World War II

[JimF51]

I'm wading into new waters, with this. My primary UK railway interest has been, and still is, the SECR, and to a lesser degree, the LBSC, of the late 1890's to early 1900's.

 

However, I've also gotten back into a bit of military modelling, and have a couple of diorama/scenes in my head. Basically set in England, during the war, preferably set in the SE area. If I were to include a rail scene, need suggestions regarding small motive power, a smaller type, and what livery would it have? And is there anything RTR out there?

 

I'm sure I will have more questions, but will see, as I progress.

 

Thanks.

 

Jim F

[phil_sutters]

I think that one of your challenges will be finding a location which is in your SE - Kent & Sussex - area and which is small enough to make a credible scene from. There have been a few WW2 related layouts in the model press but they have been fairly extensive. The most recent, in this month's British Railway Modelling magazine, is an 'N' gauge model of Kingswear in Devon and is 24ft overall.

Newhaven, which I live about three miles from, is a relatively small port on a river estuary, but at the time of WW2 it had extensive railway facilities on both sides of the harbour. There are still three railway stations, although one is only used for occasional train reversing or stabling. There are two maps in Alan Godfrey's 'Old Ordnance Survey Maps' series showing most of the railway facilities in Newhaven, conveniently from the 1937-8 period.  

It was the main embarkation port for the disastrous Dieppe commando raid in 1942 and in both world wars it was an important supply route, as it was far enough away from the Straits of Dover to be out of range of coastal guns. It had an updated Victorian fort on the headland above the harbour. If you search for images online, beware, there is another Newhaven in Scotland.

I hope I haven't put you off. I have to admit I don't know what possible locations there might be on the north Kent coast, but between Ramsgate and Shoreham I think any port would be too big to do justice to. 

If you do decide you can create something do let us know how you get on. All the best for 2016.

Phil

[burgundy]

Jim

One option might be to combine your two interests and model the LB&SCR rail mounted gun of 1894. If you did a diorama of the official trials at Newhaven, you could be painting exotic uniforms of Generals, Princes and other high paid help from around Europe for quite a long time.  

The other option, on a similar theme, but fitting the requirement to WW2, might be a diorama of one of the gun spurs used by the rail mounted heavy guns for cross channel bombardment.

Best wishes

Eric  

[phil_sutters]

.......or of course there is the Romney Hythe & Dymchurch Railway armoured train.

 

The Newhaven beach tramway also had an armoured train - I am fairly sure I saw a model of it in the Seaford Town Museum - but I think that that was in WW1. It ran past the sea-plane station, which would make an interesting scenic feature. You can see details of this on an information board at the site - which I photographed recently! http://www.ipernity.com/doc/philsutters/40492640

[Oldddudders]

Not only ports were involved in WW2 military activity. Halwill Junction, many miles inland in remote Devon, had a whole new set of sidings laid specifically for the build-up of forces before D-Day. A number of key routes were similarly equipped with additional recesses and lay-by sidings to facilitate passage of all sorts of extra trains. New and ugly signalboxes were constructed here and there. And, not of interest in a model, Controls were set up at Orpington, Redhill and Woking.

 

I think a secondary line station with a goods yard depicting military traffic loading would pass as much muster in credibility terms as most peacetime layouts. The South Eastern and the Brighton each had many suitable locations.

[Fat Controller]

There were extensive sidings, sometimes with warehousing, in all sorts of places; the logic was to disperse 'materiél' from the ports as rapidly as possible, as it was much harder to camouflage a dock than a remote site. Ones close to ports that spring to mind were Chittening, near to Avonmouth, Trecwn, near both Fishguard and Milford Haven, and Burtonwood and Kirby, near Liverpool. Some, post-War, became industrial estates. Further inland, there were sidings at Thingley Junction and near Shrivenham, and certainly elsewhere, as well as the various depots dedicated to bomb, shell and mine storage at places like Bicester, Dean (Salisbury) and Kineton. Some of the latter are still in service. There is an interesting site at Ernesettle, on the western edge of Plymouth; here, a set of sidings on the landward side served transhipment sheds, where munitions were unloaded on to narrow-gauge wagons, for transfer to underground bunkers. The same wagons would then transfer munitions as required, via a jetty, to lighters, which would carry them to re-provision ships in Plymouth Sound; the idea was to restrict the amount of explosives on board ships in the dockyards. Here's a link to a Google Earth view of Ernesettle:-

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Ernesettle,+Plymouth+PL5/@50.4132191,-4.1967126,1194m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x486c9294a2882c0b:0xe684be2ff3990ac6?hl=en

The Royal Navy sites were often given ship's names, even if some of them were considerable distances from the sea.

