Fictional branch line at the end of the Chilterns, May the 25th 1953

[Jonny Retro]

My first train set* was as Mettoy Playcraft plastic set in the early 1970s, with locos powered by one 1.5v C cell, massively augmented with gifts, cheap summer fete purchases, and objects acting as place fillers, such as a wood mitre box acting as a station platform.

 

 

* I deliberately said train set rather than layout, I really prefer to see & hear trains going round in circles (or rather, ovals) … sorry if that offends any purists here   

 

The second was a “modern” OO gauge one with Type 37 locos, an Intercity 125, and my (type 04?) 0-6-0 shunter & goods wagons, mostly built by my parents in the early 1980s, on which I did a lot of the painting (with dark green and medium earth colour emulsion bought from Woolworths in Cambridge, when they still had the creaky wooden escalator) and placing of reindeer moss.

 

My dad (now in his 70s) was recently offered a Hornby Dublo 3-rail Duchess of Montrose set along with some extras, most dating from 1953 and in exceptional condition. A lot of eBay purchases later, trains can be run on “my” third setup, but _nothing_ is finished. The quarter hill (scrap wood framing, aluminium mesh & plaster bandages is probably closest, it “just” needs the path route finalising (which in turn needs a goods shed building so I can determine the route/size of the road & level crossing) so I can get on with the final surface (scatter, flocking, bushes etc) & add sheep, shepherd & dog, plus kids flying kites …

 

Progress is slow, mainly because railways are not my #1 interest** (they come somewhere behind life in general, cooking/eating, a time demanding daily set of exercises to help keep my musculature in line to help (a little) with my rampant, early onset osteoarthritis), hifi/music, other model making (mostly scratchbuilt 1/10 electric RC vehicles, but also some RC boats & static plane kits), cars, and possibly some other things), and because design by committee is not the most efficient way of doing things.

 

** again, apologies to the purists

 

 

Responsibilities, broadly speaking run something like this:

Dad: Woodwork, track fixing, some electrical, critiquing

Mum: Card buildings, money

Me: everything else, it feels like

 

Building for someone else means lots of constraints I wouldn’t have chosen for myself (principally that anything higher than a set of buffers has to be removable – hence the grey foamex board). Another is using a modern unit for secondary control, despite having a nice, period NOS one

 

Buildings are a mix of Superquick card, Dapol styrene (with the occasional Wills kit), some of which are fully painted, some in grey primer, and some in bare plastic.

Baseboard dimensions are a rather small 6’ by 3’6”.

 

The backstory is that this is a fictional branch line somewhere beyond the northwest reaches of the Chilterns (possibly as far away as the Suffolk/Norfolk border) in an area relatively wealthy during the Wool Boom (c. 1250 to 1350 CE), but only just ticked over for a long time afterwards, had something of a renaissance in the 1700s and 1800s when materials for the concrete industry began to be extracted, and the arrival of the railway in 1900 brought greater prosperity to the area, at the expense of losing much farming/small holding land.

“Now”, in 1953, it’s enjoying its pre- Beeching Report halcyon days. I want to go as far as saying it’s specifically Monday, May the 25th 1953 (Whitsun Bank Holiday), which in this fictional hamlet is a ideal day for wedding, drying washing, and kite flying.

 

ETA one part is finished - the fake load of bricks in one of the wagons.

 

[Jonny Retro]

Further work in progress is a shunter - I procured the cheapest 0-4-0 Hornby loco I could find, ditto the cheapest 3-rail era wagon I could (for the couplings), and a set of centre rail contacts (aka "spoons").

 

Much butchery of the chassis followed & things are very tight, for instance the original wheel contacts are now superglued on & only separated from the othe side of circuit by insulation tape. It does run on 3-rail track now, but it's so light (and the front spoon has ended up rather oversprung) there's very little traction, it will only push two wagons, and with about 50% wheelspin at that. It derails all to easily from the front end, especially at points. There is some space in the body for some weighting, I'm thinking a line of washers in the tapered bit behind the chimney, and possibly some flat scraps along the sides of the tanks & a false cab floor?

 

I've made space for the couplings, but unfortunately I destroyed them while trying to straighten them  I've ordered some suitable brass & will make my own replacements, having squished one flat to act as a template.

