Blog- Teviotbank for Lessismore - Now That's What I Call Lessismore: The Best of RMWeb 3

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I dragged Lessismore kicking and screaming onto the new shiny world of RMWebIV without any words of explanation. So, for those of you who weren't there or are dialling-in anew, here's the exec summary so far:

 

THE PREMISE: Lessismore is a single-line branch terminus off the Edinburgh - Carlisle line, in its twilight years. The Waverley itself is the focus of my now staple roundy-roundy in the garage, offering approx 35' double-track continuous run.

 

Lessismore's atmosphere is 45% Langholm, 30% Selkirk, 25% Lauder. The branch passenger service (if it still runs) departs from the bay or island at Teviotbank (Change for Lessismore), depending on the operating period. UPDATE: The initial period that I'm tackling is 1967-68, and as such the branch is now used only by occasional goods traffic. Similar to Langholm, it has had several stays of execution primarily to satisfy local coal merchants in the sleepy upland hamlet...

 

Teviotbank has heavy accents of Galashiels post-rationalisation in 1964-5, with dereliction setting-in at the small St Margaret's subshed that has more than a hint of Fort William about it, in my mind's eye... UPDATE: The fuel point will be a spartan affair, but I am hoping to include some vestiges of the former subshed...

 

A third station is the wayside affair of Midlem Road, in its sylvan riverside setting next to the sparkling Ale Water, the line between St Boswells and Hawick taking an alternative valley route closer to Lilliesleaf than the real thing does. Midlem Road will share features of the real Steele Road, Stow and Hassendean stations. UPDATE: Midlem has undergone rationalisation, and the station has lost its refuge siding and trailing crossover. Its planned signal box may be locked out in normal circumstances.

 

 

PHILOSOPHY: My approach to this sums up the layout's overall philosophy: Less-is-more. Nowhere is this more acute than at Teviotbank, where the temptation to model the goods loops of prototype Galashiels is hard to resist. Yet these had gone by 1967 as the railway contracted to embrace changing times: the Peebles loop had closed, the shed was no more as bankers had been eradicated through dieselisation, and much of pick-up freight had been lost.

 

My pragmatic driver for Less-is-more is also a quest for greater realism as a default position. For too long I have been a sucker for filling every available square inch with track; end result: a rail blue car park. No more! I initially pursued a self-imposed target of reducing the number of turnouts in the initial Lessismore trackplan by 20%. Originally the branch was to have started its ascent within sight of Teviotbank's platforms, but I was far from happy with this, and now the branch diverges 'off stage.' The newly freed-up space started tantalising me with thoughts of a bigger diesel stabling point, which I am now resisting with more town scenery and elaborate scenic breaks/ illusions. UPDATE: The trailing crossover at Teviotbank Sth has too been abolished and plain-lined with concrete sleeper track. Unprototypical, but I like the idea of a witness mark to the march of rationalisation.

 

So - fundamentally I have to have a fixed trackplan. The underlying assumptions are that this must reflect rationalisation, that odd halfway house of Beeching's flailing reaper's axe that could have saved the Waverley, ironically, and left it as a pared down secondary main line like the GSW or S&C. If I get this right, as they say, the devil will be in the detail.

 

Scenery-wise I am aiming for a generic austere Borders vibe that would apply to the fairly straitened times at the turn of the '70s. In my core '66-'69 period there will be a paucity of stock on the layout at any given time (I'm crying out for good storage solutions here, as most of my stock will be off-stage). UPDATE: Initial plans for 'what-if' fictional operating periods have been shelved for the time being as I focus on the wealth of variety available in '68.

 

 

LESSISMORE'S LAWS: In another RMWeb, long, long ago, one Jamie of this parish sought to have my self-imposed 'Laws of Lessismore' laid down, the better that I could be judged against them. Well, dear reader, that word is made flesh on RMWIV:

 

The First Law of Lessismore states: 'The layout will not resemble a full-yellow-end car park under any circumstances,' and no: green Claytons don't cancel out blue BRCWs.

