Footsteps of Former Trains in Far Cornwall

[John R Smith]

Having been bitten by the vintage O Gauge bug, I found that my assembly of engines, wagons and track was rapidly outgrowing the available space in which to set them up and display them. The available space in this instance being my kitchen table, which had only one advantage - at four feet six inches long, it exactly suited the Bassett-Lowke sectional track I was using, which comes in eighteen inch lengths. So at least my pathetic few pieces of track did not overhang the table edge.

 

It was Time To Do Something, but what? I live in a very old Cornish cottage, which although delightful in many respects has the disadvantage of very small rooms, all of which seem to be full of stuff which refuses to be moved elsewhere. My garden is also unsuited to an outdoor line, being part of a steeply sloping hillside with no flat ground. So desperate measures were required. I turned my attention to the parlour, which had in recent years been functioning as a spare bedroom and classic bike garage. Out with the spare bed (visitors can make their own arrangements) and out with a couple of bikes, and I had one clear wall just over nine feet long. Not much, but it would be a start. If all went well, perhaps I might expand around another wall . . .

 

Then of course there was the small problem of a supporting baseboard / bench / pile of bricks or whatever. It is many years since I last erected a baseboard for a model railway. Doing some internet research I was not greatly enthused by the present day offerings I found constructed of laser-cut ply or similar. Now, I am sure that they are terrific and well suited to modern ways of doing things, but I just did not like the look of them. I wanted something that would look more like furniture, if you know what I mean, and that would blend with my old cottage and its rural and rustic (read damp and spider infested) charm.

 

So I discovered this firm called Shelfstore, who produce a modular shelving system made of solid Baltic pine. It is not cheap, but it is extremely versatile and it suited me because my 1936 style museum display will not have any scenery, or ballast, and the track will be loose-laid. So I do not need conventional sectional baseboards that plug together and have built up (or down) scenic works. I just need a nice flat surface to play on. The photo shows the situation in my newly designated Railway Room on day two or three, I think, in the messy throes of construction. The length overall is the metric equivalent (roughly) of nine feet, the depth front to back is nineteen inches, and the height from the floor is 32 inches. The system is constructed in bays (in this case three feet wide) in which there can be as many shelves as you wish.

 

I covered the topmost boards in 3mm cork and then added a pine trim strip as you can see. Since the picture was taken I have added an extra shelf in the centre bay. Of course, I own up, in this ridiculously small space this will be nothing more than a shunting plank - but I think I can have a bit of fun with it. If nobody minds too much, I can keep you updated with my progress as time goes on - triumphs, failures, despair, the whole gamut of human emotions laid bare.

 

Edited November 4, 2023 by John R Smith

[Nearholmer]

c9ft is definitely enough room to get going in, although how you’ll get on with clockwork on an end-to-end layout is going to be interesting to watch.

 

Oddly enough, I was looking at my own very tiny layout today for the first time in probably two or more years.

 

Here it is in ‘coffin’ mode, 48” x 17” x 17”:

 

 

And, unpacked, about a foot shorter than your space:

 

 

Several key bits from this have been incorporated into my latest layout, so I’m cogitating on the idea of resurrecting it as a rural, rather than urban, terminus, the point here though is to illustrate that you have room to do something.

 

PS: are these vintage bike ‘motor’ or ‘pedal’? Either way, they sound interesting.

Edited November 4, 2023 by Nearholmer

[John R Smith]

I do like your "coffin" layout. You have manged to get far more track into the 8 feet than I have in my setup, because the B-L sectional points really restrict what can be done. As far as clockwork goes, we might have a chat about that in due course - I do not pretend to have the answers, just some suggestions.

 

And the bikes - are all pedal powered, Italian, and from the period 1970 to 1982. Here is a sample, my Pogliaghi . . .

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Wow!

 

I could never afford posh bikes like that at the time, although the general form (and stupidly big chain rings) are very familiar from the middle of the range Peugeot ‘sports tourers ’ that I had from mid 70s to c1990. Cycling competes with old trains for hobby time round here too, and you’ll be glad to hear that I ride steel bikes, but modern ones.

[John R Smith]

 

Just as a taster for things to come, here is the situation as it was two weeks ago. The track has been laid, a few buildings have been arranged in trial positions, and I have started to run a few trains. Ignore the obviously incorrect distant signal, it was just a placeholder for a more appropriate item. You can also see how useful my new shelves are already, swallowing up all the boxes for my rolling stock in a nice tidy fashion.

