For many years now I have wanted to make a model railway, and have had a couple of false starts along the way. There were two things working against me; lack of space and lack of time. I don’t think I am alone in having these problems.
Living as I do in a rather small house I found that I simply don’t have the space to dedicate a room, or even part of a room, permanently to a layout. Storage space is also at a premium, so even if I made a layout that could be folded away it would have to be unobtrusive, and I wouldn’t want to be spending much time assembling and disassembling it when I fancied playing trains.
Working full time and having other interests away from railways I have found I tend run out of steam with larger projects that take longer to build. I enjoy modelling, but am less excited about the other aspects of building a layout such as baseboard construction, electrics, etc. What I do like is building as much detail as I can into small, non-repetitive projects.
These constraints and preferences led me towards micro-layouts, and after following on-line a number of other people’s projects with interest I decided to base my layout on the Ikea “apa” storage box. Although many of the apa layouts I found on line were 2 mm scale, I thought it must be possible to do something reasonable in 4 mm as well. A couple of years ago I obtained three apa boxes, and until recently all of them were usefully employed providing storage while I worked out what I was going to do.
Since 1991 I have had a keen interest in china clay railway operations in the south west, kindled whilst on holiday in Cornwall by the purchase of John Vaughan’s book “The Newquay Branch and its Branches”. Over the years this has led to several photographic trips and a number of official visits to clay sidings. During this time I also started to scratch build several different types of china clay wagon, so it was always likely that when I did build a layout it would be based on clay operations.
Final persuasion for building a small clay layout came from “St Minions”, the scenic section of which is only slightly bigger than an apa box. This convinced me that it was indeed possible to build a very good model with operational interest in such a small space. Inspiration from the prototype came from the area between Kernick and Treviscoe sidings on the Drinnick Mill branch. I had always wanted to recreate a particular photo in the Newquay Branch book; for those of you that have it see page 144, plate 230, where large-logo 37 412 is seen reversing into the Treviscoe loading area to collect wagons. The track layout in this area is quite similar to that of St Minions, and this finally convinced me to start work.
Trethosa is my interpretation of what might have been if things had turned out differently. Until 1948 there was a twelve inches to the foot scale Trethosa siding located to the south of the main Drinnick Mill branch, diverging near the present-day Kernick sidings. There is a 1930s photograph (plate 53) in Maurice Dart’s book “West Cornwall Mineral Railways”. It closed in 1948 due to expansion of Trethosa clay pit; but what if the geology had been different and the pit had expanded in a different direction, away from the railway? Like Kernick and Treviscoe the sidings at Trethosa would most likely have been modernised during following years, and with expansion of the pit may have come increased output and the need for more loading sidings.
My track layout is very similar to the east end of Treviscoe, with the addition of an extra connection between the sidings to allow increased operational flexibility. Like Treviscoe, and the majority of modern clay railheads, the sidings are all set in concrete, apart from the main running line. In my fictitious world, at the northern end of the complex is East Kernick siding, moving southward Trethosa is passed before reaching the terminus of this small branch line at Trethosa Wharf, which was a small public goods station similar to Nanpean Wharf. The current model depicts the area between East Kernick and Trethosa, with the option that an additional apa module containing Trethosa Wharf may be added as a future project.
Apart from china clay, traffic on the branch includes household coal, calcified seaweed and the occasional cement delivery. Clay is loaded in bulk powder and bagged powder forms at Trethosa and East Kernick, with the occasional load of slurry transferred from lorries to rail wagons at Trethosa Wharf. The intention is that the model can be set in any period from the 1970s to present day, although I think I will focus on the late 80s and early 90s as I am a particular fan of the railfreight red stripe livery worn by St Blazey’s 37 196, and later by its class 37/5s. However, I like the idea of being able to run 25s, 37s, 45s, 46s, 47s, 50s, 52s and of course 60s and 66s in the later years.
Apart from modelling the sidings themselves I am also trying to reproduce some aspects of the clay landscape and infrastructure that surround the railway at places like Treviscoe, Drinnick Mill and the Rocks works at Goonbarrow Junction. Whilst I will not be staying faithful to any one particular prototype location I hope that by taking elements from each area and combining them I can recreate some of the atmosphere.
I started the model at the end of March this year, with construction of a mini baseboard that sits inside the apa box. At the moment I am only working on the scenic section of the layout, the fiddle yards will come later; I didn’t want to be distracted by running trains while there is work to be done! The track within the apa box is complete and the sidings have been set in “concrete” (actually fine-grade filler). Plain track is C&L flexi-track, the point on the main branch is a C&L kit and the points under the concrete are modified Peco code 75 electro-frog, all but one of which I had already. The code 75 switch rails have had their tie bars removed and copper-clad sleeper tie bars installed, to allow the switch rails to be spaced in a more fine-scale way. Currently all points are switched by Gaugemaster PM4 self-latching point motors, mainly for their compactness to fit the limited space under the baseboard. I may modify the electrical switching on these to make them more reliable, as I find that the limited throw of fine-scale switch rails can sometimes mean the frog ends up dead, which is a problem when running shunters. The layout is wired with DCC in mind, and I have recently purchased a NCE Power Cab controller.
Scenic work has so far been confined to the front area of the model, with spoil tip, settling pits and culverted stream currently taking shape. I have also begun to weather the main branch line. However, there is a lot left to do, not least the construction of the Trethosa and East Kernick loading sheds, pipe bridges, pedestrian bridges, pipelines, conveyors, etc, etc.
I’ve included some snaps taken with my phone and a basic plan. The 37 and polybulk are placed to give a sense of scale. All stock will be detailed and weathered in due course, after the bulk of the layout work has been completed.
I'll try and keep this blog updated, and promise not to make entries as long in future!
Cheers,
Kevin.
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