 

Which presupposes that there's a Second Law, and you'd be right. The Second Law states: 'P-way will be simplified by 15%.' Simple as that; back in the day the whole Teviotbank South stretch was so taut with S&C that the DCE was found slumped on the bar of The Careless Sportsman, BRSA(ScR)-affiliated saloon mumbling through a Laphroiag haar that Beeching told him personally life would be better after '66.

 

I intend to indulge some element of parcels interest at Teviotbank, because of the rolling stock exotica involved, but Lessismore's Third Law of Austerity will rigidly patrol this deviant tendency. After all, the alternative fiction reads that this road (the down bay platform) is normally the Teviotbank civil engineer's domain. UPDATE: Teviotbank down bay since extended to accommodate a 3-car DMU, for operating flexibility. The DCE function has moved across to co-exist with the fuel-point. This bay is also intrinsic to the parcels traffic, which the '68 WTT exposes as prolific, with vehicles added and detached at Hawick (read Teviotbank).

 

Lessismore's Fourth Law - intentionally left blank.

 

All Waverley traffic records gratefully received, so the mouth-watering exceptions can be modelled, in tiny ratios, according to Lessismore's Fifth Law

 

 

 

'CHARD's love affair with a torn-up railway (abridged)

 

.... I recall Melrose was having its heart by-pass brutally forced through on the old alignment. Much of what was Gala station had been swept away, Hawick obliterated, Sandholm and Lynwood viaducts gone, and the bridges over the line at Falahill and Newcastleton lost to road straightening. I remmber parts of the Selkirk branch about this time, as I encouraged my dad to go off the beaten track in search of fragments of the branches, and it was around 1982 that I saw the glory of Shankend, including the incredible signal box survivor on the bleak escarpment. Essence.

 

In recent years I have taken work colleagues 'the long way round,' the odd senior railmen in today's TOCs first discovered Whitrope southern portal having let me drive! I introduced a bunch of punk soul brothers to Shankend, and took the epic walk to Riccarton. With every one of them it was love at first sight: the Waverley does that, like few other ghost lines, its atmosphere engulfs True Believers.

 

 

 

Regular readers will be aware that despite contra indications, I view the railway as being a means to an end, and as such it owes its lifeblood to the communities it serves. This valued contribution from Bruce McCartney back on RMW3 pretty much sums this up:

 

A book! I've had one on the cards for a couple of years, even got started writing it. With around 300 unpublished colour of the Waverley Route and getting on for 600 b/w that's not seen the light of day you might think that's easy, far from it. About five years ago I put out an appeal for information on the Waverley Route on the net (it's still there http://www.cairndhu.net) - I can probably put my hand on my heart and say I've had two contributions and upwards of fifty requests from me for information about the line.

 

One big influence on me was in February 1962 being handed a duster and told to wipe the Peebles branch off the blackboard of Border Railways at the side of the Geography classroom: is it THAT easy to wipe out 100 years of history? That incident inspired me to photograph freight trains to Earlston and Kelso &c. But I also used the Waverley Route regularly in the mid-60s and more from an historical point-of-view than anything else took photographs of things that would disappear once all the Border railway system closed.

 

Although you guys are all 'into' railways, it's amazing just how much nostalgia and interest in general there is about the Waverley Route. In the last couple of years I've maybe given around four talks / picture shows, another three this coming winter, and almost invariably, once the projector's cooled down, there's a gathering of 'normal' folk [as opposed to 'rail fans'] all wanting to tell you something about the railway. I'm making an attempt to write these anecdotes down ~ they're a sight more interesting to me and maybe adds flesh to the fact that loco 12345 worked the 12.34 from here to there. Heresy perhaps?

 

I had finished a talk to a Womens Guild (now there's a challenge), and up sidles this septuagenerian, "Ah mind oor Sundae Skil trips tae Silloth. Yin time, I'd a hale bottle of leeminad to masell, an', ye ken, there werni ony corridirs on they trains. "Weel, Ah" At this point, her friend butted in, "Ye cannae tell hum that!" And she didn't!

 

I apologise if anyone struggles to read it, but it's a true wee tale that loses something in the translation; it's nice to think that it was more than just a J39 on a Sunday School excursion with non-corridor stock."

 

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