There were also some 'decoy' sites, especially around Kent, where inflatable tanks would be arranged in neat rows, and trains of vans would arrive, 'unload' into empty warehouses and leave again. The idea was to convince the Germans that the invasion of June 1944 was going to take place around Calais, so that they would concentrate their resources there. Immediately before D-Day, the dummy tanks were dispersed to other locations, such as the village I now live in, to give the impression that they were to be embarqued in the Kent ports.

[Clearwater]

Airfields may also make a good option. I think gatwick was used as an outstation in the Battle of Britain.

 

Various airbases in east Anglia had rail heads or stations used primarily by RAF/ 8th Air Force personnel

 

David

[phil_sutters]

Airfields may also make a good option. I think gatwick was used as an outstation in the Battle of Britain.

 

Various airbases in east Anglia had rail heads or stations used primarily by RAF/ 8th Air Force personnel

 

David

Hornby magazine in July 2014 saw a railway layout incorporating a section of RAF Manston as you can see here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/87018-Hornby-magazine-issue-85-july-2014/ 

[Nearholmer]

The Martin Mill military railway of WW2, with motive power consisting of requisitioned SR diesel shunters?

 

The connection from Lydd Station to Lydd Ranges?

 

I think that the Elham Valley Line was requisition in whole for the use of long distance guns, and I have a feeling that one was stationed on the EKLR, using the Eastry curve to obtain direction.

 

If you wanted to fictionalise slightly, the Cuckmere Valley, above Cuckmere Haven, which never had a railway, although a LRO was sought c1900, was both heavily defended against invasion,mand the site of decoys for Newhaven, and could probably have made good use of a military line.

 

Kevin Robertson, I think, published a collection of SR publicity and record shots from WW2, probably under his Noodle Books imprint - might have been a "Southern Way" special. It contains a lot of potential inspiration, like D1 tanks rigged up as "fire engines".

 

Right, tin helmet on, and back to a room full of wildly over-excited children!

 

Kevin

[phil_sutters]

The Martin Mill military railway of WW2, with motive power consisting of requisitioned SR diesel shunters?

 

The connection from Lydd Station to Lydd Ranges?

 

I think that the Elham Valley Line was requisition in whole for the use of long distance guns, and I have a feeling that one was stationed on the EKLR, using the Eastry curve to obtain direction.

 

If you wanted to fictionalise slightly, the Cuckmere Valley, above Cuckmere Haven, which never had a railway, although a LRO was sought c1900, was both heavily defended against invasion,mand the site of decoys for Newhaven, and could probably have made good use of a military line.

 

Kevin Robertson, I think, published a collection of SR publicity and record shots from WW2, probably under his Noodle Books imprint - might have been a "Southern Way" special. It contains a lot of potential inspiration, like D1 tanks rigged up as "fire engines".

 

Right, tin helmet on, and back to a room full of wildly over-excited children!

 

Kevin

Paul O'Callaghan in his "East Sussex Coastal Railways" says that rather than making use of the railway, it appears that the military removed the existing 2ft gauge Cuckmere Valley Railway. It had been provided in 1930 to move shingle from the beach to the A259 coast road, at Exceat. It was replaced in around 1950 and used until 1964. There are dragons teeth and four or five pill-boxes still in the valley. There is also a small, personally erected, monument to a company of Canadian soldiers, who were camped in tents, near the entrance to Cuckmere Haven and were decimated in a dawn raid by German aircraft heading further inland. There seems to be some dispute about the veracity of the account, but there certainly many Canadian troops stationed in the area in WW2.

There are lots of photos of that area in my photo sharing album at http://www.ipernity.com/doc/philsutters/album/502159including a photo of the monument and details of its inscriptions.

[Nearholmer]

Phil

 

Regarding the Exceat-Cuckmere Haven 2ft gauge line:

 

It would be interesting to know what his source of information regarding non-use of the line during the war was. To me it feels a bit odd that a railway that gathered-up the raw material for making concrete would be abandoned in the middle of a concrete fortification building fest, and the IRS book talks about it being commandeered.

