Woodstowe

[westerner]

I seem to have come to this rather late. A lovely piece of modelling.

[cessfordalan]

I also have just discovered this thread and have spent a few happy hours reading all the comments. 

I rather liked your comment about your photos not being good enough for the R.M Could you please come and give some lessons in photography. Looking forward to your next post.

 

Alan in the sunny Outer Hebrides

[Zomboid]

I saw the name and thought it was Great Eastern (a contraction of Woodbridge and Felixstowe)...

[David C]

Evening Gentlemen:

 

Thank you for your kind comments. To answer some of the questions raised ....

 

Coal staithes: there are none on Woodstowe, largely because they were rather rare on GW and ex GW BLTs. Most stations didn't have them - I can only think of one BLT which did and that was Helston. This was a rather dilapidated affair and unusual in that it was covered (corrugated iron inevitably!) - it was also very inconveniently sited for operating convenience. 

 

Photography: I am no expert - far from it! Getting good pics these days is much easier with digital cameras - I have a good quality point and shoot effort which has a decent lens. I can override the auto mode to decrease the size of the aperture - f8 is about as high as mine will go. I also set the layout up outside, ideally on a bright, but not too sunny day. I haven't tackled any of the more complex "layering" techniques that Messrs York, Tiley, Flint, Nevard & co employ - perhaps I should!

 

Dunno when the next post on Woodstowe will be - my current obsession is with building another BLT, but this time, set in Bavaria. I travelled extensively in Germany many years ago and indeed, modelled a layout in the Eifel region (in N gauge) back in the 1980s. I will post pics when there is something to show. At the moment, progress is very slow. I don't want to get rid of Woodstowe just yet - its still holds my interest.

 

The name Woodstowe is an amalgamation of Woodbridge and Felixstowe - well done for spotting the connection! They are both places my family have connections with. I actually pinched the name from an appalling badly written crime novel I picked up in the library many years ago purely because it was set in that part of Suffolk! That said, there are quite a few places in the West Country which end in stowe, although the geographical setting of my layout is deliberately rather vague!

 

David C

[KNP]

Just picked this up after you replied to my site.

Very impressive and well modelled.

Topic now added to my follow list!

[Frank S.]

Hi David,

Excellent and inspiring layout.

Any chance of an update on the layout ?

Woould love to know If the expansion plans went ahead.

Cheers,

FrankS

w-a-y down south in Tasmania

[David C]

Thanks for your kind comments about Woodstowe. I've still got the layout and it was exhibited late last year. Since then, it has been boxed up and will have to stay that way as we are planning on moving at the end of this year. There simply isn't time to put it up beforehand.

 

I did not extend it as I originally thought I might as my modelling has concentrated on the little bit of Bavaria I am building and which has been taking shape very slowly for the past couple of years - its still nowhere near complete at the moment. Until it is, then Woodstowe will be in storage, although I am tempted to put it up in its new abode just to have a play!

 

A lot of effort went into building it, so I do plan on keeping the layout. Whether it will ever get extended, I don't know, although my thoughts keep on returning to those Comet sides and the feeling that I ought not to let them go to waste.

 

David C

[sigtech]

Hello  David,

I only found this excellent layout here on Friday - I had just missed it in the RM too, - as I started reading  the mag again ( 3rd time around...) in September 2012.

Truly lovely.  Have spent most of  the day re-reading  the article!

 

Regards,

(SIGTECH),

Steve.

[Regularity]

Thanks for your kind comments about Woodstowe. I've still got the layout and it was exhibited late last year. Since then, it has been boxed up and will have to stay that way as we are planning on moving at the end of this year. There simply isn't time to put it up beforehand.

 

I did not extend it as I originally thought I might as my modelling has concentrated on the little bit of Bavaria I am building and which has been taking shape very slowly for the past couple of years - its still nowhere near complete at the moment. Until it is, then Woodstowe will be in storage, although I am tempted to put it up in its new abode just to have a play!

 

A lot of effort went into building it, so I do plan on keeping the layout. Whether it will ever get extended, I don't know, although my thoughts keep on returning to those Comet sides and the feeling that I ought not to let them go to waste.

 

David C

I hope the move went well.

 

Do you have any exhibitions lined up for the future?

[David C]

I haven’t posted anything on this thread for getting on for 3 years now, largely because there’s been nothing to report. A move out of London to Suffolk restricted modelling time so I have been concentrating on building my 1:87 bit of Bavaria. Woodstowe has spent almost all of the intervening period boxed up as exhibition invites had dried up, so there was no incentive to erect it.

 

Apologies to Regularity who posted a comment on here in 2018. I simply didn’t spot the notification.

