Rocketman54

The Urie/Maunsell N15 'King Arthurs' were a mainstay of Southern/SR Exeter-Bournemouth passenger services on the Marshwood Vale line from the 20's until the later 50's when withdrawals began in earnest. All gone by the late 1962. Depicting the mid 1950s, 30803 'Sir Harry le Fiske Lake', with the smaller 6-wheel tender, heads a rake of 'blood & custard' stock on a Bournemouth - Exeter train. This type of secondary route was a natural stamping-ground for Bulleid light pacifics, which took over more services following the demise of the 'Arthurs'. The recent acquisition of Hornby West Country 'Wilton' allows me to stretch time forward a little towards the mid-60s and the final few years of Southern Region steam.

Against the backscene at the factory end of the layout are a couple of scratch-built low-relief buildings, one houses a bakery and offices for the dairy and the other is a small stables, loosely based on the standard GWR brick built design. With intensive railway use of horse-power until the mid-20th century, stable blocks - sometimes of considerable size - were often found near goods facilities yet seem to be less commonly represented on steam era layouts.

The Marshwood Vale line links Weymouth to Taunton via Chard (Chard & Taunton Railway taken over by the Bristol & Exeter Railway then the GWR). In doing so it also offers a through route to North Devon via the Taunton-Barnstaple line and thereby becomes, effectively, 'coast-to-coast'. Some recently acquired Hornby Hawksworth coaches in BR maroon allows portrayal of the classic combination of this stock with a Churchward mogul, so typical of Taunton-Barnstaple route services during its later years before closure. An SR S15 with a short engineering train waits in the loop while a Barnstaple-Weymouth service draws in

To complete an engineering formation a Cambrian Models GWR 6-ton hand crane and match truck were recently assembled, quite a testing task (given the assembly instructions!) but the end result was worth it, a very characterful addition. An ageing 4 wheel brake coach completes the ensemble - a Ratio kit.

Circular inspiration! Woodstowe was a significant influence when creating Broadwindsor, I particularly liked the stone building with the lane curving up around it (subject of a magazine article?) as well as the scenic run into the station past the loco shed. Wish I'd had a bit more space (as ever) to spread things out a bit. At least it's not heavy to move!

The layout is primarily intended to represent the mid-late 1950's but to add variety it also appears in '35-39 or '64-'66 guises. By the latter period steam has largely disappeared from the regular WR services which are also experiencing rapidly diminishing goods traffic as Bridport docks decline and road transport makes an impact. The through route to Taunton closes in 1966 and control of the Marshwood vale line passes to the Southern Region whose traffic is still buoyant, the only remnant of WR services being the diesel railcar served Chard Shuttle for which no viable replacement bus service is available. SR services are still predominantly steam hauled albeit the older classes have been replaced by standard types and diesels will increasingly appear.... By '63 the pick-up goods was still in evidence and steam worked but withdrawal of local goods services was imminent. Here a 45xx waits in the loop whilst the Chard Shuttle, now in the hands of a 'Bubblecar', arrives at Broadwindsor. A Drewry/class04 shunter is now allocated for yard, dairy and MOD work The 'big guns' have arrived - D800 class Warship 'Onslaught' guides a Taunton-Weymouth service through the station BR Standard types predominate on local SR passenger services from 1963 by which date such busy station goods traffic is an increasingly rare sight.

Thanks for the kind remarks. As has been observed many times, a smaller layout is more approachable where the many smaller scenic elements are concerned, less chance of 'detail fatigue' and more likelihood of completing it all! However, I think this layout is now just about detailed to the max, any more and it would become overly busy. Time to move on to creating the fiddleyards, less fun but most essential. (I know I should have ideally sorted this at the outset but as the layout has moved rooms several times the positioning of the yards was indeterminate.)

