Stoker

On 03/08/2021 at 03:01, MarcD said:

I have been working on a plan for a small layout of Carbean Wharf does anyone know of any photos?

 

Marc

This is the only shot I have of the wharf itself.

Andrew, you might want to join the facebook group Western Excavating (ECC) Ltd if you haven't already.

The one time I lived in a place that had carpet in the bathroom I actually loved it. I find carpet is much easier to maintain than hard floors (just vacuum it, with the occasional go over with a rug doctor), it gets rid of that horrible short-delay echo, and it's warmer to the foot.

I find that now that hard floors have become the norm, everyone has bloody cold houses and I have to keep a pair of slippers in the car!

On 03/09/2020 at 10:02, TomJ said:

The OP talks about loading wharfs where clay was brought in by lorry from other works. Were there any examples of these into the blue diesel era? Would be an interesting feature to add

They were mostly gone by the time the diesels came along but the few that lingered were Nanpean Wharf, Meledor Mill, and Rostowrack/Slip. The first two were used to bring clay from drys that were not rail connected, a dying breed by that time! I'd say the practice ended in the very early 70s, after which Nanpean Wharf was used to take delivery of pipework and equipment for use in the industry, and Meledor Mill was relegated to a shunting loop for the nearby Collins dryer. The latter, Rostowrack, was a loading point for china stone - it had a mass concrete ramp for trucks to back onto, with a loading chute at the end of it which fed the wagons waiting in the siding below. Rostowrack lasted a little longer into the 70s.

6 hours ago, Calnefoxile said:

I have a question regarding the transport of China Clay and the wagons used.

 

From what I have managed to find out the China Clay was moved around Cornwall in wgaons designated as UCV, but these wagons never really left Cornwall. There was a train called the Clayliner that ran from Cornwall to Stoke-on-Trent and because of the type of Bearings used on the UCV's the Clay was transferred to wagons designated as OWV.

 

Now in N Gauge there are not so many choices for China Clay wagons, but Kernow Models commissioned a special via Farish of the UCV's on a proper 9' chassis & Peco have produced a wagon designated as an OOV, NR-51 https://peco-uk.com/products/china-clay-hood-wagon now my question is; Is the Peco variant sufficiently close to an OWV that can be used in the Clayliner Train??

 

Regards

 

Neal.

It's been a while since I worked in N scale so I had to think about this! The clayliner was a mixed pool of standard BR 5 plank 10' wheelbase wagons which are readily available from I think all 3 manufacturers, and highfits which are available as a kit from the N Gauge Society. Alternatively it's a pretty simple kitbash to cut the wagon ends out of a Farish 5 plank and insert some corrugated styrene. The N Gauge Society does also have the metal bodied version if you'd like to add a bit of variety to a rake. Subtle differences between brake gear types are simply too small to appreciate in 2mm scale so I never even bothered - once weathered they're such a close fit that nobody notices anyway.

Use masking tape for your sheet, with a simulated load underneath to create the "bulge" - sheeted opens were always loaded above the wagonsides to create a "hill" so that rainwater wouldn't pool on the sheet. The sheets were various shades of grey, black, dark blue, etc. but if you're feeling adventurous, use some clear tape for a couple of the sheets, and give a light mist of white weathering with an airbrush - there were some experimental clear plastic sheets for these wagons and that adds a little interest.

For the roller bearings, I just used a sharp knife to remove the old friction bearing, and replaced it with a piece cut off the end of a styrene rod of appropriate diameter. This is pretty crude but to be honest with N scale it's so small that this actually does the trick at normal viewing distances.

Just now, friscopete said:

I think most people may like to run various goodies on their layout and while china clay is very interesting ,and indeed you have made it even more interesting , an average plank  dedicated to a single industry is going to get boring very quickly  for some people .A small station and goods shed plus  a small milk depot  or maltings say ,allows an interesting mix .I can certainly see a larger china clay  structure becoming a great addition  to a larger lay out though in fact I can visualize it in my head... but my wife cant .Accuracy is a severe master .

Boring or interesting really depends on the individual. Personally I find passenger operations to be unbelievably boring, but they seem to be incredibly popular and I'd guess that's because most people in Britain have experienced a passenger train at one time or another and have nostalgic memories. For myself, I have many fond memories of standing trackside watching clay being loaded, particularly at Burngullow Dryer, or as rail buffs know it, Crugwallins. Watching the little Sentinel bring a few wagons at a time into the headshunt, and then propel them into the loop, then bring the next three into the covered loading area... that had a charm to it. So for me the idea of modelling this has more appeal than it might for some.



That said, there are ways to create more operational interest in a china clay layout. Clay comes in both bulk and bagged form, and those two were usually loaded in different parts of the works, so there's a bit of operation there in splitting up a train and placing the appropriate wagons in the appopriate spots. There might also be sidings where empty and loaded wagons are staged. Then there's non-clay traffic that was brought in to wharves such as Nanpean - this saw calcified seaweed loaded and pipes and valves from Stanton Ironworks unloaded for ECC's Drinnick Engineering Stores. In other locations, coal was brought for drys, power plants, and coal merchants. There's also some potential for "what if" traffic - Sulphuric Acid tanks on the Wheal Rose branch were once considered for receiving the liquid by rail. Oil depots have also been proposed but never came to be.

I suppose it's entirely possible that there was some kind of store at Quarry Close - it's just that if there was, I don't recall seeing any photo of it, or have any memory of Maurice talking about that.

