing to be 14 feet long to be to scale shows the problems we have when we model - Meeth is probably about the smallest station on the main line network - yet there are many lovely layouts that are less than 14 feet.

 

Please dont give up!

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  • RMweb Gold

Yep - shame that - I was looking forward to this one too...can we get a poll going to try and persuade you to keep it? ;)

 

Hi Chris, I agree with comments from BCNPETE and JohnR - keep the layout and you may come back to it later. I have often started things, stopped working on them, but have come back at a later date.

 

Richard

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