Cameo Scenes on Broadwindsor Broadwindsor was built with several aims, one being to explore and develop basic layout building methods plus scenic and structure scratch building techniques and skills. Another objective, given that this is very much a limited space layout, was to create a ‘snapshot scene’ purely for visual enjoyment and experiencing characterful aspects from earlier times. The end result is, effectively, a diorama and within this I enjoyed devising a number of relevant cameo scenes. Some of these are fixed whilst others occupy spaces which offer the scope to make changes from time to time, maybe adding a slight change of emphasis and fresh look. Typically this might involve changing vehicles, figures and general paraphernalia such as crates, smaller items of freight etc. The cattle in the livestock pens are on a detailed, removeable base so that the pen can be displayed empty or instead hold sheep, pigs or horses. As I wanted to avoid anything overly dramatic there are no unlikely and cops’n’robber chases, marching bands, circus trucks or burning buildings etc! Nonetheless, whilst everything going on is quite plausible and relevant it would probably not all be occurring at the same time! Bye-gone Broadwindsor was certainly an industrious place! The roadside loading dock adjacent to the livestock pens is a busy area and useful to ring the changes on cameo scenes. This can be anything from swapping vehicles for different periods, groups of people and light goods being handled for loading/unloading. Here a cattle truck is about to take on a few Herefords from the pens. This model started out as a Base Toys box van. With the help of period photos for reference, new livestock bodywork, complete with ramp, was constructed to replace the box. The driver/herdsman is from the Dart Castings range. In the next shot the cattle truck has left to be replaced by that of the local wholesale vegetable merchant. Crates and sacks of produce which arrived on an earlier train are being loaded. The lorry is also by Base Toys and has been altered to present one of the sides in a dropped position. The figures are by Modelu and modified Dapol with crates by Scalescenes. The 'produce' is home-made from whatever does the job - and a very fiddly job it was! 'Out the back' of the dairy factory is an area occupied by the cycle shed and a small scrap metal heap including the rusting remains of a delivery truck, abandoned when the engine failed terminally. The truck is based around a Hillman Tilly from an Airfix WW2 bomber servicing set which has also proved useful in providing items for a number of other features. Wedged into an otherwise unused patch of ground is the basic Permanent Way yard. It includes a typical hut and van body storage shed and the site is strewn with a number of defunct, discarded or forgotten odds'n'ends of railway engineering casually dumped and becoming overgrown whilst awaiting clearing away...at some point. Gangers collecting aggregate from the pens seem to prefer chatting to shovelling! Next door is the rear of the dairy’s engineering workshop/smithy and yet more discarded junk. The figures are Modelu and Dapol and the defunct Lister/Petter style stationery engine has been created using scrap plastic and de-flanged wagon wheels. The shed yard scene is a fixed cameo and the figures are by Modelu and Dart Castings with the oxy welding gear being a 3D printed item. Some basic maintenance activity is implied - between chat breaks - with various general items, lamps and hand tools scattered around. The goods yard is another area where a change of activity or period emphasis can be made. The nearby MOD camp has its own sidings, as evidenced by the train in the background. However, individual military related rail deliveries arrive in the yard occasionally, in this case a fire pump which the sappers have been sent to collect with their jeep (both Oxford Diecast). Representing a slightly earlier period, a Bedford light haulage van (John Day whitemetal kit) is caught leaving the yard. The horse drawn coal merchant's cart is a Dart Castings kit and the water bowser from Oxford Diecast. Somewhat concealed by the dairy buildings is the oil tank for an auxiliary boiler undergoing maintenance. The scaffolding tower is another item from the Airfix bomber servicing set whilst the tools are by Springside Models. Finally, at the station entrance the crew - in summer uniform - of the local Western National bus answer questions from a passenger about the timetable. Figures are from Dart Castings.