 

The line wasn't built as early as 1930, BTW, probably during 1933 and 1934, and the first pair of locos dated from 1935.

 

Anyway, I suppose that for the OP it does open up the whole question of c2ft gauge railways, with a military connection, of which there were many in the Kent and Sussex area. 1:35 is a popular military modelling scale, and I think Slaters now market the 1:32 Ruston & Hornsby loco kit. That would be highly suitable. Or, go up scale to 16mm/ft, and they make a beautiful kit for a MRTC 20hp loco.

 

Kevin

[phil_sutters]

The Rye & Camber Tramway ceased passenger operations during WW2, but Marie Panter's "Lost Railways of East Sussex" records that the line was used to support the 'Pluto' (Pipe line under the ocean) project, for getting fuel to the invasion forces in France. A special siding leading down to a new pier was constructed by Canadian troops. So there's another smallish scale scenario.

 

Phil

[phil_sutters]

Phil

 

Regarding the Exceat-Cuckmere Haven 2ft gauge line:

 

It would be interesting to know what his source of information regarding non-use of the line during the war was. To me it feels a bit odd that a railway that gathered-up the raw material for making concrete would be abandoned in the middle of a concrete fortification building fest, and the IRS book talks about it being commandeered.

 

The line wasn't built as early as 1930, BTW, probably during 1933 and 1934, and the first pair of locos dated from 1935.

 

Anyway, I suppose that for the OP it does open up the whole question of c2ft gauge railways, with a military connection, of which there were many in the Kent and Sussex area. 1:35 is a popular military modelling scale, and I think Slaters now market the 1:32 Ruston & Hornsby loco kit. That would be highly suitable. Or, go up scale to 16mm/ft, and they make a beautiful kit for a MRTC 20hp loco.

 

Kevin

To be fair to Paul O'Callaghan, I was a bit sloppy in paraphrasing his Cuckmere chapter, for which I apologize. He does say 'early 1930s' rather than 1930. He then gives details of shingle extraction licences which would put the start date in the 1933-4 period. His words were that the 'military may have temporarily removed the track'. He says that it is believed that an Orenstein Koppel locomotive was used in the early years and has a photo of a Simplex Diesel 4WD No 8659, but this is undated.

[PaulRhB]

One question is why have you chosen WW2 when you could combine interests in WW1 when the SECR still existed?

Then there's the obvious C class models and the forthcoming H? tank loco. You'd also have the option of a fairly simple loco kit with a P class 0-6-0.

Going back to WW2. As said above there were various heavy guns on sidings along the South Coast, camouflaged, to repulse any invasion and you could combine it with a local unit on exercise to have more vehicles around.

Pete Goss had units mustering for Overlord on Rowlands Castle and you could similarly have units mustering near or parked up in a waiting area by any station.

There were also various camp, ammunition and fuel depots served by sidings put in especially during the War and at least one at Wilton still shows on the Govt planning portal even though they are long gone.

So if you have ideas in mind they can easily include rail and any loco common in the area would be relevant so at least the ex SECR C's in Southern black, Schools? the USA tanks possibly and forthcoming B4?

[Nearholmer]

Phil

 

There were two Ransome &Rapier locos initially, which could easily be mistaken for O&K, because the bonnet shape was similar, followed by two ex WD Simplexes in the early 50s. Somewhere, in one of the local archives, is a good collection of photos of the operation in its very early period,showing the R&R locos in use.

 

"Temporarily removed" does make sense - once the defences were up, having a line breach them to get to the beach wouldn't have been a smart idea.

 

Good place for mullet fishing, from what I remember!

 

Kevin

[phil_sutters]

Phil

 

There were two Ransome &Rapier locos initially, which could easily be mistaken for O&K, because the bonnet shape was similar, followed by two ex WD Simplexes in the early 50s. Somewhere, in one of the local archives, is a good collection of photos of the operation in its very early period,showing the R&R locos in use.

 

"Temporarily removed" does make sense - once the defences were up, having a line breach them to get to the beach wouldn't have been a smart idea.

 

Good place for mullet fishing, from what I remember!

