Belstone - N gauge branch terminus, ex North British

[Richard Hall]

Belstone: a small Northumbrian market town, about the size of Rothbury, nestling at the foot of the Cheviots. Main industries: farming (sheep and cattle) and stone quarrying. The North British Railway started the construction of a line running south-west from Berwick via Wooler and Belstone to link with the proposed Central Northumberland Railway at Alwinton, giving the NBR a back door route into Newcastle some twenty miles shorter than the existing route via Riccarton, Reedsmouth and Hexham. In the end the Central Northumberland never got north of Rothbury, and the new NB line terminated in a sloping field about half a mile outside Belstone.  It is now the summer of 1962: the passenger service is under notice of closure and has only a couple of months left. Freight will survive a little longer, with the line finally closing to all traffic in 1973.

 

Almost all the above is fictitious, partly because Belstone (in real life Biddlestone) only has about three houses.  But I like to have a plausible 'back story' for my layouts as it makes all the main decisions much easier. Once you know where, when and why the railway was built, buildings and other structures, rolling stock and even the landscape pretty much choose themselves.

 

"Belstone" started out as an experiment, using up a few bits and pieces from a previous, half-hearted attempt to build an N gauge layout. The bits included an unused 4' x 1' baseboard, a slightly tatty fiddle yard, some SEEP point motors, a controller and a few odd bits of rolling stock.  So after a few evenings of messing around with glue and soldering irons I ended up with this:

 

 

Traditionally that is about as far as any of my layouts have got, but I persevered with this one. A year on, and still very far from finished, here are a couple of photos showing the current state of play. See how many rough edges and wonky bits of modelling you can spot:

 

 

 

 

Buildings are mostly based on the ones at Scotsgap Junction, using drawings by Ian Futers published in Railway Modeller last year.The goods shed is freelance as I couldn't find a photo of a North British goods shed anywhere. Right now I have just finished the electrics on my Mk2 fiddle yard (the original warped due to being too close to a radiator) and am able to run trains for the first time since I started the scenic work.  I have lots of teething problems to deal with (mainly due to paint and stray ballast grains getting into point mechanisms) but hopefully I will be able to get it running reliably soon. Then I can get on with adding some scenic detail, which is always fun.

 

Richard

 

[Richard Hall]

A couple more photos: J39 departs Belstone with a train for Berwick, passing a typical North British platelayers' hut.  Locos and rolling stock are another major item on my list of stuff to do: the J39 is as bought apart from the Microtrains couplers, and needs to be renumbered (as one of the Tweedmouth allocation)  and weathered.  I also have another J39 and two Ivatt 2MTs, one of which will be turned into the BR Standard version when I get round to it.

 

[Revolution Ben]

 

Hi Richard,

 

This looks very good. You seem to have a very good eye for the greys and slightly washed out greens that often seem to characterise railway landscapes in that part of the world. What method/products did you use?

 

And you've made that Peco track look surprisingly good....

 

Cheers

 

Ben A.

[Richard Hall]

Hi Richard,

 

This looks very good. You seem to have a very good eye for the greys and slightly washed out greens that often seem to characterise railway landscapes in that part of the world. What method/products did you use?

 

And you've made that Peco track look surprisingly good....

 

Cheers

 

Ben A.

 

Thanks Ben, very kind of you to say so.  The grassy areas were painted brown, given a coat of diluted wood glue then sprinkled with a mixture of Woodland Scenics materials, mostly burnt grass and yellow grass fine turf, bit of light green coarse turf, very sparing use of dark green weeds and a few bushes.  I've possibly used slightly too much yellow grass but it looks OK under the layout lighting. Roads and platforms are covered in very fine sand (from the local pet shop, intended for lizards) then given a couple of coats of grey matt emulsion and a wash of very watery matt black emulsion to tone them down.  I find the 'tester' pots sold in DIY stores very useful.  I'm aiming to have everything on the layout matt and a bit weathered so nothing sticks out.  That includes vehicles:

 

 

Track I'm not so happy with although it doesn't look too bad in the photos.  I wanted to reproduce the fine ash ballast found on light rural branch lines in the steam era.  So I pressed modelling clay into the track, smoothed and levelled it, then tamped more lizard sand into it. Once the clay had dried I cleaned it all up and painted it with a mix of black, mid grey and dark earth. Unfortunately the sand didn't really 'take' in some places leaving smooth patches on the shoulders and cess area.  I used Woodland Scenics 'cinders' to try and rectify this, but it looked much too coarse. So I gave it another three (!) coats of black/grey/brown emulsion mix, and now none of my points work properly and all the flangeways are clogged with paint...