Scenery With much of the wider, ‘western’ end of the layout taken up by the diary complex and goods yard it fell to the ‘eastern’ side to accommodate most of the rural scenic elements and groundworks. Although the baseboard narrows to only 400mm deep I wanted, as much as possible, to have some modest elevation and a sense of the railway passing through the west Dorset landscape in high summer. It helped having the track and station towards the rear, leaving just enough at the front to work with. I decided to slightly raise the land level with fields and a ‘specimen’ Oak tree at the central point of the layout lengthways. This idea has worked better than anticipated with the Oak offering a substantial structure for trains to pass behind whilst creating a focal ‘pivot point’ around which the whole layout revolves visually. The tree overhangs a ruined barn housing an old haycart, a sub-scene which adds further interest and character. To the left of centre, a wedge of cornfield stretches in front of the PW yard and dairy loading bay. To the right of centre is a field with orchard before another, smaller tree provides a visual break with the loco shed area. Interestingly, the landscaping elevation at just 40mm, was originally twice as high. I found the first attempt, the height of which in planning seemed modest, actually obscured the view of nearer trains too much whereas the revised profile provides just the right effect with a gentle slope down to track level. The highest land elevations on the layout are found on the gorse-covered area (complete with tethered goat!) behind the loco shed and the field behind the eastern end of the platform and signal box, thus providing enough height match the Peco road bridge - even this has had its original dimensions reduced. Altogether there is just enough undulation to avoid the ‘flat earth’ look. Signal box, shed and point rodding from the Wills/Ratio range with a scratchbuilt 'sentry box' loo and coal bunker Cover for the fields uses static grass though I found my ‘tea strainer’ applicator somewhat ineffective and kept this to the grazed areas. For the rougher areas on the banks I tried dyed teddy bear fur and was very pleased with the result, being also somewhat finer in the strands. This was applied by trimming off small clumps of fur and placing it into wet PVA. The cornfield, although technically a ‘static grass’, was similarly applied by hand (not as tedious as it sounds) and has resulted in a less regular, more natural appearance. The central Oak is based around hazel twigs grafted together to form the trunk and boughs, the tree to the right of the field is a twisted wire effort and the apple trees are enhanced Hornby items with red apples represented by beads. Other trees around the layout are mostly of twisted wire armatures or proprietary items with foliage considerably enhanced – I like the appearance of a dense, full leaf effect. By including a fair number of trees I have been able to achieve a well wooded character for the layout, enhanced by the backscene. Although quite a few of the trees give the impression of being ‘large’ they are somewhat smaller, relatively, than might be the case in real life - big trees to scale height would be impressive but sadly take up far too much room and be overly domineering on such a small layout!

Engine Shed A sub-shed of Weymouth, this facility is scheduled to close as WR steam is phased out. And so it looks somewhat shabby, being passed over by the painters who recently attended to the station buildings. But there will be a few years reprieve when administrative responsibility for the line passes to the Southern Region during boundary changes and steam continues appear on some local SR services. This corner of the layout is the one feature carried over from a previously aborted effort, consisting of a kit built Wills loco shed and the gorse covered raised scenic area behind. The shed has been mildly enhanced by the attachment of an office from the Ratio range and the yard includes coaling and watering facilities, an inspection pit and water standpipe. The characterful, antiquated yard lamp is by Dart Castings whilst the coaling hoist is a recent addition and there’s a rack full of fire irons. The grimy, overgrown environs are littered with typical detritus - rusting oil drums, an ash pile, sleepers, barrows, buckets etc.

Broadwindsor Station The main station building is a freelance design suggestive of the West Country and was made in my usual way by first sketching out the concept then interpreting this to scale drawings on the computer. Construction employs a card shell overlaid with Wills Stone sheet whilst a planked wooden extension at one end forms the gents. For the station concourse area I again used Wills - paving this time - but for the rest of the platform areas it was sandpaper off a roll which handily obviates joins and gives a subtle textured finish to suggest very fine gravel. The parcels office is also a freelance design and passengers waiting here have a good view of the engine shed opposite. Country stations such has this often had minimal visible signs of life but it looked a little empty so I added some characters on the supposition that as a through route served by trains from two separate regions and with an MOD base nearby there were likely to be busy periods. The bay at the western end serves the goods shed and loading docks plus livestock pens. Station Road behind the buildings is narrower than would be in reality due to width constraints but is able to fit in a Bedford OB Western National bus and looks convincing enough. Ex-LSWR Drummond 'Black Motor' draws an engineering train out of the goods yard and through the loop over the access to the engine shed. Below an N-Class arrives with an Exeter-Bournemouth train.