 

Kevin

Kevin

Paul mentions the Newhaven Museum and the Seaford Collection (which I guess would probably be in the town museum in Martello Tower 74) as well as the Narrow Gauge Railway Society, as locations of photos and other information.

As for the fishing you might like http://www.ipernity.com/doc/philsutters/25920023

Phil

[Nearholmer]

Phil

 

You are definitely making me miss Sussex!

 

(Which, I suppose is better than me being Miss Sussex.)

 

Kevin

[JimF51]

All, many thanks for the replies.

 

I perhaps should have been more clear. This is not for a layout, in any sense, just smaller static dioramas. Any layout that I manage to make progress on will still be set pre-WW I.

 

My military modeling interest is WWII, US and UK. Time frames, in order of preference, are the summer/early fall in France/NW Europe, the UK Pre-D-Day, the Western Desert campaign and finally, the BEF early war. I have a few ideas for scenes for each, but the 1st and 2nd themes are my primary focus right now.

 

Working in OO (1/76) gives me the largest range of railway modelling items (civilian figures, civilian vehicles, UK structures, etc..) and the range of military vehicles in that scale from just one or two mfrs cover almost every vehicle I would need, along with soldiers in more casual, non-combat, poses

 

Odddudders mention of secondary lines, and a small goods yard, would probably the largest type of rail scene I might consider. Another might just be a small station scene with both UK and US soldiers perhaps waiting for a train, maybe for some furlough time in London?

 

I have also found a small company that does a model of the RH&D ng armoured train. Not a exact model, and made for N gauge track as opposed to 15" gauge. I have a idea for a small scene, set at a rural level crossing. US troops, on a small exercise, or from a small convoy of vehicles, chatting with the crew, the US troops looking the train over, perhaps in amazement.

 

Thanks for all the input, and will post up my progress with any scene that is rail related.

 

Jim F

 

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Jim

 

If you are into Use D-Day prep, an unusual idea might be the Deep Level Shelters in Central London, at least one of which was used as a US "barracks". Have you seen the book "London's Secret Tubes"?

 

K

[burgundy]

Bang goes another good idea

Newhaven 1894

Best wishes

Eric

[phil_sutters]

Bang goes another good idea

rail gun 1.jpg

Newhaven 1894

Best wishes

Eric

Great to see this piece of local history! I have walked over the spot a good few times, if it is where I think it is, between Newhaven Harbour and Tidemills.

[JimF51]

Eric, if I made the smoke plume large enough, I could just paint all the figures in shadowy grey, and not worry about painting all the fancy Victorian uniforms! LOL

 

I mentioned the RH&D armoured train for a diorama. Think that will happen, but will be Commonwealth troops checking it out, instead. I have found sources of UK troops in casual enough poses, but not similar for US troops. I've read many Canadian forces were stationed for a time in the area, so that would work.

 

Thanks again, all, for the info and thoughts.

 

Jim F

[adanapress]

Somewhere around Hythe there is or was a very extensive tramway network laid for the S.A.S. moving range,targets and related activity. 

By the way, Thats the Small Arms School regiment  (not that you ever heard of them)  rather than the Special Air Service.  And

there was  something on the other side of the river from the Rye & Camber Tramway

[Nearholmer]

The Lydd Ranges railway is quite well documented - try googling. I think there are some of my photos of it on Steve thomasens industrial narrow gauge site. Correction: they are on Cambrian Models site, here http://cambrianmodels.co.uk/sussexjpgfolder/sussexng2.html

 

The narrow gauge tramways on the rye harbour side of the river had a very tangled history, originating in a combination of concrete-making works and coastal defence (from erosion, not invasion). I've written them up for the narrow gauge railway society, but I don't think they are much described in any websites.

 

Kevin

[phil_sutters]

Somewhere around Hythe there is or was a very extensive tramway network laid for the S.A.S. moving range,targets and related activity. 

By the way, Thats the Small Arms School regiment  (not that you ever heard of them)  rather than the Special Air Service.  And

there was  something on the other side of the river from the Rye & Camber Tramway

One of the Lydd range's Wickham trolley-mounted tank shaped targets is on display at the Amberley Museum - although I think they have a 2D version of what was a 3D M60 target. I thought that I had a photo of it, but only appear to have one of the information board which included several other military ng exhibits.