 

Richard

[Tricky-CRS]

Looking good sounds interesting.

 

[Douglas G]

I really like this layout  - as Ben says, the colours look right because they are muted "scale colours" that give a sense of distance and really blend in with the colours in the backscene.

 

Douglas

[Richard Hall]

 

The fiddle yard, four storage roads and a run round. Badger the terrier is unimpressed with all the construction work going on above his bed. The longest road will hold a J39 and three coaches which is plenty. Turntable is a Peco kit, motorised using a 100:1 geared stepper motor and 10 speed controller bought from China for about eight quid including postage.  Turntable can be accessed from the station via the bay platform. The North British seemed very keen on turntables: they had a couple of bad accidents in the early days in which tender-first running in bad weather was a contributory factor.  'Belstone' would undoubtedly have had a turntable, but there wasn't room for it on the main board. So I have imagined it as being the other side of the road bridge, just like at Scotsgap Junction.  Being able to send locos 'off stage' for turning and watering adds a bit more operational interest.

[Richard Hall]

muted "scale colours" that give a sense of distance and really blend in with the colours in the backscene.

 

Douglas

 

That was a fluke. I did the scenic treatment before buying the backscene. I've been out of the hobby for so long I didn't even know that photographic backscenes existed until my father bought one for his OO gauge layout (also set in Northumberland).  Originally I wasn't going to have a backscene at all: it was tacked on as an afterthought, which is why the corners don't line up properly and there is a big gap at the right hand end.  For the next layout I'll build the backscene boards right at the start and incorporate them into the baseboard design.

[Jack]

That does look very nice.  Thanks for the info on the way you've built up the textures.

[Gloucester Road]

Looks very good

[McRuss]

Hello Richard,

 

your layout looks good. I think your station building looks familiar to me. Is it made from plans published in one of Ian Futers books?

 

Markus

[SNCF stephen]

This layout looks great. I wouldn't be too disheartened at the ash ballast, in my opinion the clay works well and the mixture of textures reflects reality. If you wanted to add some more texture you could try weathering powders on them. That's how I achieved fine gravel surfacing on DAS clay.

 

 

Good luck and I will be following with interest.

[Richard Hall]

Hello Richard,

 

your layout looks good. I think your station building looks familiar to me. Is it made from plans published in one of Ian Futers books?

 

Markus

 

It's actually a mirror image of Scotsgap Junction, from an Ian Futers article in Railway Modeller last year.  I couldn't quite work out how the extension at the end went together and couldn't find any photos, so I just fudged it. I suspect it was a later addition, other stations on the same line have a front door and porch there instead.

[Paul-2mm]

That's a great looking layout.

 

Do you have the turntable programme to move to a selected running line with a touch of the remote or do you have to line it up by eye?

[Richard Hall]

That's a great looking layout.

 

Do you have the turntable programme to move to a selected running line with a touch of the remote or do you have to line it up by eye?

 

You have to line it up by eye, but I haven't found that a problem as you can vary the speed while the turntable is moving, and the slowest speed is very, very slow indeed.  I think that it would be quite hard to build a fully indexed turntable using a stepper motor - you'd need a zero backlash gearbox to start with, and I shouldn't think that would be cheap.

[Richard Hall]

Lineside fencing fail...  NB branch lines used a very distinctive (and cheap) type of lineside fencing - stout wooden posts (possibly old sleepers) knocked into the ground and strung with four or five equally spaced strands of fencing wire. I need about three feet of the stuff.