The railway carried bulk dry lump clay in their hudson skips - everything they had was ww1 WDLR surplus including the simplex and possibly even the tracks. The tracks ran inside the dry rather than beside it, so if they also had a store as well presumably they just did runs in gaps between rain. A rather charming little operation.

Based on what you've been saying it sounds like you want a little more operational interest than just narrow gauge bringing clay between a dry and a siding. For this my recommendation would be a china stone works, with narrow gauge bringing china stone from the quarry to the mill, and another narrow gauge line bringing dried processed china stone from the dry to the standard gauge siding.
 

Quote

(wharf, if that's the correct Cornish term?)

A wharf is specifically a platform, but slightly taller. Most platforms are about 3'6" above the railhead, putting the platform about 6 inches below the carriage floor to allow clearance for doors to open. A wharf on the other hand is usually 4' or more and intended only for the loading of freight.

Wharves were once a common feature on Cornish branch lines, with clay being brought by horse and cart (later lorries) from nearby drys that were not rail connected, and sometimes not even large enough to justify a siding of their own. Here's a photo of the wharves at Meledor Mill - these were originally open to the public for the shipping and receiving of general goods, and as such it was known as a "public goods station".




 

6 hours ago, Dick Clark said:

Wow! Thanks for such a detailed and comprehensive reply! I ordered a copy of Charles Thurlow's book yesterday, plus another one on the clay railways around Cornwall - I can't remember the title, I'll let you know when it arrives.

 

I've obviously been under a complete misapprehension in thinking that the clay arrived at the dries in a semi-solid state, so my idea of it being delivered by narrow-gauge railway is way off the mark! I must have misunderstood the photos I've been looking at. I thought the 'raw material', for want of a better expression, was transported in V-type tipper wagons. Is it more likely that dried clay would be shipped from the dry to a store, as I understand was the case between Hendra kiln and Nanpean, on the Hendra Light Railway (I am attempting to join the dots in Industrial & Narrow Gauge Railways!)? 

 

This shows the importance of research - I could have made a very silly layout, like my last 009 effort, Upper Gumtry. But that was meant to be silly, albeit still with serious modelling.

 

My research has touched on something else which I thought would confuse me even more, but which I am beginning to suspect might make more sense. Ball clay - what's that, then?

In both the case of Hendra Light Railway and the Gothers Tramway, and indeed all other cases of the use of tramways, clay was brought directly to waiting standard gauge wagons. There was no intermediate store. The only railway that used such a store was the Pentewan Railway, but that's because the clay was brought to the railhead in St Austell by horse and cart, and it took some time before there was enough stockpiled to ship to the harbour. Also like much of the early industry all of these lines were "weather working", in other words they didn't cover the wagons so they could only run when it wasn't raining.

There was one and only one case in the Cornish clay industry where material was brought from the quarry to the works as a dry lump, which is with a lesser known material called China Stone. This is partially decomposed granite, not quite all the way to china clay, but a good source of feldspar useful in pottery with some added whitening properties from the partial kaolinisation. This material was produced in three distinct areas; the Luxulyan Valley, the area immediately around Nanpean, and the Tregargus valley stretching down from near Goonamarris to the village of St Stephens. The process involved bringing the china stone from the quarry, in the case of Tregargus via narrow gauge tramways, to a water mill, which would grind the stone down to a dust while adding water. The resulting slurry was then channeled to small settling tanks behind a diminutive pan kiln. Locomotives were never used in this process, the works being in a valley meant that the quarry floor could be accessed directly, and the mills were built downslope of the quarry so that gravity could be used to bring material to them, and horses to bring the wagons back to the quarry. In the early 20th century however, the industry began to modernize somewhat, building more modern crushers, trommels and screens, although the drying method remained the same. It's entirely likely that if output were to have increased at all, locomotives would've been brought into use. It's also likely that the industry would've looked at laying a tramway from their drys to the GWR. So that would give you pretty much the scenario you imagined, with a mill small inbetween.

An especially large example of the older style water mill - this mill is still extant today:




The newer 20th century crushers:



One other industry associated with the clay industry is mica. Mica is a by-product of the clay industry, which for the longest time was discharged as waste into local rivers. Mica did in fact have industrial applications, so enterprising Cornishmen set up lagoons to divert, capture and settle the mica from the rivers, which was then dried in a traditional pan kiln. The Pentewan Railway served two such mica works just south of St Austell, and others existed dotted around the clay country, with the practice fizzling out by the second world war. Environmental regulations eventually required that these "tailings" be impounded in lagoons, permanently putting paid to the mica works.

With regards to Ball Clay, this is a material that can be found in Devon. It is essentially kaolinised granite that has undergone a special weathering process. This is a secondary deposit - that is to say, it is not found in it's host rock, instead it was washed millions of years ago from the kaolinitic granite on Dartmoor down into the Devonshire valleys where it was deposited as a sediment. It is mostly dry mined, and in many cases can simply be taken directly out of the ground with no further processing required. The bulk of these works can be found around Newton Abbot and Bovey Tracey - a formation in the area known as the Bovey Formation is thought to be a sedimentary deposit in excess of 1000 feet deep.

Of course, another thing to keep in mind is that many tramways also had a return flow of coal, timber, and equipment from the GWR. Some lines were also somewhat a common carrier, bringing multiple freights over their metals. The Pentewan Railway for instance carried coal for a gas works and coal yard, mica, clay, china stone, barrel staves, and timber.

