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Thank you for this idea and link. There would be problems of cost and accommodation with such a device, and in keeping it busy in future. Maybe, though, I know somebody who has one. It is regularly employed cutting signage vinyls for a living, so it would not be polite to compromise its cutters with thickish hard sheet. If it could cut off the little corners of each pot then that would be pleasant. Also the half-millimetre slot for the tied pots. In the meantime I could try cutting some strip, bevelling that, and the end corners of each plate prior to separating. Handling 4mm by 3mm pieces of plastic may or not be practical, and the placing of tiny chairs. Another option would be run the yard in its 1930s form, before the pots came - they look new in the pictures taken in 1947. Richard.

To answer my own question, 16 into 45ft. gives 33 1/2ins, which will look right when compared with the Aberystwyth pictures. In 2mm scale 5.5mm spacing will be easy to apply. The fun will be in fashioning the pots out of styrene strip and cutting the slot for the tie bar. Also in mounting the chairs (obtainable as tiny mouldings from the 2mm Association. It will be worth making a couple of jigs, no doubt. The tie bars may be the easiest part - short lengths of code 40 rail can buried in the ash ballast, so that the 0.5mm wide rail head (or foot) is all that appears. Yes, a bit overscale, but easy and available. Probably the spacing of pots was closed up each side of rail joints. Likely this refinement will get forgotten. I hope not. Thanks again for the help. Richard.

Thank you Brian R for asking this question and for the replies. Could you kindly quote those spacings from the diagram, which I do not have? Or will the stated 16 or 17 pairs of pots per 45ft (also kindly mentioned) be adequate in small scale? I am faced with needing to model some lengths of this track in 2mm scale in order to depict a former GWR goods yard prototype. Richard.