 

So I made up a crude jig and drilled holes in some PCB sleepers, then tried to make up a short section.  I planted the sleepers in the ground, threaded the finest steel wire I could find through the holes, then gave the lot a coat of light grey so I could see how it looked.  The result being...

 

 

...a pretty close approximation of the post and tube fencing favoured by the Great Eastern for bridge approach roads.  That's one problem sorted for my planned next project, 'Mildenhall'. Also the posts are too far apart - my fault for guessing at 10 foot spacing rather than actually referring to a photograph. Having done so I reckon the NB post spacing was closer to six feet.

 

The main problem is that fencing wire scales down in 'N' to around 0.02mm.  That's too thin to be able to keep it straight to represent tensioned fence wires. I looked at polycotton thread but I reckon that is too thick, and too coarse in texture.  It won't look like galvanised wire.  So I think I will just have to model the posts and leave the wire to the imagination. Unless anyone has another suggestion?

[Black Sheep]

Would a guitar string work, you'd need to bend it to put a kink in otherwise it would give a seaside iron railing curve but the choice of thickness might open some options

[Douglas G]

>>> The main problem is that fencing wire scales down in 'N' to around 0.02mm.  That's too thin to be able to keep it straight to represent tensioned fence wires. I looked at polycotton thread but I reckon that is too thick, and too coarse in texture.  It won't look like galvanised wire.  So I think I will just have to model the posts and leave the wire to the imagination. Unless anyone has another suggestion? <<<

 

What about nylon "invisible" thread or black or brown fine nylon monofilament thread - this is what I am planning to use for my own concrete post and wire fences in N. I got it really cheap from Wilko. I am also going to have a look in an angling shop to see if there is some very fine fishing line that will do and which may be stronger. There is also "invisible" thread that magicians use, although I've not tried this.

 

Douglas

[justin1985]

I really like it! You've really got the consistency of texture and harmony of colours that makes a great layout. 

 

I'm intrigued by the plans for Mildenhall too - also in N ?

 

On the fencing, how about E-Z Line? Its 0.075mm and designed for rigging ships, aircraft etc, but I have seen some people recommend it for OHLE and other wiring in N. You can buy quite small quantities of it online to try out.

[Richard Hall]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, some really useful information there.

 

Mildenhall... I drive past the station site every day on the way to work, although it's not visible from the A11. The branch trackbed passes within half a mile of my house. If it ever gets built it will be N gauge, 8' x 2' plus fiddle yard, with as little compression and simplification as possible.  I'm toying with the idea of using FiNetraX, so there will probably be another small layout first so I can make all the mistakes on that. Why not go the whole hog and do it in 2mm? I tried that and came badly unstuck on loco mechanisms. I'm a bodger, not a model engineer, and my methods are shall we say 'approximate'. The 2mm Assoc sleepers are handy for fence posts though...

 

Lots of problems to overcome - a 50 foot turntable bang in the middle of the scenic area to start with.  It will be set at the fag-end of steam in the Cambridge district, so I'll need to scratchbuild a J15, J17 and E4, I'll also need an Ivatt 2MT (which I have already), maybe an Ivatt 4MT which I'm definitely not scratchbuilding, and a couple of early diesels for variety.  And if Farish would like to replicate the Bachmann Cravens or Derby Lightweight DMUs in 'N' that would be lovely, if not very exciting to operate. The problems are daunting, but 'Belstone' is some way off being done yet, so I have plenty of time to think about it.

[justin1985]

  It will be set at the fag-end of steam in the Cambridge district, so I'll need to scratchbuild a J15, J17 and E4, I'll also need an Ivatt 2MT (which I have already), maybe an Ivatt 4MT which I'm definitely not scratchbuilding, and a couple of early diesels for variety.  And if Farish would like to replicate the Bachmann Cravens or Derby Lightweight DMUs in 'N' that would be lovely, if not very exciting to operate. The problems are daunting, but 'Belstone' is some way off being done yet, so I have plenty of time to think about it.