19 hours ago, Gilbert said:

Where is the location of the last photo in the original post?

Thanks

Chris

That was taken at the west end of Burngullow sidings, at the old slurry loading area. This was abandoned in 1990 when it was replaced with the new slurry plant, which consisted of a covered slurry loading shed and a covered tank wagon washing shed.
 

12 hours ago, Dick Clark said:

Hi Stoker, thanks for your reply.

 

I have Maurice Dart's book 'Images of Industrial & Narrow Gauge Railways - Cornwall' - is that the one you mean? I wish such books included plans or maps, but I guess that's something I can research myself.

 

My line will be fictitious, but I like to base things on prototypical practice as far as possible, whilst still giving me plenty of scenic and operational interest. I'm using two sides of a 9'x9' room, with a fiddle yard down the back of one side, a small terminus serving both industry and limited goods/passengers a la Moorswater along the other and the narrow gauge at a higher level along the back of both sides. The terminus will include sidings and a headhunt to serve the clay dry, with the dry itself in front of the fiddle yard. It occurs to me that the large, sloping roof over the dries as in your drawings could conveniently cover the fiddle yard, and be constructed to hinge upwards and forwards to give access to the fiddle yard. I am currently drawing up a detailed plan which I would be delighted to share when done.

 

What I really need to learn more about is how the dries actually operated. Clearly there's a lot more to it than just a shed! I can arrange to have a dry at least a scale 100' long, which I accept is still small, but at least it should do the real thing some justice. Do I understand correctly that the settling tanks were usually behind the dries, and resemble salt-drying pans? More information about the actual process would be very much appreciated.

 

Happy New Year!

'Images of Industrial & Narrow Gauge Railways - Cornwall' is a different book. Maurice produced another book titled Cornwall Narrow Gauge through the middleton press. You might be able to find a copy through amazon or ebay.

With regards to how the dries operated, I have attached a photo of a scale drawing of a cross-section through a typical dry as a visual aid.



As you can see, the dry was built into a hillside, with the settling tanks at a higher level on the right, and the tracks at a lower level on the left. This was not the absolute rule as some were built differently, and there were variations in the difference of height, but this is generally the way it was done. The area with the piled clay was known as the "linhay", pronounced linney, and the raised section beside it was known as the pan. The total section width of the building would typically be in the region of 35' to 55', with a total length (for standard gauge rail served kilns) of 210' to 350', however non rail served and narrow gauge served kilns were typically smaller, sometimes only 100' to 150' in length. The settling tanks "behind" the dry would be approx 7' deep, circa 40' wide, and as much as 100' in length, their length being perpendicular to the long axis of the dry. Note that "dry" and "kiln" can be used interchangeably, with their official name being "pan kiln".

A "hypocaust" style heated floor ran the length of the dry, made up of brick flues on 18" centres spanned by special porous pan tiles - this was the "pan" and it would usually be some 9' to 18' in width, 18" to 24" in depth, and usually approx 12' shorter in length than the building. A furnace house at the "fire end" would consist of one grate per 4 flues, and this was usually housed in either a lean-to or gabled structure, it's floor often being level with the linhay floor, but sometimes slightly higher depending on the steepness of the hillside the dry was built on.

At the opposite end was the chimney, generally 10 feet in width at the bottom, tapering to 5 feet at the top, and around 75' in total height, with  two thirds of it's structure being of stone, one third brick. Between the chimney and the pan flues would be a damper, simply a large steel sheet operated by a lever or counterbalanced rope. The damper would be used to strike a balance between keeping heat in the pan and drawing draft for the fires. Too much damper and the fire burns weak, too little damper and you end up with entrained ash dropping out of suspension in the flues. A periodic maintenance task with dries was to lift up the pan tiles to shovel out ash, not a pleasant task.




Clay slurry would be piped to the feed end of the settling tanks, which was the end furthest from the dry, and allowed to settle. The doorways between the settling tanks and the dry would be boarded with so called button boards, which possessed holes for placing corks. The cork holes would remain unplugged as the tank filled, allowing clarified water to flow out into the drain gutter inside the dry. As the tank filled, the cork 'buttons' would be placed in the holes, and so the next board up would allow the clear water to discharge, thus the tank would build with settled clay. Once this process finished, tracks in the settling tank allowed settled clay to be trammed into the dry from the settling tanks in the small wagon pictured in the diagram, which would be positioned on the travelling bridge and moved to the appropriate spot along the pan. Here it would be dumped out and allowed to dry.




Moisture would typically be drawn through the pan tile, such that both steam and smoke emerged from the chimney. Once dry, the pan would be shovelled off into the linhay below, where it would sit in piles to await loading for onward transit. The drop-off between the linhay and the rails was usually known as the loading edge or wharf, and it's depth generally depended on the type of wagon or type of packaging being used. For instance with casks or bags, it was usually preferable to have a loading edge height of 4' above the railhead, as this put the linhay floor level with the wagon floor. But in the case of lump clay, a loading edge height of 6' to 7'6" was preferable, as this put the linhay floor level with the top of the wagon.