 

To recap on my self-imposed ground rules - the layout / display / diorama is to represent the railway in the period just before the Second World War, say around 1936. Not only to represent it, but to be composed only of items made in the UK for Gauge O between 1918 and (say) 1941, and so be a model railway of and by that period. This includes the track too, hence the rather motley collection of B-L and Milbro stuff you see here. No plastic is allowed, motive power is to be clockwork, and - well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Already I find myself bending my rules a little bit, but there you go.

 

One of the snags you can already see, if you compare my photo with Nearholmer's mini-layout above, is that his layout looks bigger than mine, even though it is slightly shorter. That is because his sleeper spacing is much closer, near to scale. Whereas not only is the B-L sleeper spacing huge, but the sleepers are too long too at 3 inches. This has the effect of making the track look weirdly narrow gauge - but this is how it was done back then. You will also notice that the track is all laid on longitudinal battens - this was done to keep all the 18 inch track sections in line and to correct curve radius (in this case 3 feet). No Peco Streamline back then! I am not bothering to fix the track down permanently - the cork topping on the baseboard is very grippy and I have just put in three screws so far to fix some datum points.

 

I am hoping at some stage to build some track using period parts. I have managed to lay in a stock of cast metal chairs, I already have lots of brass rail and fishplates, but the problem area is wooden sleepers and battens. More to follow as progress is made . . .

 

 

Edited November 5, 2023 by John R Smith

[Nearholmer]

You can get suitable timber for making batten track from model boat shops, but I have a feeling if works out expensive; I only buy a metre at a time for odd model building jobs and IIRC it’s c£1.30/m.

 

Sleepers are my concession to plastic, being ABS, and I set them to match the Maerklin mid-1930s track that Hornby copied, with fewer sleepers, to make their ‘Princess Elizabeth’ 3ft radius track.

 

I reckon you might be able to make BL etc points more compact by reducing the arc of curvature. Do you know what it is now, or could you post a plan view photo so that we can see the geometry? When I’m near my BL catalogues next, I will see whether they include details too.

 

A lot of points are 22.5 degrees with a fair amount of rail beyond the crossing, whereas the ones I use are 18 degrees, and for the same radius (c3ft in the case of mine) that small reduction in arc makes a big difference to track spacing at crossovers, and to what can be fitted in. Peco have made the 22.5 degree “mistake” with their 0 gauge set track points, and a lot of people cut the down to 18 degrees.

Edited November 5, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Pete Haitch]

22 hours ago, John R Smith said:

And the bikes - are all pedal powered, Italian, and from the period 1970 to 1982. Here is a sample, my Pogliaghi . . .

 

My on-going resto project - 1947 Waller hill climb bike all the way from exotic Hackney. Currently mulling over whether to put a coat of clear over the remaining original paint, use neutral polish to preserve it, or even the proverbial oily rag.

[John R Smith]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

You can get suitable timber for making batten track from model boat shops, but I have a feeling if works out expensive; I only buy a metre at a time for odd model building jobs and IIRC it’s c£1.30/m.

 

Ouch! Oh, if only I had more foresight 60 years ago - our club was laden with track, chairs, sleepers and battens, all of which was more or less given away when we moved location. I should have somehow stashed it all away . . .

 

I take your point about track geometry, and of course the problem is that two B-L points put together to make a crossover do not give you double track spacing (although it does give you the correct spacing for an island platform). I really do not want to start modifying the points I have, though - for me these are historical artefacts just like the locos or an Exley coach, and heaven knows I have paid enough for them to make me treat them with respect. All the points I am using are genuine B-L factory all brass rail jobs, and they are rather special. What you were supposed to do, of course was to purchase a B-L crossover (left or right hand) but so far I have not found one that was in good shape or affordable.

[Metropolitan H]

What section are the B-L battens and sleepers? - My memory says about 3/8 inch x 1/4 inch?

 

Do you have any suitable timber - an old school desk lid or similar, beech or box wood are good - and a friendly woodworker with access to a "thicknesser" and a good saw bench?

 

Not far from here is an independent Hardware / builders merchant / timber stockist who always amaze me by their willingness to prepare custom timber at very reasonable prices - much cheaper than DIY sheds. Nearholmer will know of "Sid's".

