Nearholmer

Anyone recall the four-seasons on the Wisbech & Upwell layout? I shall “give due consideration” to all of these suggestions.

Worst hen-steak out? Or: Worst hen stake-out?

While we’re in Cuckmere Haven Appreciation Society mode, this zoom-in on a Britain from Above photo is quite interesting. It shows the seaward end of EST&T operations at a very early stage, 1934, when I think they were acting as a contractor to the river authority under their previous name. You can see the dragline excavator, and how the track crosses the river by fording it (I thinks there’s a skip in mid-stream). I’m not sure whether you can still do it, but it used to be common practice to walk across at roughly this point at low tide. The river mouth was “tidied up” in the 1930s, and groynes put in or strengthened, I’m not sure which, to prevent longshore drift stopping-up the river and causing flooding further up stream.

Tragically not. Right now, though, slap in the middle of the critical path, and obstructing actual, physical progress, is a lack of baseboard alignment dowels, so until I can get to the shop to collect some, all we can do is invent history. In ever greater detail. The way to operate this layout, if ever it gets built, must be as a sort of march through time, aided by the fact that southern stations were painted in the same colors for years on end. We could start in the early 1960s, with green 2-BIL and either a Terrier. P, or a Drewry 0-6-0DS on the sand trains, move through the 1970s with blue EMUs, sequentially BIL/HAL, SR HAP, BR HAP (blue), BR HAP (blue and grey), with an 08/09 for the sand trains, and end with the first stumbling steps of the CVLRPs. Quite how to replicate the slow decay of everything over that span, I’m not sure.

I think I’m hooked on the idea of EST&T having a loco of their own, but i think giving them a steamer would be taking things too far. But, talking of steamers: in 1982, BR decided to close the line, because the sand traffic had disappeared by then, passenger receipts weren’t really growing, and the track, and particularly the bridge across The Cuckmere, were getting to the point of needing serious expenditure. Enter The CVLRPS! A group of earnest young chaps, mostly with beards, who lease the line from BR. The CVLRPS began in the usual way: some clapped-out diesel shunters; some old utility vans; a couple of tatty MK1 suburbans: a Terrier; and, an ex-army Austerity tank that was useable until the boiler ticket expired, with which a shuttle was operated over part of the line. Lots of tense debate with ESCC about level crossings, and the grotty mess of old wagons, and things under flapping tarpaulins that were creating a blot on the landscape at Exceat, but eventually they triumphed, which is how come the line remains open today. I’ve never seen a realistic model of a station yard in early preservation days, when they looked like ill-tended scrap-yards, so that might make quite an interesting optional way of using the layout.

Depending upon precisely what faux-history we invent for the CVLR before the SR upgrading of the mid/late 1930s, it could well have had typical LR stations, and The Dyke definitely fitted into that mould, but I don’t have room for anything like that, unless in low-relief, which I think would look a bit odd. i did build a layout of The Dyke, in EM, to scale, but it ground to a halt, because I ran out of enthusiasm once I’d laid the track, and spent 20+ years as a winter hotel for field mice, in a shed, before going to recycling.

Without this expanding beyond remit (very small and very portable) there isn’t room to get the EST&T NG line in as well. Postwar, they had two MR, and pre-war two quite rare R&R, so no NG RH. This is what I came up with yesterday, which fits while not looking too cramped, and I think looks plausibly like a light railway terminus that has been amended to become the exchange point for an industrial premises. The EST&T loco would propel too here, and haul from, passing under the (imaginary, off-scene) loading hopper with the wagons, so no point work at their premises. Incidentally, there are a few photos of the pre-war EST&T premises, but although I’ve seen photos of the postwar locos, I’ve never found better than this of the ‘works’: It had been closed for several years by the time we used to go down there fishing, but I seem to remember there being remnants before it was cleared and turned into a car park. For those who don’t know, mixed sand-gravel aggregate for concrete making used to be called “beach” in Sussex, because that’s what it was, and I remember the excitement when a lorry came to our house with “two yards of beach”, and being taught the fine art of mixing concrete for shed-bases and paths by my father when I was about 3yo.

The first point to note that the far end goes into a fiddle-yard representing the line to Berwick, which I probably ought to have mentioned before, because it is quite important! The second point is that the photo exaggerates the near, and compresses the distant quite severely. As it happens, I was fiddling about with the track layout again yesterday evening, and what eventuates will probably not be exactly like this anyway. You’re right that the sand traffic is key to play value, and I’m even toying with the idea of providing EST&T with their own SG shunting loco, possibly an RH 48DS that can only manage one or two loaded wagons at a time, to maximise play.