Thanks Graham. I had a peek at your artwork website, very impressive and great figure work. The slightly diffuse style of some works are ideal for a backscene, that slightly hazy, atmospheric look as a counterpoint to the sharpness of the foreground modelling. Edward Seago is one of my favourite artists - esp his watercolours - and your landscape rendition indicates that you have understood him well.

Goods Yard Buglers, the coal merchant, are situated at the wider end of the small wedge-shaped goods yard alongside the siding which also supplies a coal heap for the dairy’s boiler. This area includes the coal office and tool shed plus an old water bowser which has been abandonedand forgotten about. The main line passes behind the yard and exits the layout at the rear corner through a 'hole in the world' disguised by trees. Further, goods and livestock facilities are located on the bay siding. The dairy complex looking west showing the rail-served loading bay with a cycle shed and small scrap heap to the front. The private siding has gated access beyond the P/W site.

Thanks Dave. Bet my Photoshop is older than yours - and I've got even earlier versions! My similarly ancient, steam-powered Mac runs on a very out of date O/S which annoyingly means increasingly restricted web access (use a laptop for this). If I update the O/S my P-shop and other apps will almost certainly not work and now the current P-shop is only available on very costly subscription - so I'll leave things be until the Mac finally goes pop! I have up to date Corel Draw as a back-up for illustration work on the laptop and this looks even more capable than my old P-shop but the smaller screen is not so good to work at. I'm threatening to delve into lino-cutting so who knows - maybe I'll do the first lino-cut backscene! Sadly, Broadwindsor is stay at home only, the downside of detail is that it's very delicate (and there are not that many exhibs in Devon). Plus, I've a way to go with finishing electrics and fiddle yards. This makes RM Web a good place to show others the layout.

Creating a West Dorset Backscene Thanks for the comment Dave. The backscene was journey not for the faint hearted! It consists of dozens of photographs from a variety of on-line sources which were then taken into Photoshop and cut out individually, manipulated, reversed, colour corrected, resized and everything else. The scene was put together to simulate the west Dorset countryside as one 2.5m long low resolution image. When happy with the result I applied an overall filter to soften the appearance and support rather than compete with the model, something which I feel can be a negative issue when using plain photographic backscenes. Getting roads to line up with those on the model required a fair bit of work and quite a few test prints. The final output was on my A3 printer with the scene split into individual prints but I have since found a local print shop which can do it in one long run so will update it at some point as it's fading and bubbling a little now. If you know anything about Photoshop, the artwork file grew to over 100 layers, a lot to keep track of! In reality I only went to these lengths because I could not find a suitable photograph(s) of the area from the right angle, seasons etc. If you are fortunate enough to have scenic images which are fairly suitable as a starting point then it would be much more straightforward to put these together than my version where all the hills, trees, buildings etc were applied individually. Most of the current photo/image manipulation computer programmes can easily handle this work. I was fairly pleased with end result but could have painted something acceptable by hand with much less effort! The entire run. Fences and hedgerows truncate at odd places as they would be hidden by features on the model. In fact, quite a lot is obscured when in place. A section of the final photo composition. Everything was placed together as separate images, even the sheep and tractor! The layering system allows one image to be placed over/moved/resized relative to another. The hills were also layered individually and given colour recession to create distance. Once this was complete all the layers can be combined to create a single image and the diffusing softening filter applied to give the effect in the lower image

With the ‘West Dorset Dairy’ factory as a starting point I began to plan the layout with straightforward trackwork as some surrounding scenery was required to give a sense of location. Space restriction has kept scratchbuilt structures as compact as plausibly possible - which usefully helps make the whole appear larger than it is! For example, the dairy and yard complex looks quite substantial but I was able to fit this towards the front of the baseboard with a coal merchant/small goods yard beyond and the running line right at the rear and without a sense of overcrowding. This has taken the full 0.6m depth of the board at the ‘western’ end but a reduction to 0.4m was necessary towards the ‘eastern’ end to accommodate the control area. On the private siding, 1365 propels milk tanks into the loading bay past the engineering workshop Time to tackle that overgrowth!