By the 1930s many of these pan kilns had been adapted to work with filter presses. The process of shoveling wet clay into wagons and then tramming them into the dry was known as a "muck wagon kiln", but when a press was used they were known as "press kilns" or "press house kilns". These presses, usually a pair contained within a structure called the "press house" generally located centrally among the settling tanks and against the back wall of the dry, consisted of circa 100 approx 4' square cast iron recessed plates hung on an I-beam girder suspended between two cast iron bulkheads.




The plates, dressed with filter cloths, would be mechanically or hydraulically pressed together to form a watertight seal. Clay slurry would then be pumped in to the press plates by electric centrifugal pumps from the settling tanks at pressure. Each plate had a hole in the centre through which the slurry could move from plate to plate until the entire press was full. Clay would then build up in the space between the two cloths as pressure increased, with filtered water on the other side of the cloth leaving the plate through drain holes at their bottom corners. Once pressure reached a certain point indicating that the press was full, the pump would be stopped and the feed valve closed. A drain valve would then be opened, allowing the unfiltered slurry in the centre of the press to escape and return to the settling tanks. Once this cycle had been completed, the press would be opened, and the "filter cakes" would be dropped down onto wagons waiting beneath the press. These wagons would be run inside the dry onto the traversing bridge and dumped onto the pan, with the cakes to be broken up into smaller lumps. The former doorways leading into each settling tank would be bricked up, and pipes would run from them inside the dry to bring settled clay to the press house. The clarified water would be skimmed from the tank using a contraption known as a "banjo", this consisted of a pipe in a T shape, with the head of the T having a slot through which water could enter. The banjo was fitted on a pivot so that it could be raised and lowered using a rope on a spool, and the operator would watch for the colour of the water exiting into the gutter to make sure he hadn't lowered it too far. Since the clay tended to settle uniformly across the floor of the settling tank, men would be tasked with "shyvering" or "poling" the tanks - this task involved using a long pole with a flat blade at the end to "push" the settled clay toward the drain. This was an arduous task which had to be conducted in all weathers. This settled clay was usually pumped to a smaller tank immediately next to the press house, and it was from this tank that the presses would draw their feed.

Within the linhay, by the 1950s sometimes small front end loaders were employed. Usually this would be a Muir Hill LH1. Some dries had a conveyor belt bringing dried clay up to a bagging machine, which was a big hopper with a screw conveyor beneath it - a bag could be slid over the end of the screw conveyor, which could be run until the bag was full, greatly reducing the amount of time it took to shovel clay into a bag. This stuff is possibly a bit ahead of your intended era.

I would strongly recommend looking into the Gothers Tramway (pictured below) and the Hendra Tramway, the details for which can be found in Maurice's books. The dry in the picture is 250' x 45', but a much smaller one existed at the Gothers complex a mere 150' x 38'.


 

5 hours ago, Furness Wagon said:

I have found a small Dry on the Wentfordbridge branch that looks like it pre dates the ones at Wentford. They are opposite Spital  Woods. It appears on the 1908 map but I have never seen anything written about them or any photos. Does any one know anything?

 

Marc  

There were several rail served dries in the Bodmin area apart from just Wenford. You are correct that they are not well documented, but I do believe Maurice Dart mentions them in his East Cornwall Mineral Railways book.

Just now, Dick Clark said:

Hi - I’m Dick, I’m new here, but finally joined rmweb because of this thread! I’ve been planning a Cornish branch/industrial layout for over a year without finally settling on exactly what industry. I’ve been thinking quarrying, tin or copper mining, or clay, and clay seems to be winning. But there is a lack of information about what the clay industry actually involved in, say, the mid to late 1930’s. I’m looking for something that could feasibly require a 009 feeder line with a transfer to standard gauge, and it would seem a clay dry might be the perfect solution. And I may have enough room for a near-full size dry! Have you made any progress with your book? 

Hi Dick,

You're in luck, there were actually two narrow gauge feeder lines in the 1930s connecting clay drys with standard gauge. These were the Gothers Mineral Tramway and the Hendra Light Railway. Both are covered in detail in Maurice Dart's excellent book Cornwall Narrow Gauge, a recommended read. The former ran from the Gothers complex, westward across the Goss moor, to a loading wharf alongside the St Dennis branch north of Parkandillack. The latter ran from a dry at the southern end of New Hendra pit, southward toward Nanpean, to a loading wharf on Quarry Close siding, also on the St Dennis branch west of Drinnick Mill/Nanpean wharf siding and east of Treviscoe.

One smaller and lesser documented line existed in the Luxulyan valley near Ponts Mill, with a much shorter run between a dry and a wharf on the Ponts Mill siding. This was steam worked although sadly no photos are known to exist.

The industry in the 1930s was in the beginning stages of modernization, but not much really visually changed since the previous decade. The power plant at Drinnick was built in I believe 1936, and this saw an increase in the use of electricity (lights, conveyor belts, etc). Drys were all still coal fired, although with electricity now readily available some were equipped with mechanical stokers, a feature that became more common through the 40s and 50s. Some electric pumps were in use, but many Cornish steam pumping engines and waterwheels still worked the pits into the 40s. The first "mechanical shovel" front end loaders could be found in some drys, and the industry was making greater use of lorries. Drys that bagged clay were also being fitted with mechanical bagging equipment, loaded by front end loader and conveyor belt. Many drys at this time also had their settling tanks converted to work with filter presses, which mechanically dewatered the clay pumped from the settling tanks, rather than waiting for it to settle out and be trammed out of the tanks. These filter presses produced "cakes" somewhat like giant flat sticks of butter, which were broken up and spread over the heated "pan" floor of the dry. These dried to a much lower moisture content much more quickly than the thick blocks of the old "muck wagon" method, thus requiring less fuel and increasing the output of the dry.

