St Stephen’s Bank, Whitsun weekend 1950’s steam in south Devon.

[steve fay]

Devonshire Bank will initially be a 20’ long O gauge layout based on the formidable south Devon banks, set during the late 50’s early 60’s. 

The layout will be a very lazy S bend and will hopefully be a Railway through the scenery. Either end will have a Tunnel mouth one end will have a steep granite cutting that’s been blasted out of Haskings Hill named after the local land owner and the other will be a much shallower affair made out of the easier to quarry Devon Red sand stone, Holloway Tunnel.  
Haskings hill will be heavily wooded and the hill will dip into a valley and the railway will be on an embankment. 
Today I’ve carved styrofoam to form the cutting sides. The tunnel mouth it’s self is from the Skytrex range of resin castings. 
 

Edited June 24, 2023 by steve fay

[steve fay]

Devonshire Tunnel after paint and Holloway tunnel in Red sand stone 

[Cowley 47521]

Looks great so far Steve. Lovely texture on the stonework.

 

Nick

[steve fay]

The styrofoam now comes in a handy dark grey,  I gave it a light coat of Matt white emulsion and I had some slate grey from my living room wall again lightly applied, Then some brown poster paints and then black poster paint.  I do this one after the other when the paints are still wet as they’ll blend in.  

[steve fay]

[Captain Kernow]

Very nice, Steve. The deep, stone-lined cutting is reminiscent of the eastern portal of Chipping Sodbury Tunnel.

 

[steve fay]

33 minutes ago, Captain Kernow said:

Very nice, Steve. The deep, stone-lined cutting is reminiscent of the eastern portal of Chipping Sodbury Tunnel.

 

That did provide a little inspiration for this one.  All to often we view our layouts from side on and this will give great ( hopefully) head on views 

[steve fay]

Ear plugs in and carve away! Horrible sound cutting polystyrene. This is the Holloway tunnel end of Devonshire bank. 
I’ll get some 9mm ply next week and start framing up the first board and the polystyrene can be stuck down and sealed and covered where needed with Thistle backing plaster to create the famous Devon Red sand stone, just in front of the right rock outcrop there will be a retaining wall with a culvert at the bottom so we can have a stream running, the board will drop off with a steep embankment giving a very 3 Dimensional feel. No flat boards or straight track on this one.

[Mallard60022]

Looking good Steve. I can visualise Dainton Tunnel already..

Phil

[steve fay]

Skytrex culvert painted up,  this will be surrounded by lots of growth,  I’ll build up the water level and using Liquitex make a “running” stream

[steve fay]

A little more polystyrene shaping on the Holloway tunnel end of Devonshire Bank.  
The section of ply marked in the front will be cut out and lowered 10” or so. This is where the stone retaining wall will be, the culvert and stream. That will be done later on as once the section has been cut out it will make track laying easier.  
I’ve also been thickening the foliage on the largest of my home made trees and giving it some additional green cover ( I may reduce the trunk height a bit on this one ) I do want a big tree here but I’m not sure it’ll be this one. I may get a large Oak from MBR. The Italian poplar and Scott’s pine are from their range as are the smaller Birch.

[steve fay]

I’ve got the full size plan printed out today from a friend all 20’ of it. It will no fit down my hallway once built as it’ll be to wide 

[steve fay]

Framed up the first board for Devonshire bank, The Holloway tunnel end.  The first few sheets of stone wall from 422 model making arrived and I’ve given one a clean and a base coat of Bauxite,  looks good so far so I’ll order a few more extras to do the retaining wall

[steve fay]

Framed up board 2 today and Added the plaster for the sand stone cutting 

[steve fay]

A little more done today, not really exciting but all important, I’ve added some 6mm ply along the rear and it’s been lots of no nails spread out to fill any gaps and smooth over between the polystyrene sheets,  I’ve given the plaster a coat of thinned down terracotta ( B&Q tester pot ) and the same with red emulsion. 
The tunnel has been secured in and some additional plaster added in.  I’ve carved out the farm track ( Teignton lane ) but will finalise once the Intentio GWR bridge arrives.

[steve fay]

A tentative start on the greenery around Holloway Tunnel.

7C99CDC0-9022-451C-9F9F-7D63D7393B4E.png

[steve fay]

Playing about with a few trees whilst awaiting a delivery of scenic items. 
we’ve got Polák coarse leaves for the home made trees, various grass tufts and Heki ground foliage.  

looking a lot like Dawlish at the moment and once the retaining wall goes in it will even more but there won’t be any sea here as we are in the foothills of Dartmoor. 