Steam gradually disappeared from the West Country during the early 1960’s and personal memories are thereby limited, the oldest being an afternoon visit to Bristol Temple Meads for my fourth birthday where we stood on a platform extremity looking across to the big Bath Road steam shed (sadly little movement going on at the time). Soon after the shed was gone, replaced by a new diesel-only facility (also now long gone). My paternal grandfather was an ex-GWR engine driver working freight trains and, not far off retirement, became vexed when ordered to undertake diesel driving training. He disliked them and couldn’t see the point in the circumstances. Sadly, his agitation was such that it added to the causes of an early demise. Broadwindsor presents a model depicting, largely, steam in the countryside at work on through trains or yard shunting. My core period was to be the late 1950s, I liked the idea of a summertime railway which was quite busy but, as a minor route, just a little run-down after the wartime/austerity period, with vegetation encroaching in places and a generally bucolic character but with a few grimy corners. 0-6-0ST 1365 is the allocated shunter during the mid-1950s and here it passes between the cornfield and a small PW yard, drawing wagons out of the dairy’s private siding. By the end of the decade a 57xx pannier tank had taken over general shunting duties but this will be short-lived as diesels soon make their presence felt when the 60’s get under way. As a former GWR/LSWR line now under BR Western Region control and, with my created ‘back story’, there was scope to justify a greater variety of rolling stock and train types than I had space to deploy! Broadly speaking, locations such as this changed very little between the 1930s and the implementation of Beeching and I realised that by overlooking the WR colours and substituting a few vehicles interest could be added by running the layout in pre-war or mid-sixties ‘end of SR steam’ periods with appropriate stock. This latter could introduce a few diesels into the mix and was particularly poignant to me having been fortunate enough to be on holiday in the New Forest during the very last week of SR steam. Whilst there I witnessed Merchant Navy’s rushing west to Bournemouth, filthy, unkempt and nameless yet still loved by crews giving their charges an impressive final high-speed work out. The haunting sound of distant steam trains across the Forest on the still June evening air remains an abiding memory. Merchant Navy’s are not usually seen on the Marshwood Vale line except when moving light engine between Exmouth Junction and Bournemouth/Weymouth sheds but an exception sees this one in charge of an empty stock working en-route for Exeter. A pre-war view across the cornfield as a T9 heads a Plymouth bound train through Broadwindsor.

“Broadwindsor” wasn’t originally planned as a layout depicting a small station in west Dorset. Some years ago I was slowly drifting back to the hobby, my last functioning layout being created mid-teens, decades earlier and the period wherein most of my railway modelling terms of reference lay - technically at least. A typically abortive attempt at a small layout at least gave me some fresh grounding in modelmaking, track ballasting etc. but space was very limited - and it had to be 4mm scale. Reading an article about a small, rural rail-served dairy built by Geoff Forster for his Penhydd layout proved somewhat inspirational. I liked use of earlier, Victorian style architecture rather than the more usually represented 1930s brick built/white Art Deco styles of creamery. With only a few feet to play with the idea was to create something similar but in low relief with a very basic track plan - a diorama rather than a layout. Unsurprisingly, the low relief format became a fully modelled dairy facility and the idea was hatched to locate it in the south-west area of Dorset, my then home county. Due to the space limitations the dairy was at first stand-alone but a plan developed to add a nearby branchline halt which then evolved into a small station with yard on a minor through route. Having often visited the south-west Dorset area I was always somewhat surprised that the LSWR had never actually linked their London-Exeter and south coast main lines. I found myself musing about such a route and hence the concept of the “Marshwood Vale Line” resulted in the location of Broadwindsor as the setting for a layout. Knowing what I wanted didn’t magically increase the space available but a house move to Devon did, albeit slightly - very slightly. I realised there was space running along the wall behind my workstation for whatever I could fit onto a 2m x 0.6m scenic board with 90 degree turns to fiddle yards at either end. This was still really going to be as much a large diorama as a small layout and my objective had more to do with creating, in effect, a ‘3-dimensional painting’ of a rural industrial scene than a technical tour-de-force for rail operations.