Another recommended book that goes into more detail is Charles Thurlow's China Clay: Traditional Mining Methods in Cornwall, which can be found on Amazon for the price of a cup of coffee.

As for my own book, I am still working on illustrations, captions, and written sections for it. It may be a few years before it sees print. If you have any more specific questions, you can always reach out an ask. I'd be happy to answer as best as I can.

Thanks Pete, I do hope so. I've been trying to start a layout for, oh... 10 years? It's been so long that I've forgotten what it's like to even run a train! But I'm getting closer and closer to a CAD that I'm happy with, so hopefully it won't be much longer.

The nice thing about waiting is everything has advanced a lot in that time. I've got much more historical clay industry information now than I did then, and there's been a lot of model releases. We're also a lot further ahead in terms of DCC, especially in the sound department. The Tang Band speakers are absolutely incredible - these are the speakers that Hattons have chosen for their 66, and the bass you get on them makes a huge difference to the realism. I still remember when sound first came out, it sounded like it was being played through the little speakers you'd get in novelty greetings cards, and it was so bad it was almost comical. They aren't so much to sniff at now though! The Tang Band speakers don't fit too well in HO scale locos, with the exception of "cowl bodies" like F units, but they fit just fine in most 4mm scale UK prototypes. This combined with the great work Legomanbiffo has been doing with ESU Loksound makes this a great time to build a layout.

Even better though, is that thanks to the EM Gauge Society, we now have EM gauge ready to lay bullhead track. It looks so good that I'm going to feel bad about burying so much of it in concrete! At any rate, not having to build trackwork is a massive bonus, as it frees up a lot of time that would've otherwise been sucked into an extremely mundane task.

 

1 hour ago, Theakerr said:

Great Journey Eh?  Bet you miss the snow now that Christmas is here.

Miss it? I'm still up to my knees in it. I'm actually 4 degrees further north than I was in London ON, but the snow amount here is about the same.

I agree and I think this is why most of the best model railways are (with the exception of some prodigious individuals) usually collaborative efforts. For instance, those at clubs, where the expertise of many individuals can come together to build something much more life-like. Your example of the bridge reminds me of a layout I saw quite recently which had a scene where a JCB was digging a hole in the road to install pipes... the only problem was it was on a bridge!

I think you're right that in some cases ignorance is bliss, and for those people I tend to just leave them alone. If people ask for information I give it to them, but otherwise I just try to make the information available to those who are looking. This is why in the opening statements of my post I mentioned the chap on here who wanted a smaller dry than in existed in reality. Rather than tell him all the reasons why this would be wrong, I just let him get on with it. If he's happy to make that compromise then so be it.

However I will say that forums, books, and the internet are just another way that a layout can be a collaborative effort rather than a solo project. "Standing on the shoulders of giants" and all that. Without RMweb I doubt I could build a layout at all... my knowledge of trackwork, signalling, and accurate railway operational practice is woefully lacking. For instance not too long ago I had to ask some really basic questions about couplings! But the great thing is that RMwebbers are always more than happy to help out, and I am eternally grateful for their assistance, even if at times we don't always see eye to eye.
 

31 minutes ago, Dungrange said:

However, to those working in other occupations, such issues probably wouldn't be picked up on.  To many the representations of China Clay facilities on the layout are simply there as a 'label' to say 'these are the sidings that I shunt my China Clay wagons into'.  'I have no idea what actually goes on there, but I shunt the wagons into this siding and then take them out again'. 

And that's fine, people build stations in the same manner, and if you're happy with it then fine. The only problem I have with this, and the motivation for the post, is that to me it's just a crying shame of a missed opportunity if this is the only thing anyone ever does with china clay on a layout.

But there needs to be more than me just saying that, I think I need to actually show people what can be done by building my own layout, and that's just what I intend to do. I've pretty well resolved to write a book now - I had planned to do so years ago, however at the time I was thinking to use archive photos and simply couldn't afford the licenses to publish them. But upon rethinking, I don't think archive photography are really what's needed, I think an example layout is what's needed, and then lots of drawings, diagrams, and written information will be more helpful.

On 30/08/2019 at 08:58, rob D2 said:

Interesting post. I think most modellers start in reverse - I’ve got some clay hoods, I like 37s , I like Cornwall , what can I do with them ?

 

personally the reason these industries exist on small layouts is for operational interest - to do some shunting. I’m not too bothered ( and I suspect 80%) aren’t abut the whole process or maximum accuracy.

 

Now I could take over the whole loft and have a bash at Burngullow , but I’d have to build a load of structures and what could I run ? 2 trains a day maybe ?

 

If I were to use that space , I’d need way more operational interest, afterall im a railway modeller not a structures modeller 

The problem with having this attitude is that trains do not exist in a vacuum, and if you become too narrowly focused on them, you just end up with yet another peco-on-plywood. If that's what you're happy with then by all means don't let anyone stop you, but this post or indeed really anything I've ever posted on RMweb aren't really aimed at those people.

The fact is that (some) people care enough about structures not to put an LMS signal box on a GWR layout, and they care about scale enough to want platforms that match realistic train lengths. If you ignore the interplay between structures and trains, what operational interest do you really even have? Trains have to come from and go to somewhere... unless you're content to watch a roundy roundy.