Edited March 10, 2022 by steve fay

[Mallard60022]

Steve, no idea if you may need any but the late BGMan's 7mm Bridge 'faces' are for sale. See Captain Kernow's ads in sales.  BGMan was a great modeller and would have loved seeing your work.

Phil

[steve fay]

3 hours ago, Mallard60022 said:

Steve, no idea if you may need any but the late BGMan's 7mm Bridge 'faces' are for sale. See Captain Kernow's ads in sales.  BGMan was a great modeller and would have loved seeing your work.

Phil

Thanks for the info,

 I wasn’t aware of BGmans passing, my condolences to all who knew him 

 

[Cwmtwrch]

As a one time resident of South Devon, I am impressed by the modelling so far, and will be interested to see how this develops. I would offer some thoughts, though, hopefully constructive -

The native trees are mostly deciduous at the elevation at which the actual line ran.

 

Retaining walls are normally not vertical, as it maximises the loading on them. Sandstone is both permeable and porous, so a wall may need weep pipes to avoid water building up behind it.

 

The area inside the railway fence will get wider as the tunnel is approached, and the fence will be placed at the top of the cutting, or a short distance away from it, then sweeping round behind the tunnel mouth. There won't be any trees within that fence, and minimal overhang beyond the fence (railways don't like bits of tree, or even whole trees, falling on the track).

 

Railway infrastructure was often well over a century old by the 1950s/1960s. This meant maintenance, for which staff needed access, including above tunnels. Part of the job in that era was removing anything growing between the stones before it got too big, as it would otherwise potentially cause problems.

 

Things are rather different now, with much more limited staff numbers available to do such work, and less concern about inflammability.

[steve fay]

Now named St Stephens as I realised that Devonshire bank is of course the  formidable bank on the Somerset and Dorset  out of Bath Green park !  
funny why it sounded so familiar. 

[steve fay]

4 hours ago, Cwmtwrch said:

As a one time resident of South Devon, I am impressed by the modelling so far, and will be interested to see how this develops. I would offer some thoughts, though, hopefully constructive -

The native trees are mostly deciduous at the elevation at which the actual line ran.

 

Retaining walls are normally not vertical, as it maximises the loading on them. Sandstone is both permeable and porous, so a wall may need weep pipes to avoid water building up behind it.

 

The area inside the railway fence will get wider as the tunnel is approached, and the fence will be placed at the top of the cutting, or a short distance away from it, then sweeping round behind the tunnel mouth. There won't be any trees within that fence, and minimal overhang beyond the fence (railways don't like bits of tree, or even whole trees, falling on the track).

 

Railway infrastructure was often well over a century old by the 1950s/1960s. This meant maintenance, for which staff needed access, including above tunnels. Part of the job in that era was removing anything growing between the stones before it got too big, as it would otherwise potentially cause problems.

 

Things are rather different now, with much more limited staff numbers available to do such work, and less concern about inflammability.

Many Thanks for your input,  even at 3’ wide there will be some compression due to size limitations.  Fences etc will be added once the ground cover is down and realistically the trees will be closer than they should be,  the coniferous  trees will be a “man” planted forest and it was a picture I’ve got in a book that gave me the inspiration all be it in reality it was some distance from the railway line but hopefully once the GWR road bridge is in place and the dirty farm track over the top it should look good.  
once through the “man” planted forest cutting the railway will be on an embankment with rolling farm land either side before we dive into the granite cutting of Haskins hill and Tunnel. 
This project is also using up a lot of scenics I already have in stock. 

[steve fay]

First pass of scenics,  I’ve laid a base layer of Noch summer 2mm fibres and then adddd some Heki light green foliage as I want this to look quite mossy. I’ve also added some flowering tufts and bits of flowering grasses.  I do this now and then build up the static grasses over the top as it creates shadow pockets around the taller grasses and bushes.  It also tones down the colours.  Now I’m not afraid of using colours after all nature is colourful but I’m mindful about how well colours Scale and can be over powering.  
some of my large home made trees using real branches with sea foam drilled and glued in place,  these have had various fine green flocks added but now are awaiting some broad leads to finish them off,  these are on order from Polak models which are coming from the Czech Republic as the usual UK supplier was out of stock.  

Edited March 13, 2022 by steve fay

[steve fay]

Static grass, I’ve blended two from Mininatur and one from Noch ( straw ) and gone over the base layer, in front of the brown line ( fence ) I’ve added some woodlands scenics summer blend over the top.  
This three blend will be used in the fields beyond the railway boundary where as in the boundary I’ll add some more straw grass

[steve fay]