Yes, one of the many reasons why it’s such an interesting spot is the military remnants. Even in the tiny space I’ve got, I’ll need to include a bit of abandoned military concrete, probably dragon’s teeth are all that I can fit though. The locale has gradually been ‘gentrified’ since it became Seven Sisters Country Park; it had more of an air of abandonment about it, even as recently as the 1980s. “Wet String” electrification of branch lines is a lot simpler at 25kV, because the currents, and therefore voltage drops, especially with a single train driven gently, are very low. I haven’t dug out old reference material and done the calculations, but six miles of single track from Berwick on the third-rail system would have been right on the limit, even with the low starting currents of two car sets. My instinct is that it could possibly have been done by using “negative reinforcement” (scrap running rail laid in the four-foot and bonded to the running rails), and a track-paralleling hut part way (to give a circuit breaker that could be set very low; I don’t think that Track-Current or Track-Impedance relays were used in the 1930s), but it might have been necessary to run 33kV to a rectifier at a mini-substation part-way, which would have pushed costs up markedly. Certainly if the thought was to grow the traffic significantly, then the latter.

It would certainly have been in the character of The Southern to provide a decent station as a spearhead for bungalowfication of the place when upgrading the line, so quite why they didn’t here, when they did at, say, Bishopstone, and Allhallows, neither of which ‘took off’, I’m not sure, but they didn’t. Maybe things were at a critical stage when they realised that war was inevitable, just as the New London Airport development at Lullingstone was. There the new station was three-quarters finished, when: “The Southern Railway announces that the opening of Lullingstone Station (between Swanley and Eynsford) to serve the Lullingstone Airport, announced for April 30, is “unavoidably postponed.” [Daily News, London, Wednesday, 26th April 1939]” It never did open, although bits of it were still in situ when I used to have business at the adjacent substation in the 1980s. Or, maybe this layout is more like an overgrown diorama, so doesn’t have room for a big building. Or, maybe there was something rather special about places like Southease, where you bought your ticket from the signalman (there were others like that, on the West Croydon - Wimbledon Branch, for instance), and then had utter peace to listen to curlews and gulls while waiting for the train.

Not formally, no, but it has been known as “a new city”, rather than “a new town”, since the inception of the development scheme in the 1960s. The loco was written-off in a very nasty collision at Colwich Junction in 1986, and for a long time (maybe still) one of the nameplates was displayed in a memorial garden alongside the site of the accident. PS: just looked it up, and the garden has been re-configured, and fenced from the railway, which is why it’s not so visible from passing trains now, and it seems to contain both nameplates, flanking a memorial to the driver of the loco.

I think that if I have to make, rather than buy, legs, I would probably make a master set, maybe four entire assemblies, and attempt to cast them using resin, or sweet-talk somebody into laser-cutting them in ply. I think I-beams would look too like the more modern, all-steel, designs, rather than concrete. The easiest option, of course, would be to use the PECO concrete platform fronts, which represent exactly the same thing in its “enclosed and back-filled” form, but the open trestles are so much a feature of these low-grade places that were rebuilt for electrification that I think I really have to do it the hard way. This is “down the road” anyway, because there is a lot to do before we get to scenic embellishments. Actually, can I ask a couple of other “down the road” questions? - have Bachman every produced the BR 2-HAP in plain blue livery? - is there a kit for the “SR” 2-HAP available these days?

I’d forgotten that, so will have to check. The Dart ones are exactly right, but they will work out expensive.

Not in this model railway alternative universe it didn’t …….. otherwise I’d have no goods trains.

Huge thanks for that pointer. I was looking at “legs” in Southern Nouveau yesterday, and thinking that I might have to devise a mass-production method for them.

One on; one off; and, one in the wash. As they said about The Great Kings Lynn Derailment of 1887.

It’s so comforting to see familiar faces.

At some date, the line was severed at the A21, and for river/bridge works, I think where the big bridge crosses the Rother, but I’m not certain when, possibly early-70s, and I certainly recall going on a 4W railcar from Bodiam northwards (not sure how far) in the late-70s or early-80s, over original, rather iffy looking, track.