Now personally, I suspect that the real reason for the lack of good representations of the trackside element of the china clay industry is entirely down to the lack of good reference material on the subject, and very little else. If you want to know how long and wide the average station platform is, or find drawings for a standard GWR signal box, guaranteed you can find that information in more than one book. But to the best of my knowledge there is no single source for similar information as it relates to china clay trains.

The whole point of my efforts on RMweb have been to try to provide some of this information, but maybe I really should just take it a step further and publish a book, both in print and as an e-book. That way the info is there for those who want it, and those who don't give a toss can simply give it a miss and carry on.

4 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Though it's probably not your era, did any of the china clay works use narrow gauge railways to load straight into main line wagons or would the standard gauge siding always be alongside the dries?

Yes they did.

The 3' gauge steam worked Gothers Tramway brought clay from the dries at the Gothers works to a loading wharf along a section of the St Dennis branch back when it used to connect with the Newquay branch.

The 2' gauge Simplex diesel worked Hendra Light Railway brought clay in Hudson/Jubilee type skips from the dry at the edge of New Hendra pit to the Quarry Close loading wharf siding on the St Dennis branch just west of Nanpean wharf.

There were also many loading wharves, with at least one on every clay branch in Cornwall. These were basically just platforms built to around 4' to 6' above railhead, and allowed clay to be brought a short distance by road from smaller drys that lacked their own siding. When I say smaller drys, I mean some were really small. The absolute smallest I've seen was a building just 100' long, and 30' deep, with a single settling tank to the rear, and internally a drying pan a mere 9 feet in width and 80 feet in length. This is roughly 50% of the size of the smallest directly rail served dries. A layout built around this operation would be able to fit into a small space indeed, and would also have additional operational interest in the form of public goods, coal, and timber.

14 hours ago, jbg said:

Andrew,  your memory is quite good - the linhay is 21.5 in long on Wheal Elizabeth but as you say, in reality this is a pretty small works like the Carbis works.

 

I have been playing around with ideas based on the Wenfordbridge line on and off for a while but having visited the site last week while on holiday it is clear that this facility is somewhat bigger than its final output would suggest - according to "Map my Run" it is about 650 m long.  The buildings are Listed and still standing and although fenced off are clearly regularly accessed by "visitors".  I found a planning notice on part of the site dating to 2010 when there were plans to convert it into apartments and although that hasn't happened. the Local Authority website might have some info.

 

Like others, I find the clay industry and the rail facilities a fascinating subject and aspect of rail operations in Cornwall but, as Stoker, has said in the original post most facilities are way too large for just a corner of a layout but may lack the operating potential needed for me to sustain interest if modelled as a single facility especially in the air brake era of clay trains. Clay hoods are a little easier but you do need a lot of them to make sense of operations!

 

I look forward to seeing developments on Stoker's Rosevear project and also to learning much more about the clay industry as this progresses. 

  

I have noticed that modellers have a tendency to be attracted to the same works over and over again (Wenford, Carbis, Pontsmill, Kernick, Blackpool) I suspect because they appear in "atmospheric" photos that are perhaps more widely circulated than others. These are often works that would be quite far to the bottom of the list of works that I'd recommend to modellers due to their size or lack of operational interest. Other, much more reasonably sized works existed, however it seems that the vast majority are simply unaware of them, and true enough usually few existing photographs of them ever made it to print. One confounding factor here is that of copyright... historic photos that can't be published because the copyright owner is holding it to ransom for some grandiose and unrealistic sum. Thus most of the books we have on the subject come from those who either have a large personal archive, or friends who do and don't object to publication. All, of course, much the detriment of modellers and historians.

You also bring up the issue that china clay works can sometimes be more interesting to look at in romantic John Vaughan kodachrome format than to actually experience in (model) reality, and the problem only gets worse the further back in time you go. In the days of manual handling, standard procedure was to simply park a rake of wagons in front of a linhay, and then leave them there for however long it took for them to be loaded with wheelbarrows. Things only got more interesting once wheel loaders, bagging machines, mills, and chemically graded clays entered the scene starting in the 1930s but thanks to the war not really becoming widespread until the 50s.

One of the things that I have been doing over time is creating some china clay layout plans based on works that I think would make suitable candidates based on a criteria of interesting operations, wagon and traffic variety, and minimal compression in a small space. These designs are mostly based on a single 8' x 4' sheet of plywood cut approximately in half to give baseboard depths of around 2' to 2'6". I still have a few more of these to do, so I think once I have a reasonable number I should put them all in a future blog post.

11 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

Going right back to the OP, the 64cm depth of that building is a bit of a problem but I don't understand why the 1m length would be a problem on any layout.

Rosevear seems to have produced a very comprehensive CAD drawing there. Was that intended to be used to manufacture a kit of parts via digital tech? I would be interested in a set.

That's 64cm deep when including the settling tanks and the single track siding in front of the linhay. Were it to be reduced to just the building, the structure would've been 1 metre by 20cm.

I hadn't really thought about producing any kind of kit of a clay works until you mentioned it. My 3D CAD drawings are simply used as a scale reference mock-up - I find it's easier to build a 3D model where errors can simply be deleted, and if I'm modelling a prototype as the model progresses it can be compared against photos to ensure the correct dimensions have been captured.

