I've spent this afternoon trying to draw up a plan for the new layout. I'm waiting for PPD to come back with an etch for the narrow gauge Ruston and felt like an afternoon in front of the PC. Having received the structural engineers report which means that hopefully we should soon get a quote from the builder I hope this isn't tempting fate.

I started off taking a scan of the OS map into Templot and then trying to draw track over it. This is an interesting task as I'm sure that what you think must be the positions of railway features, particularly things like the ends of points aren't always easy (or possible) to spot. It seemed a much better plan to generate the overall lines of the track and then try to fill them in getting Templot to sort of the geometry. The result is a track plan, over a map with some kind of theoretical baseboard edge around it.

I've curved the line so that it will go around the room, planning to use the over-bridge as a scenic break on the right hand side. At the left hand end the line curves over the bridge and then I intend to put a level crossing in. There was one just off the map which made for some interesting signalling as the gates had a lever frame which slotted the distance signal and the starter at that end of the station.

I've also made a few bits of 'selective compression', I've twisted the goods yard slightly and also pulled the little stream on the right hand side a little closer to the station to try and keep it relative to where it crossed the tracks. I'm also trying to work out how to get a little siding down to a fictitious mill. The plan being that it will give me a 'flight of fancy' whereas the rest of the layout can be firmly based on Clare.

I had a question for the prototype experts on the Stour valley line.

Clare had a coal siding (originally a couple with more than one merchant). How was coal dealt with? I've not seen any pictures of mineral trains on the line so was the coal just brought in and shunted with the pickup goods? (talking early 50's)

Finally - in other shocking news

I had fun putting together a Rumney models underframe. This is the clasp brake version which I thought would go nicely under a Parkside shocvan. Trouble was that all the photographs I could find on Paul Barlett's site showed that the clasp brake versions were all on BR Plywood bodied vans, while the Parkside model is a planked version. Cue lots of fun with filler, scrapers and fibre-glass brushes. The chassis is so nice that I'm not quite convinced the body does it justice. Still I'll try adding rain-strips and transfers and see how the body looks when it is suitably weathered. One thing I did notice from the photographs was that the vertical stripes indicating the shock absorbing were rarely anything other than hand painted.

David