 

This why I actually persevered with 2mm for my steam era modelling (my long term aim is a model of Clare on the Sudbury-Cambridge line, c.1914) even though, as more of a bodger, I've also had real trouble getting a satisfactory loco mechanism working. Scratchbuilding locos in N is actually significantly more difficult than in 2mm because of the lack of wheels - there is simply nothing available as spares that could be used. Some people have had luck by using chassis from commercial models where they can be fitted in tenders or through luck wheelbases and diameters match - check Gareth Collier's N gauge SECR locos on the N Gauge Society website - I think he used the Dapol terrier chassis in the tender for one or two of them. The J17 might not to be too difficult, but the J15 and E4 might be very tricky - both small loco body and small tender. And now the J15 is in the Hornby range for OO, there is next to no chance of it appearing in N (whereas if Bachmann had claimed it, I would have held out hope of it appearing in the Graham Farish range).

 

In terms of suitable kits, there is a BH Enterprises whitemetal kit for a Claud Hamilton, which isn't -too- bad (but was designed for the long obsolete Farish Compound - not sure what you could use these days) and Alan Cox of Ultima\Etched Pixels has a 3D printed body for an F5 which is designed for a Dapol 14xx chassis (unfortunately a poor runner itself). 

 

On the 2mm side, there are etches for the J15, as well as J69 and other GE prototypes ... but really not much chance of building them for N.

[Richard Hall]

Dapol Terrier has already been suggested to me as a tender drive.  I looked into it and - deep joy - it has the axles geared together. Wheels are maybe a fraction big but this is N gauge, not ScaleSeven.  I picked up two Chinese Farish pannier tanks, a 57xx and a 94xx, non-running, for a tenner apiece at a toy fair recently, and if the wheelbase isn't exactly right for a J15 or J17 it won't be so far off as to look silly. The rest is just brass and plastikard. Ha ha.

[Richard Hall]

Fencing fail part 2 (but heading in the right direction):

 

 

This test piece used matchsticks and Wilko 'invisible' thread. The two end posts were notched with a razor saw to mark the wire positions, thread then tied around one end post, looped round the other and secured with a dab of cyano. The posts in between are just cosmetic: close study of photos shows that the wire is just nailed to the posts with iron staples, it doesn't pass through holes in the posts as I thought.

 

Albion Chieftain is there for scale, and I put a bit of scatter material down to get a better idea of how the fencing would look on the layout. The main problem is obvious. Matchsticks scale at around 12 inches square which is too big. The wires on the other hand look spot on to me. I've been looking at NB fencing in old photos until my eyes hurt. In a lot of places they used two sizes of post, with every eighth or tenth post much thicker than the others, maybe railway sleeper sized.  So I plan to get hold of some spruce strip, 1/16 square and 1/16 x 3/32, and have another go with that.

 

It's funny how small random jobs can trip you up - this fencing has now taken longer than laying the track in the fiddle yard...

[Richard Hall]

Further research shows I have overestimated the size of old railway sleepers.  They are about 10" x 6", which would roughly equate to 1.5mm x 1mm.  The intermediate posts I would guess at 6 inches square, 1mm x 1mm. My latest thinking is to do the intermediates in styrene strip, slightly roughed up with sandpaper. But the end posts need to be strong enough to stay upright and hold the wires in tension. I'm not 100% sure that 1.5 x 1.0 styrene will be strong enough.  Metal would be good, but a quick look at the K&S Metals website doesn't throw up anything the right size.  Why couldn't the NBR use post and rail fencing? I've got lots of that.

[Douglas G]

Hi Richard,

 

4D Model Shop stock 1 X1 mm, 2 x 2 mm and 1 X 2 mm brass rod that you could use:

 

http://modelshop.co.uk/Shop/Strip-Shape/Square-Rectangular-Strip/Item/Brass-square-rod-1000mm/ITM3598

 

http://modelshop.co.uk/Shop/Strip-Shape/Square-Rectangular-Strip/Item/Brass-strip-1000mm/ITM3441

 

I am using it for my concrete fence posts in N. I have knocked them and bent them a few times but they can easily be straightened. I sprayed them with Halfords grey primer and then brushed on Humbrol enamels on top.