betehumane

Have Templot, will plan track. Above all else I keep trying to remind myself that this is a first attempt and a trial effort to learn things, pick up skills and make mistakes. And so it needs to be small in scale and acheivable in time and resources. Luckily at the moment I don't have a cavernous loft/spare room/barn waiting to be filled with Venice-Simplon in gauge 1, so my kitchen table makes a handy size constraint onto which the whole thing should fit for construction and should the joyous day ever arrive, operation. I printed out the templot plan, stuck it all together and tried a first mock up on the table. Here a some fuzzy shots of how it looked. Keen-eyed observers may notice that the "warehouse" designed to view-block the exit road has its origins in Duplo medieval castle pieces - I think there may be a fair few other lego mockups along the way...

Well all I can say at the moment is the next train to arrive will be...arriving at some point. I can't say when and I don't really know yet what it will look like when it does, but at least, for the moment anyway, I'm pretty sure where. Yes, as far as I'm concerned, the next train to arrive, will be arriving at St Germans Quay. It will have set off earlier in the day from somewhere in the westernmost reaches of East Cornwall, Liskeard possibly, or maybe on a shorter run from Menheniot. It will have busied itself for a while at Trerulefoot Junction, awaited the passing of a through or two bound for Penzance or Plymouth, then set off diverging hard right and down, seemingly with designs on Looe before revealing more modest intentions with a continued, curving descent to Polbathic. A brief stop, hisses, creaks and birdsong, then on again, hugging the creek almost at water level, the wooded valley rising opposite whilst ahead the broadening lake marks the joinging of three rivers ahead, and journey's end. A final tight curve, the outskirts of the village just visible on the hillside, and then the view is dominated by the towering spans of the viaduct, right across the valley, high above and carrying Castles, Halls and Counties on other prestigious business. Meanwhile down below, a more modest and ramshackle piece of railway forms our terminus: a single platform, clinkered sidings and crumbling quay wall. Time to run round, take water, prod lethargically at a few grubby wagons and then back the way it came. To be repeated, with a few variations, until the inevitable axe falls. But if it's going to arrive at all, I'd better get building.