 

The wagon will live on as a shed somewhere on the layout, I want to have a scrap heap somewhere, so the wheels will feature there. 

 

Paint is obviously a priority, plans are for matt/satin black & a little weathering

 

Total cost is around 40 GBP so not a particularly cheap exercise, but I think a tiddler like this is appropriate to the period/setup - much better than a diseasle electric anyway

 

[Jonny Retro]

Continuning my theme of starting on the next bit before finishing anything, a cheap Scammell Scarab arrived in the post, and immediately had the sides/load cover removed from the trailer, fitting lugs ground off and a plasticard flat bed fitted instead.

 

Primer, paint & a suitable load will follow at some point, plus I also plan to take the shine off the cab at some point

 

[Jonny Retro]

Started work on the level crossing, requiring 5mm thick Fomaex to come up to the level of the rails (on top of the 3mm removable board already there). A test run left some skidmarks, so I had to take some more material off.

 

The gaps between the outer & centre rail will be filled, I tried 3mm board but the contact spoons on the Locos really didn't like it, I tried sanding the thickness down but destroyed the previous hours work ... 2mm board is on order

 

 

[Jonny Retro]

Despite the baseboard already being rather densely populated (but you can do that on a train set ) it was decided a goods shed was required.

 

After looking at all the options, the Wills Brick Goods Shed looked the most fitting - but I was a bit surprised to see that their idea of a "kit" is the same as they were post war (and still are, in wooden boat kits) - sheets of material, detail parts, a sheet of templates that are subtlely wrong in places, and instructions that only really make sense once you've finished

 

I followed the instructions up to finishing the ends, then deviated by putting the incomplete sides on to get some structure going, before fitting (out of sequence) the raised floor.

 

I left the roof demountable, so I could paint the inside of the building. The completed loading dock was far bigger than I wanted it to be ( I wanted one you could drag handcarts up, not drive big vans on). Dismantling it was so much harder than doing it from scratch would have been and you can see there's a lot more work to be done...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jonny Retro]

The most visible progress this week has been on the hill; my process went something like this:

• dry brush Tamiya XF-57 Buff & XF-2 White over the path, plus Buff on the copper fencepva (4 parts Screwfix bulk PVA to 1 part deionised water) small area;
• strategically sprinkle "earth" & "dead grass" flock, followed by main colour (dirty/rough looking leftover mix from my previous experiments near the top, graduating to mostly "spring grass" & "long grass") applied with a homemade (ex flyswatter) flocking machine;
• "fingerbobs" treatment while pva not fully dry;
• leave overnight;
• bang/blow/brush (the brush part was a mistake in hindsight) loose stuff off;
• "fix" with cheap Tesco hairspray;
• use leftover mixed flock to cover the thin patches & lines, followed by lots more hairspray (which is not completely dry in the photo, hence the slightly silvery look

It's not yet finished, but for only my 2nd attempt at flocking, I'm very happy with progress

 

Small bushes, sheep/shepherd/sheep dog & kids flying kites to follow. I'd like some flowers too, I did get a dandelion kit but as well as being a real strain to put together, they result in a (scale) 3ft wide/3 ft high plant - not quite Day Of The Triffids, but not far off

 

I'm going to look for some scatter that will do the job instead.

 

  

[Nearholmer]

Loving it!

 

Retro it certainly is.

[Jonny Retro]

The strip back of the far platform has been designated as allotments, that means making some small sheds ... I went through my pile of "part worked" styrene scraps for any that could pass as wood (or possibly concrete) strips & and just over an a hour later had 4 made; I think you can probably tell the order they were built in

 

Other progress has been building a Dornaplas Crossing Keeper's Cottage, cutting more PVA foam boards, spraying primer, fencing, some more ballast, finishing the hill (sheep, kids flying kites, a few touches of reindeer moss), finishing the "wood", and working on the area between the sidings &  track - it's big enough to warrant a bit of landscaping so I started with aluminium mesh & modroc, currently it's in in bare paint waiting for appropriate scatter & flock.

 

 

 

 

[Jonny Retro]

Corners & banked infill complete, as is painting of buildings/structures