 

Regards

Chris H

 

P.S. - For the real effect you also need a source of real creosote - but that is no longer available, so one of the less potent substitutes will give the true colour and aroma.

 

CH 

Edited November 5, 2023 by Metropolitan H

[Nearholmer]

IIRC, Rev Martin Dawes, who has created a truly excellent layout using entirely LMC material from the 1930s and 40s when faced with the same issue bought a load of “junk” LMC batten track and points, damaged, bits missing etc, stripped everything to component parts, then built his own track formation using the bits. It looks completely original, and since LMC sold kits and parts as much as finished pointwork, it is entirely in-keeping, but it means that he’s achieved more sensible track spacing than with ‘stock’ items.

[Metropolitan H]

See correction above!

Edited November 5, 2023 by Metropolitan H
Unintended Duplication

[John R Smith]

7 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

It looks completely original, and since LMC sold kits and parts as much as finished pointwork, it is entirely in-keeping, but it means that he’s achieved more sensible track spacing than with ‘stock’ items.

 

Yes, Bassett-Lowke also sold all the components for track making, including points kits with the crossing V and wing rails already soldered up. I have actually made a start along the lines that you suggest, by purchasing a job lot of rather sad-looking track with some very flaky old points, which I can cannibalise in the future.  For the moment, I have enough track to absorb most of my rolling stock . . . and as for creosote, I used to love the aroma which filled our clubroom along with Frank and Jim's pipe smoke. Alas, both glorious substances have turned out to be deadly.

[goldfish]

18 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Peco have made the 22.5 degree “mistake” with their 0 gauge set track points, and a lot of people cut the down to 18 degrees.

Hardly a 'mistake', just a sensible compromise. Set track points are designed to replace a standard straight and a standard curve, and so are constrained by a rigid geometry. Peco chose to follow the pattern of the track they manufacture for Lenz and used the same geometry. The only reason why Hornby ended up with 18 degree steel points is that the steel track is designed to fit in with the geometry of 2 foot radius, 22.5 degree points. Hornby did at least have the good sense to supply 36 degree curves, because 18 degrees results in far too many track joints on small  radius curves.

 

There is also a a minimum arc length for each radius below which the sleepers on adjacent track sections overlap, for the Peco 1028 mm radius points that minimum radius is around 19 degrees.

Edited November 6, 2023 by goldfish

[Nearholmer]

Maybe the subtlety of me putting “mistake” in quotation marks didn’t convey well.

 

From the point of view of people trying to create layouts that flow well, without causing needless degrees of trouble on reverse curves, and with sane track-spacing at crossovers, choosing an “sixteen to a circle” 22.5 degree geometry, as opposed to a “twenty to a circle” 18 degree geometry, is very frequently a nuisance, a mistake from the perspective of the user, hence many people cutting down the Peco setback points. My take is that it is a bad, rather than sensible, compromise.

 

IMO, Atlas get it right, by using the smaller arc (I think 18 degrees), and providing a little “make up piece” to bring the length of the straight on each turnout up to standard straight track section length. That permits neat and compact track formations that flow well.

 

In the end, it’s about how many different components a manufacturer wants to make, which in turn is about volume and costs. 22.5 degrees is a “few components; cheap to make and stock” solution.

 

Overlapping sleepers, if they become a problem, are easily dealt with by the gentle application of a razor saw.

 

(Edited to correct for my inability to divide 360/18 and 360/22.5 correctly!)

 

Edited November 6, 2023 by Nearholmer

[John R Smith]

20 minutes ago, goldfish said:

Set track points are designed to replace a standard straight and a standard curve, and so are constrained by a rigid geometry.

 

Yes, exactly, and this is the reason that the Bassett-Lowke points are the way they are - each point can replace a standard curve or a standard 18 inch straight in any given track layout using the sectional track. I haven't used sectional track since my early days with Hornby Dublo, and it is a bit of a shock to the system. Incidentally, and a word of warning, the 18 inch standard applies to B-L track just immediately pre-war and post war, but the earlier 1930s track was in 15 inch sections (most of it!). You could have the earlier track in a deluxe version with separate wooden keys to fit prototypical chairs, and I have some of this which is ultra cool. I also have a bag of a hundred spare hardwood keys as well, just in case.