I have considered in the past producing a series of smaller, Cornish themed resin buildings, ala Scenecraft. For this kind of thing I'd mostly be making Cornish cottages, mundic bungalows, Cornish Units, etc. To produce a kit for a china clay dryer, I'd really only be able to offer it as a craftsman kit, basically just all the raw materials required and a set of templates and instructions. This is most certainly something I'd be willing to offer if people would be interested.
 

5 hours ago, drduncan said:

On Empire Mills, the MRC’s now sold EM layout, we had a dry about 1m long based on a rather unique  dry with a central furnace (the name of the real dry escapes me). We had to reduce the length of the model by about 1/2 to 2/3rds and it still looked massive! 

That would be Carlyon Farm dry, the prototype still stands alongside the former Trenance branch. Built by John Lovering, as evidenced by his signature square plan chimney stacks, it was announced in press statements to be the "largest dry ever built". It actually wasn't! Great Treverbyn dry at Par (served by Alfred and Judy) had the longest drying pans. For continuous rows of conjoined pans with furnaces and chimneys between, both Blackpool (back before it was modernized) and Wenford held the record jointly, roughly 1/3rd of a mile of drys.

The smallest drys served by rail were a handful of drys that were under 250 feet, but over 200 feet in length. All were roughly 40 to 50 feet in building width, and had settling tanks that extended anywhere from 60 feet to 120 feet behind the building. If you were to compress the settling tanks out of the equation, a realistic coal fired dry (circa 1890 to 1960) can be had in a space 1 metre long by 16-20cm deep.

The loading edge by the way was usually divided into multiples of 20 foot lengths, because that was the length of one china clay wagon, buffers and all.
 

2 hours ago, dogbox321 said:

Would be nice to see a plan view of a clay works showing what happens and where.   Along with any photos showing the finer points.   I had seen on a video in the past, where China Clay is extracted using water, but that then must be a nightmare to move, and process, unless the customer wants it in slurry form, as per the Irvine flow (which is where it was discussed).  

 

Likewise - before mainstream electricity - which I am expecting is used in any kilns/dries now, then prior to that was it coal?  I assume that was rail hauled in?  Then that needs sidings, unloading etc.  The more you dig, the more questions it opens up, as to what goes on behind that building which on a layout shows china clay in a storage shed waiting to be loaded into a wagon!    

 

Regards,

 

C.

Without at all meaning to sound condescending, I think it's really interesting and informative to see the point of view of a person who knows nothing about the industry and what questions they have, and I thank you for commenting. The difficulty of being a teacher is remembering what it was like to know nothing, and reading your comment it very much takes me back to the days when I was a curious child who had so many questions about how the industry worked.

Although I have made a few topics on the subject and answered questions wherever they cropped up on the forum, perhaps having a single reference source would be more useful to people. I'm considering starting a separate blog detailing the industry, with all the topics divided up into individual blog posts for easy reference. Is that something that people think might be useful?

I assume you meant "mounting" not "mountain"!

Yes I've thought about going that route too. There's an art and framing store a short walk from where I live that could probably supply the material. The only thing you'd have to be careful of is the thickness. Using fine sand to partly fill the gaps between the card and the rail you could hide the sleepers while leaving enough room for the flangeway. Then For points where you won't be able to use the sand trick, I think I'd be tempted to use the card to fill the gaps between the sleepers.

I think I might just have to pop up to the model store to get some cheapo code 100 points and track to test this out.

It feels like a bit of a waste to bury such nice trackwork under concrete! But nonetheless I look forward to seeing how you tackle it.

The real thing was done in two pours - the first pour established a base slab onto which the track was bolted, the second pour brought the concrete surface level with the railhead. The second pour was shuttered on both sides of each rail, and so far I've yet to see anyone model this detail. The idea was that the track could be removed and replaced since the bolts were still accessible. I think you could probably do it with a first pour to fill the gaps between the sleepers, and then glue some styrene angle section either side of the rail up against the chairs to act as a form for the second pour. If you wanted to be super realistic, use some fine sand to partially fill the gaps. In less travelled bits plants and grasses would grow in the sand, another detail perhaps.

Another detail I never see on model clay works is hose pipes for hosing down the concrete after loading. The loading edge wall would have spigots and coiled up hoses hanging on hooks. You can see what I mean in this photo on the right hand side just below Elaine.

I'm pretty sure my grandmother used to have a 3 piece bathroom suite in the darker shade of brown...

Just came across this:



Completely forgot I had this photo, but it's one my Dad took on one of our trips up to Imperial dry, and it shows the brake van I was talking about earlier.

Definitely empathise with this and I'm sorry you're having to deal with it mate. I've had to take a 12 year break from the hobby, with only minor indulgences inbetween, because of similar struggles. But you know what's great about that? In the intervening years, the hobby has advanced tremendously. The fact that I now have a Sentinel, Cargowaggon, Polybulk, and PBA "tiger" hoppers, sat in boxes in my drawer, is more than I could've dreamed and it's opened a lot of doors. Added to that is the Hornby 08, Dapol class 22, various other clay wagons by DJ Models and Dapol, Hattons coming out with the definitive class 66, and Bachmann retooling their class 25. Winding the clock back 12 years, that stuff would've been a HELL of a lot of scratchbuilding, kitbuilding, and superdetailing! I like scratchbuilding, but not 98% of my fleet!