This looks like what I used as a basis https://www.hattons.co.uk/470463/bachmann_usa_52652bac_dockside_0_4_0_116_of_the_santa_fe/stockdetail The wheelbase is too short, which results in a waggy back-end, but the rest is very helpful, because the chassis casting/weight gives. A basis for creating the saddle-tank that is very much the right size and shape. It’s a long time ago, but I think I had to cut away part of the front of the casting to allow for an exposed smoke-box. Joe Works used to make a rather nice kit for a tiny one, which you might still be able to find if you hunt long enough, and Minitrains currently do an 0-6-0ST version, and I wonder whether you could divest that of its middle wheels and its bunker to get to a plausible 0-4-ST ….. it does have an incredibly short wheelbase. This might be good for thought: https://paxton-road.blogspot.com/2017/12/porter-0-6-0st-in-009.html And, here’s the job done for you! https://www.shapeways.com/product/V2ETGV8BF/009-porter-main-body?optionId=301294845&li=shops

I have no clear idea when track was lifted (in fact, I have an inkling that some of it never was - my dim recollection is that it was severed, but left in-situ) so when I saw the caption I wondered if there was an outside chance that a Crompton had staggered up there through the undergrowth on a scrap-recovery train at some stage, but I was highly sceptical, hence my question.

Ah, now, that seems a lot more plausible! I wasted a lot of time trying to work out where at Rolvenden there was a deep-ish cutting, and concluding that the answer is ‘nowhere’.

There have been several drawings in NG&SLG over the years (since the 1970s!), I think there are drawings in ‘Steel Rails and Silver Dreams’, and possibly one of the books about the Huntsville & Lake of Bays railway, but these are all rather obscure sources to access, some of the drawings are made from photos anyway, and as said there were different classes/sizes of the locos of the same general form, I think ranging from as small as 6 Ton, certainly 8 Ton, upwards, just as there were with the equivalent Bagnall 0-4-0ST in this country. I built one in H0e in the 1980s, using IIRC a Bachmann N-gauge mechanism and ‘innards’ from a B&O ‘docksider’, and that I simply “eyeball scaled” from photos, and nobody ever complained! PS: Try googling for a Grandt Line 8 Tonner kit in 0n3. There might well be a copy of the instructions for the kit on-line, and they contain a drawing. That model is incredibly accurate, and really fiddle to build! Earwigo! Whole Grandt Line catalogue, with drawings of several classes https://oscalecentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Grandt-200.pdf

When was that Rolvenden photo taken? I don’t think I’ve seen a photo of a Compton on the KESR pre-preservation, and TBH I thought they were too heavy for it anyway.

Have a look through the several photos here: Similarly utilitarian approach at Norman’s Bay: And at Aldrington: All the former LBSCR “motor train halts” were treated in a similar (lack of) style when the lines were electrified in the 1930s, so this is the look I’m after.

I’ve closed my “this could be the start of something small thread” now that the dimensions of small (scenic area 1800mm x 400mm), and the “something” (4mm/ft, Southern Region, 1970s) have become settled, and will try to keep this one more tightly on theme. We are at the seaward end of the Cuckmere Valley in East Sussex, just south of what is now the Seven Sisters Country Park Visitor Centre at Exceat, for those who know the area. The railway started life as the Cuckmere Valley Light Railway (a real scheme that was kiboshed at the public inquiry stage in 1899, https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/8fcf6125-3f05-4f65-b829-909f96456d9b), palmed-off on the LBSCR, and inherited by the SR, who saw the opportunity to despoil the landscape with a seaside resort, so electrified and somewhat upgraded the line in 1936-37. The War put paid to the resort idea, as it did to several other similar SR schemes, and the line bumbled on, depending upon slowly increasing tourist/leisure traffic, and traffic from the ramshackle plant of East Sussex Transport & Trading (a very real sand and gravel extraction firm that had its own quite long 2ft gauge railway, https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/5c7c5017-d884-4a9b-8e0d-4905c355e29a , the date of this agreement is a bit of a mystery, because their railway was in place long before 1950). We arrive about 1970, and depart no later than about 1982, during which timethe passenger train service is provided by successive generations of two-car EMU, and sand traffic from EST&T trundles up the valley, a few wagons a week, behind a shunting loco that is out-based on the line, to be attached to freight trains at Berwick, from where it goes to the midlands somewhere to be used in the making of very coarse sandpaper. The track-plan will look something like this (ignore the Terrier, imagine that the top left siding goes into the premises of EST&T, and that the passenger platform is on the right, where that hut is standing): The greatest inspiration in terms of aesthetic is to be Southease & Rodmell on the Seaford branch, which is to say SR concrete-economical at its best. I’m rather fishing for help with some of this, because I’ve not touched standard gauge in 00 or H0 since a US layout that I built c1990, and am all at sea when it comes to sources of parts, kits etc. The thing in my favour is that I knew the railways of this area in great detail in the 1970s, so know exactly what I’m aiming for in terms of atmosphere (faded glory!).