Broadwindsor West Dorset is the location for my compact WR/SR layout set primarily in the late 1950s. First the fake history, a bit of backstory to set the scene. Broadwindsor station began life as a simple halt on the Marshwood Vale Line and it's purpose was to accommodate the needs of a lineside dairy as well as the local village area. The dairy prospered, expanded and became rail connected. By the early 1900s an all-services military site had opened just to the west whilst to the east the railway now served a quarry as well as a lumber company. This justified adding a very small goods yard and a complete upgrade of the halt to full station status with new platform, buildings and a bay siding for goods and livestock handling. With the military camp also having a rail link installed a small engine shed was built to house a shunter found necessary to cope with the demands of these various rural industries and installations. The Marshwood Vale Line, at less than 20 miles in length, was constructed as single track but, as it grew much busier, congestion was eased by upgrading to double track for a few miles westwards from Beaminster, the line's principal station. A joint GWR/LSWR enterprise, the line was administered by, firstly the GWR and latterly the BR Western Region although it was always generally regarded as an extension of the LSWSR (SR) Waterloo-Weymouth main line. The route sees a considerable mix of traffic, both freight (particularly from Bridport docks) and passenger with WR trains between Bridport and Taunton via Chard Junction and SR services between Bournemouth/Weymouth and Exeter Central. In addition there is frequent (mostly SR) MOD traffic between the many south coast area military and naval bases. Local passenger needs are covered by two regular services from Bridport - the Chard and Axminster 'Shuttles'.

The Marshwood Vale Line Part of a supposed minor secondary line in south-west Dorset, The Marshwood Vale Line connects the ex-LSWR’s Waterloo-Weymouth and West of England (London-Exeter) main lines through a route between Dorchester and Axminster via Bridport. A connection which could have existed but never actually happened making rail travel to the west for locations between the New Forest and Dorchester awkward. In my version of reality, Bridport and its neighbouring harbour at West Bay, some 17 miles west of Dorchester, developed into a much more prominent town and busy docks including an (LSWR operated) cross-channel ferry terminal. Such growth encouraged an LSWR extension to Bridport from Dorchester whilst the GWR also arrived via a branch from a junction with their Castle Cary-Weymouth mainline at Maiden Newton (this last did actually happen). This made the W/E and south coast main lines tantalisingly close for the LSWR. Normally bitter rivals, the GWR and a budget-restricted LSWR agreed to jointly develop a route diverging from the GWR’s line just north of Bridport to eventually join the W/E main line near Axminster. A separate extension north to Chard Junction connected with the GW branch to Taunton. The GWR took control of infrastructure and operations, intentionally limiting LSWR ambitions by constructing a largely single-track line whilst also acquiring running powers for the valuable freight traffic from Bridport to Exeter over the LSWR W/E main line and the ability to run north through to Taunton via an upgraded Chard branch. Linking its two main lines brought the LSWR many benefits including stock movements, boat trains, passenger services from the south coast to the west and lucrative traffic between the numerous military/naval bases around the south coast. Ultimately, the LSWR’s descendants won out as freight from Bridport docks declined and both the ex-GWR lines from Taunton and Maiden Newton closed in the mid-60s. Still proving both useful and viable, the Marshwood Vale Line remains open to this day, albeit typically rationalized. The main station on the route is Beaminster with another at Marshwood whilst a halt at mid-point also found itself busy enough by the early 1900s to grow into a wayside station - Broadwindsor - and so a nice subject location for my 'compact' layout!

Grimy corners - that overgrowth will fill quite a few barrow loads.