 

Weidenstein is now almost complete, but I have been struggling with scratchbuilding the last structure for the layout, the loco shed and associated gubbins. One might imagine that such buildings were fairly simple – they are here in the UK, after all – but not in Bavaria. Having abandoned version 1, I got half way through version 2 when I decided it wasn’t good enough. The thought of starting version 3 was distinctly offputting, so I chose to put the project on hold, erect Woodstowe and play trains for a while. 

 

Woodstowe had not been forgotten whilst my patch of Bavaria was under construction. I had acquired some stock for it, but beyond replacing the tension locks with DG couplings and a bit of weathering, they had hardly turned a wheel. They were all RTR, so nothing out of the ordinary.

 

The layout itself was still in good nick, although some of the scenery needs refreshing. Woodstowe was “greened” using mostly static grass applied with a home made tea strainer/fly swatter and the results were not brilliant. Even 8-9 years ago, the results were not brilliant with most of the fibres lying horizontally. For Weidenstein, on Andy Y’s recommendation, I purchased a Flockit from Greenscene and the results were much, much better. There are a few balding bits on Woodstowe as well, so before I put the layout away again, these will be dealt with.

 

David C

[nest]

Good to hear that there is progress on the Bavarian project, is there a thread for that as well? I remember you mentioning in passing the plan for that layout a few years back... 

I think you do yourself a disservice, the scenery on Woodstowe always struck me as of an extremely high standard, especially when seen in person. 

I hope you are keeping well.

 

Nestor  

[David C]

Hi Nestor

 

Good to hear from you, too. Long time, no see. Are you likely to make it to KH when it re-opens? Or Ally Pally, if we are fully out of lock down by August?

 

Thanks for the compliment about my scenic work. The pics don't really show up the bald patches, just the horizontal fibres. The one thing modellers of a certain age have in common with their layouts is a tendency to develop baldness! The static grass on Woodstowe can be revived whereas my receding hairline can't be cured with a Flockit! 

 

I haven't started a new thread on Weidenstein (as my bit of Bavaria has been christened) largely because I suspect most members won't be terribly interested in any models which aren't set in this Sceptered Isle ...

 

I will post more on Woodstowe fairly soon ....

 

Regards

 

David C

[nest]

I hope to make both but only time will tell...

There is a very active German section of this site which may be a good place to start such a thread, I think the interest is certainly there.

Of course my suggestion to avoid bald patches in fields is to make grass mats out of hanging basket liner with flocks and scatter added on top to give it depth.

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/forum/134-german-railways/

 

Nestor 

[David C]

Woodstowe is operated using timetables from real branches, one of which is Cardigan. Passenger traffic on this line was pretty minimal, almost all services post WW2 needing only a single coach. Nevertheless, to maintain the services (3 trains plus a mixed), 3 coaches were required. In the mid to late 1950s, these seem to have been non corridor vehicles, either brake compos (dia. E147) and brake thirds, the diagram of which chrisf of this forum identified as a dia D109.

Now I built an E147 some time ago using Comet sides, Bachmann bogies and Hornby roof and chassis, the rest being scratchbuilt from styrene. I had plans to build some more suitable vehicles, but never got round to it. Then Hornby produced the Collet non corridors to their currently very high standards. There was some discussion on here about whether or not the 4 coach sets these particular coaches were marshalled in were ever broken up and used as singletons. Seeing a way of avoiding having another go at a dia. E147, which was hard going and pretty tedious, I assumed that some of the 4 coach sets were separated and that a couple of the D98 brake thirds were allocated to the Woodstowe branch.

All the threads on here about these latest coaches from Hornby have almost entirely been positive – and quite rightly so. But coupled next to my dia E147 brake compo, which had been finished in BR carmine, the difference was striking. Hornby’s idea of BR carmine is much too dark, in my view, so I set about rectifying this. Dismantling the coaches was relatively simple as the things are held together largely by clips. The bits which were glued together (mainly the glazing) didn’t have much adhesive applied and could easily be prised off. Only one window, the odd one to the guards compartment, proved impossible to shift, so it got covered with a carefully cut out piece of masking tape.

[David C]

Spraying involved a Halfords rattle can of Ford Rosso red, the only one of several on the RAF Kinloss list of BR carmine equivalents available at my local branch. I can’t recall what I used on the E147 brake compo – I think it was VW tornado red, but wouldn’t swear to it as I no longer have the can. There is a difference between the Hornby and the brake compo paint jobs, the former being less orange-y and slightly darker, but this I will have to live with. Ford Rosso red certainly looks a lot better than the sludge, not quite maroon and definitely not carmine livery that the E98 came with.