 

What actually happened was that this permanent way was not intentionally "coarse" scale, or at least it was not thought about in that way. Toy train track was tinplate. The O Gauge brass and steel track was actually fine scale Gauge One track, reset to the smaller gauge. I believe from memory that exactly the same components were also used for Gauge Two (long defunct).

 

 

[goldfish]

3 hours ago, John R Smith said:

What actually happened was that this permanent way was not intentionally "coarse" scale, or at least it was not thought about in that way. Toy train track was tinplate. The O Gauge brass and steel track was actually fine scale Gauge One track, reset to the smaller gauge. I believe from memory that exactly the same components were also used for Gauge Two (long defunct).

Railway modellers were a much more pragmatic bunch back then.

[John R Smith]

 

Perhaps it is time for a quick update. To recap, I have set up my baseboard / shelving unit at all of nine feet long and 19 inches deep, laid 3mm cork sheet on the top - and now, the track is laid and some buildings, signals and buffers have been placed in position. Nothing is fixed at the moment, or even fixed down, and I may change my mind on a whim and redo the whole thing, but for now this is how it is.

 

Inevitably (and predictably), the layout is meant to portray a small terminus station, but as we have no run-round loop, it can't really be a rural branch but must be more of an urban setting. Using the Bassett-Lowke sectional track, I could just about have got a run-round in, but then it would have been pretty much all there was to see and would have dominated everything. So as the setting was to be urban, and I have enough engines to spare one as a permanent station pilot, then the loop was out. Using such B-L track as I have at the moment, the plan is very simple - two straights end to end, with a crossover connecting them in the centre. And to one side, an additional siding off the centre road.

 

So the centre road is the main line in and out, with the passenger platform at the far end. Then there is plenty of useful siding space, with a MPD up at the other end. Having to release the train engine at the platform using the pilot gives scope for lots of interesting shunting ! Being the sort of person I am, I had to have some sort of imaginary setting for my railway, and as I have ended up with a mix of LMS and GWR stock I wanted somewhere with a joint station, so I have placed the line somewhere in the Gloucester / Cheltenham area, with trains to Bristol and Birmingham.

 

Edited November 11, 2023 by John R Smith

[John R Smith]

 

 To continue - we really are running trains at last, and here is the picture to prove it. This my Bassett-Lowke Midland Compound, no 1063, at the head of a semi-fast to Birmingham (yes, we are a bit short on coaching stock for the moment, but that is a story in itself). This engine was actually the very first coarse scale O Gauge item I bought just a few months ago, and is a perfect example of beginner's luck. Knowing nothing at all about the present day coarse scale scene or the marketplace, I placed a bid at the last moment on an eBay auction, and won it. And the loco is absolutely gorgeous, in perfect near-mint condition in the original box, with a great clockwork mech and is a superb runner. Of course it has all been downhill after that little triumph, and I have had nothing as good since.

 

The Midland Compound was a fixture in the B-L catalogues from the early days, and is in the 1928 edition in exactly this form but in red for O Gauge. This is one of the "brown" ones, and I have been told it dates from the immediate post-war period in the late 1940s. So far I have not been able to find a catalogue entry for this number 1063 to confirm it. The box is certainly later style, where the loco lies on its side rather than sits on its wheels. Today we have behind the tender a gorgeous old pre-war Exley LMS brake third, which we can have a closer look at another time. But this B-L 4-4-0 is the very pride of our MPD, and is at least more shiny than the rest of our engines.

 

 

[John R Smith]

 

It is six o'clock on a summer morning, and the early turn has just come on shift at Kingswell Street. Our local engines are all lined up along the shed road, with steam up ready for the day's work. In a moment or two, the B-L tank number 10 will move off shed with the shunter aboard to work as the station pilot - that will release the Hornby tank no 70 which will run across the yard to Platform 1 to head the first train of the day, all-stations to Gloucester.

 

 

Edited November 14, 2023 by John R Smith

[John R Smith]

 

One of the many problems I soon ran up against was compatibility. Wheel and track standards are an obvious one, and an issue that I am still grappling with. But there are wider problems of aesthetic compatibility which rear their ugly heads, too. None of these old trains, delightful as they are, can exactly be termed "realistic" in our present day sense of the word. I mean, with track like this you can forget realism, for sure. So photo-realistic backscenes, for example, are just not going to work (I tried it, and they didn't).