If you can find the motivation to check him out, I can highly recommend the work of Dr Jordan B Peterson. Whether it be his book, 12 rules for life, his interviews on podcasts such as the Joe Rogan Experience, his youtube videos, or the online Self Authoring Suite... this guy has probably helped more people, particularly men, to get out of depression and get their life back on track, then any other psychologist at any time in history. Truly an extraordinary guy and his work has helped me immensely.

21 minutes ago, bcnPete said:

 

Many thanks Stoker - Good story that...perhaps this is where you got the railway bug...certainly the China clay influence!

 

Good to see you have started a blog too...

It's good to be finally building something after all these years.

Actually you're partly to blame/thank for it. We moved house last November and that gave us cause to visit Ikea, where I noticed the "Lack" shelves. This of course prompted memories of "Coombe Junction", which caused me to visit RMweb for the first time in a long time. It also confused the wife as we started talking at crossed purposes about why certain shelving would be a "good candidate" - I only realised when I told her that I'm just not sure if I want to go N scale again... "...what does that have to do with my books?"... oh....

This looks great Pete.

BR brake vans remind me of my first day in the scouts as a boy. Living in Penwithick at the time, my local scouts was in Stenalees, and on my first day we went on a group walk up the Goonbarrow branch from Goonbarrow refinery to Imperial dries. This was of course the former home of the CSLPS, who some years prior had moved out and set up at Bodmin General, but had left behind a few wagons including, as you may have guessed, a BR brake van. We spent about an hour or so running around the works and playing on the wagons. Pretty bloody good I reckoned. All the scout leaders were women, but they knew how to keep young Cornish boys entertained that's for sure!

Sadly the wagons were all destroyed by arsonists before the society were able to move them up to Bodmin, so I never got to have a "reunion" when I volunteered on the B&W.

Nice work Jack. I'm curious to know what you plan on doing next? There's a lot of space there meaning a lot of scope for more structures and details.

A few criticisms/suggestions (picky ones, because I'm a clay geek):

-I've noticed the linhay doors have no lintels! These were usually timber, sometimes concrete, sometimes brick, and a bare few steel and segmented granite. A lintel over each door will help "finish" the structure. There are a number of ways to do this on a "finished" model, but probably the easiest is just by simply gluing some thin styrene strip in place above each door to represent the timber lintel.

-Also consider adding guttering and downpipes. Clay kilns had really large roof surfaces, and required quite a hefty drainage system.

-The trackwork looks a little bit clogged up with ballast, on the sleepers etc. It's also patchy, deep in places, light in others. Good choice of colour however. Consider going over it with a flat screwdriver, to chisel the ballast off the tops of the sleepers, then build up any areas that are a bit thin. This should even it out.

-The track immediately in front of a linhay should really be set in concrete. The only exception to this is if your layout is set quite early on, for example 1930s/40s. Plaster and fillers of various types can be used, even wood filler. The resulting effect from having set the tracks in concrete is usually very realistic.

-The corrugated roofing appears to have no sheet overlaps. I know this seems trivial but it really does make all the difference. Overlaps should be set at approximately 6.5 foot intervals. The best way to achieve this is to simply cut the corrugated material into 13mm wide strips, and then use thin strip at the bottom of each strip of corrugated to give it a slight angle, as if it were overlapping a sheet underneath it.

-The tracks look a little close to the kiln building. The loading edge was often a few feet away from the wagon, with planks being used to bridge the gap for wheelbarrows. Modern hydraulic front end loaders have plenty of reach. Some sites had portable conveyor belt loaders. So no need for the kind of tiny gaps at train stations.

-You've modelled the buildings in half relief, but personally I would've used a bit more of the foreground space by modelling the kiln in full scale width. In N scale this works out as around 90mm wide. This allows for the prototypical positioning of chimneys and furnace rooms.

-You're probably already aware of this but clay kilns were almost always built into a hillside or slope of some sort. Because of the fact that you've modelled your kiln in half relief, the backscene is very close to the foreground, so you've lost a sense of depth there, because the overall scene just terminates at a wall, where otherwise it would've been a gentle slope.

-Your silo is not too unprototypical, these types have been used in the past for fine clay, such as clay from a mechanical mill. These were fed by pneumatics, augers, and bucket conveyors. Usually underneath it would be a big bulk powder bag on a pallet, with a loading tube aimed into it. The loading points for clay slurry however were basically a pipe on a gantry, with a big valve, a loader's shelter, and a flexible rubber tube. The actual slurry tanks were large, tall, floor mounted vertical tanks. These required some pretty hefty pumping equipment due to the clay thickness.

-As for the oil, to the absolute best of my knowledge I don't think there has ever been oil delivered by rail to a dryer. Oil fired mechanical dryers recieved a restock of oil from a tanker lorry, and were kept topped up. These were a bit larger than the type you have on your layout. Usually horizontal, but sometimes vertical tanks of about 6 feet diameter, 25/30 feet in length, usually in a pair. These were usually sited a "safe distance" from the dryer building.

-Looking at your model I'd say you would've been better off with one length of kiln building, rather than two short buildings joined. The only reason I say this is because 200 feet is basically a minimum length for most kilns in Cornwall. The few that are much smaller are really really old, or just simply not rail connected.

That's about all I can think of at the moment. Apart from that, nice little concept, good overall sizes, buildings all look the right height, etc. I hope this helps anyway.

Best,

Scott.