 

David C

[ROSSPOP]

Great to see you working on Woodstowe again... I`ve never seen your layout as I tend to model in O Gauge nowadays, but I have your Railway Modeller article on Woodstowe in my GWR contemporary favourite layouts folder and am very impressed with your work...any chance of you  doing a video for us to mull over???

 

Regards

 

John

[racingpete]

Lovely to see this layout is getting another look at.

 

I have used this as an inspiration for a BLT myself and even went and subscribed to the back catalogue of railway modeller to get more details on it. One thing that is missing from all the photos is the rear shots of the line into the goods shed, and also the rear of the station - as wanted to see how you did the transition from platform height to the entrance road - any chance of some photos?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Titanius Anglesmith]

Beautiful scenic work 

[David C]

Racingpete: Apologies for for not responding to your post, but although I still check out RMWeb, I haven't looked into my thread for almost a year. Woodstowe has been boxed up while I have been concentrating on getting Weidenstein finished. Until the weather improves and I can erect Woodstowe in the garden, I can't really take any photos, although I suspect you will have solved your transition from platform to rail height issue by now! The only thing I can add is that the road to the goods yard on Woodstowe sloped down fairly gradually - the drop was only about 10 - 12mm anyway.

 

Regards

 

David C

[David C]

 

As almost all of the photos in this thread have disappeared and, I suspect, will never be seen again, I thought I'd reinstate those I have saved on my laptop. Alas, I couldn't recall which ones I'd posted before or even where on the thread, so I've just tried to give an overall view of the layout. As the scenic section is only 8' x 2' anyway, it shouldn't be too difficult! These images are of one of the two baseboards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[David C]

Alas, I've run out of time, but I'll cover the rest of the scenic section tomorrow or this evening, plus updates on the layout itself.

 

David C

[David C]

As promised (or rather threatened!), a few photos of the other half of the scenic section of Woodstowe.

 

[David C]

 

Woodstowe was started as long ago as 1998. I can’t recall exactly when it was completed, but it must have been in about 2011. The layout appeared in RM in 2012 and was first exhibited about a year later. For a relatively small BLT (11’6” x 2’) with only 8 turnouts, 13 years is a pretty lengthy build time! With previous layouts, I’d always sold them on in order to fund the next one. This usually resulted in some feelings of regret. Admittedly, these varied depending on how good or bad I felt the layout was!

 

When I started toying with constructing a German prototype layout, I held off flogging Woodstowe for some reason. Having erected the layout again after neglecting it for a couple of years or so, I’m rather glad I did. BLTs are supposed to be boring to operate (and some are, of course), but operating it to prototype timetables (see earlier posts in this thread) is, I find, still interesting. I’ve also tackled a couple of plastic wagon kits that have been lurking in a cupboard for years, which I was surprised to find I rather enjoyed. (The UK is one of the very few countries whose modellers have so many small scale industries providing such kits. European modellers have a lot of firms which sell kits for buildings, but hardly any for rolling stock.) Finally, the layout itself was in quite good nick. In the 20 plus years of Woodstowe’s existence, I haven’t had to repair and/or replace very much at all. It has had a little refreshing of the scenics, a new Dapol signal and the odd re-solder of a joint or two, but that’s it.

 

The result of all this woffle is that I’m keeping it. So what else is there to do?

 

Stay tuned for next week’s exciting episode of what to do with a geriatric model of a common or garden ex GWR branch line terminus!

 

David C

[David C]

The major problem with Woodstowe is it’s weight: it is simply too heavy. I am now knocking on a bit and it is getting increasingly difficult to lift the baseboards up onto their trestles and to take them down again when I want swop over to playing with Weidenstein. I think it was the late Cyril Freezer who suggested than 4’ x 2’ was the largest size of board that the average person could handle. That may have been true when I was younger, but it is increasingly less so now I’m in my 70s! This means that exhibiting is becoming rather more problematic. Apart from the weight of the boards, most of the mates who used to operate Woodstowe are in the same age bracket and are getting frailer. Not all of them are, but it may not be too far in the future before I have stop exhibiting. This, I would regret – I like to show off and natter to punters just as much as the next man!

I did contemplate removing all the track and infrastructure as I could without damaging them too much and reinstalling them on 

shorter and lighter ply boards from Tim Horn, Grainge and Hodder & co., but couldn’t raise very much enthusiasm for the project. Although rebuilding would enable me to get rid of all the little things about the layout that I felt I had got wrong, doing almost the same thing again just didn’t appeal.

 

Here are a couple more pics of the layout.

 

 

Edited October 18, 2022 by David C

[darthmh]

Its a beautiful layout.  It looks a lot bigger than the size it is.