 

But, and it is a very big "but", there are various different kinds of not-realistic, and they do not necessarily sit well together. You could, for example, have an all-Hornby layout with the classic pre-war rolling stock and all Hornby tinplate track / tin-printed buildings and accessories - stations, level crossings, bridges and so forth, and it would look great. However, I started out with Bassett-Lowke engines and rolling stock and track. Early on I bought the wonderful B-L engine shed which is made of wood with real glass windows. All of this, I quickly learned, has a totally different aesthetic from the Hornby offerings of the same 1930s period. I acquired a Hornby tinplate signal box, but placed alongside my wooden engine shed it just did not work.

 

So, there followed a period of readjustment. The signal box was replaced by a wooden one. I sold my Bing MR tinplate coaches and bought Exleys instead. Now I am aiming for the "look" of something like Gilbert Thomas's "Paddington to Seagood", or the illustrations from W J Bassett Lowke's "The Model Railway Handbook". I was sad though, in many ways, to forego the delightful Art Deco tinplate confections which poured out of Hornby at its creative peak. So I have kept one example.

 

This Hornby Platelayer's Hut seems small enough to sit quite well with my otherwise wooden buidings, and it now does duty as the mess room for the train crews at one end of the MPD. You just have to love the flowering plants (hollyhocks?) climbing up the walls. And as you can see in the second picture, this is the rarer early version of the hut with the opening door. What's not to like?

 

 

[John R Smith]

 

Perhaps it is time to introduce another of the locomotives presently in service on my Cornish coarse scale shunting plank. This is LMS number 70, an 0-4-0 clockwork tank engine from the Hornby works in Liverpool. This model, the Hornby Number 1 Special tank, was introduced in 1929 and was an enlarged and more powerful version of the previous Number 1 0-4-0s. It had a longer boiler with safety valves, outside steam pipes and larger diameter wheels. It also had a redesigned mechanism. Nowdays these Number One Specials are fetching quite serious money, if in good condition with the original box. The intending purchaser should be wary of the usual Hornby issues of bent bufferbeams (and buffers), rusted coupling rods and the dreaded Mazak rot in the wheels which can be quite terminal (and obvious).

 

My number 70 is quite tidy, as you can see, and probably dates from around 1936 - 37 (according to the Binns Road site). We brought her in for service as the station pilot at Kingswell Street, thinking that her short length would make the loco handy for nipping in and out of our tightly curved sidings. But alas, number 70 has proved to have a wayward character which is apt to catch the unwary driver by surprise. Instead of gently trundling a couple of wagons in decorous fashion from one part of the yard to another, she starts out slowly and surely, but then - when we least expect it - she accelerates at full chat and dashes towards the stops. Disaster has often been but narrowly averted.

 

So she and her unpredictable ways have been banished from our shunting duties, and she is now allocated to the local all-stations turns to Worcester, as you can see below. The single Exley suburban coach she tows is nice and heavy, and is sufficient to tame her antics to a sensible degree. So may she work out her days, taking children to school and house wives shopping between sleepy 1930s market towns . . .

 

 

 

 

Edited November 27, 2023 by John R Smith

[sncf231e]

A coincidence? I have (almost) the same consist:

 

Regards

Fred

[Nearholmer]

Clockwork engines are definitely ‘characters’ in a way that electric ones aren’t really.

[Ben B]

Just found this thread, it's a lovely layout you're building there :) There's something very appealing about tinplate trains, that somehow modern stuff doesn't quite capture for me.

[John R Smith]

 

I've been messing about a bit today with a bit of scenic treatment. What's this I hear you say, scenery at Kingswell Street? Well, yes, but it is very basic - just a few blind arches in a retaining wall behind the very end of the station yard.  This is a flat, printed backscene which is available to one and all on *Bay of course, so no great creative effort was involved.

 

So far this is just a trial, all held up with Blu-Tack, and is subject to further review of course. See what you think - it does rather help resolve the somewhat uneasy feeling of the line ending on a clifftop. I do realise that my B-L hydraulic buffers are quite absurd, but I bought them ages ago and just had to put them somewhere. A recent addition is the little hut, which I rescued for a silly price and it now does duty as the station lamp hut. The problem child, no 70, simmers at the stops with the evening local from Gloucester.