Artless Bodger

A turntable for New Hythe - part one. The original plan for this layout did have a turntable, though in subsequent re-hashings I deemed it unnecessary as the diverging lines from the terminus formed a reverse loop and I could easily turn locos by a trip around the layout (much as I had with the old layout). In any case I didn't have room for the PECO one, nor did I want to cut big holes in the baseboard top (it's wonky enough as it is). After re-hashing to the final (? - current) plan, using the reverse loop didn't seem such a good idea, and a turntable re-appeared. There was just enough room for a short one - scale 55' or 60', which would handle my tender engines, all 0-6-0s or 4-4-0s. So a circle was drawn on the baseboard and the track laid temporarily across it - and thus it stayed for months. The baseboard has a layer of 3mm cork floor tiles on top of the Sundeala - it at least means the PECO track pins don't project which was a source of gouged knuckles on the old layout. By using a through girder type I could get away with just removing the cork to provide the vestigial pit required. Now, how to build one that worked? By worked I mean just drive on drive off without finger assistance, so power connections required, rotation would be by direct manual assistance. Web searches, provided prototypes (mainly GWR, though Guildford had a through girder turntable SR ones otherwise seem to have been all deck types), ideas for power supply, drive etc. But how to construct it? I had time when walking to think up schemes; rails soldered to copperclad, power supply via the support rails soldered to a copperclad pit floor etc- all complete fantasy given the state of my soldering art. I knew from using the PECO one on BGP how that picked up and reversed polarity, but doubted my ability to fit in the springs and shims required in the few mm at my disposal, but the rail fixing on the PECO one seemed a place to start if I was to use PS sheet as my preferred construction material. Ideas for power pickups still evolving at this stage (crocodile clips?). Next I built a cardboard mock up to test the ideas and check the loco flanges would be accommodated, which was encouraging, I could secure the rails to gauge, and a loco would run on it. And there it rested until the coronavirus lockdown when I finally bit the bullet and began making it. (to be continued....)

At one time I got a bit confused about this as I ran a diesel car - was I in fact visiting a 'diesel station' or a 'fuel station'. My father in law had a better compromise as he called it a petrol garage.

Agree on the unleaded petrol issue - we used to use Fuel B or make it ourselves - iso-octane and toluene mix - to test credit cards, ID cards etc. I did the COSHH evaluation and we decided female staff could not work with Fuel B in case they were expecting (must not ask!), as toluene poses risks to the unborn child. So all women of child bearing age were excluded from the lab when it was in use. Then manager said 'why not use unleaded petrol?' OK so get the MSDS to find - can contain up to 50% toluene. So can't use it at work in a fume hood, but can stand on a garage forecourt in hot weather watching the vapour pour out of your tank while filling up - crazy. To me the smell of creosote means summer and Dad painting fences (we got to do it as kids, wearing Dad's old glasses as eye protection and one of Mum's old blouses to keep it off our clothes, as we were small enough to squeeze down behind the shed. Lovely smell! We've got some railway sleepers making a raised bed in our garden, and the recent hot weather making the creosote ooze has brought back memories of sitting on stations waiting for trains, smelling the warm tarry smell, Jeyes fluid in the bogs, and hearing the grind of traction motor gears as the 2HAPs pulled out.

Having joined RMweb last August, at the time mainly to add my hapence worth to some topics, I think it's high time I actually showed some evidence of doing some model building, however amateur. I was tempted to call this topic 'Hardly more than a trainset' and it does not bear comparison with most of the content on RMweb, and I would be loathe to claim any 'skill'. I'm in awe of the levels of ability, focus and sheer elan shown by contributors. My first train set was bought for me on my third Christmas - a Triang clockwork 0-6-0ST and two coaches. Since then I've tried both OO and N with gaps due to wargaming, military modelling, student days and setting up home. Since the mid '80s I've had reasonable use of the box room allowing about 8' x 5' in terms of continuous run at a price in accessibility. The current layout started about 2 years ago (not that you'd know from the lack of progress) when I had to dismantle part of the previous layout to get the windows replaced - as the baseboards had been constructed in-situ this required a big saw. After the upheaval of the window replacement and collateral damage to the layout, I decided to downsize and rebuild as there were too many issues I couldn't resolve with the old one (scenic, electrical, 9" radius etc) to make it worth repairing it. I often ask myself 'What do I want from my railway?' and to be honest, I still don't really know. With fairly eclectic tastes both within and outside railways, I've never been able to concentrate on one region / scale / period, so have to invoke rule 1 most of the time. I like the idea of a 'mini system' railway like I saw in late 60s early 70s Railway Modeller - multiple stations, sources of traffic, trains going from somewhere to somewhere else with a purpose, no hidden sidings. When modelling OO I found the increasing detail and accuracy of models was limiting what I could run on set track radii, many locos and carriages not happy on 2nd radius, so had begun to scheme a light railway theme; terminus - terminus with continuous run and through station. It's the only time I've worked up a comprehensive fictional history. It was designed around 1 or 2 coach trains and small tank engines, a limited number of wagons and primarily self contained. I rediscovered an interest in N gauge, got the old stuff out and laid a temporary circuit inside the embryo light railway. Then increasing back trouble prompted a rethink - do away with the problematic duck-under, make a U shape dogbone layout in N only. This had a single continuous run of about 30', a terminus inside one loop (shades of Kings Cross), a through junction station and a branch to a high level terminus, and an industrial railway complex redolent of the papermill I used to work at. This kept me occupied on and off for several years (many alterations and replans, branchline gradient in the 'too difficult' category for years etc) until the aforesaid window caper, along with retirement, more time and less money. Even then it was not straight forward, the early sketches were for either 2 termini, a continuous run (within 5' x 2'3") and a through station, albeit with no more than 3 x Mk1 and loco trains. Several versions of that were laid, tried out, rejected after a few days / weeks / months, until I settled on what I have now, more trainset than proper model railway in the continuous bit: Terminus with 4 platforms, engine shed, goods yard; out and back loop which has a continuous link; middle circuit continuous run with through station and an inner goods circuit with goods yard. So, depending on how I feel i can run trains round and round, do a bit of shunting, or send trains out and later bring them back. The terminus acts in some ways as a scenic fiddle yard (or will when it has any scenery). There is minimal hidden track and I can still run loco + 4 passenger trains. What I have learned, is that I get a lot of my enjoyment out of planning, laying track, taking it up, relaying it over and over, also making stuff out of cardboard, even if it gets scrapped soon when I change my mind. What has been very helpful recently was visiting the Folkestone exhibition last autumn with my wife (the weather was bad so she opted to join me rather than risk a walk outside), her appreciation of the various layouts was much different to mine, but one comment she made "I like this one, there's a lot going on, like yours." has made me realise I should do what I enjoy, not wish for something out of reach. So, with that introduction, I present New Hythe and Lower Tovil, with sketch plan of the current layout and some photos. Much of my inspiration derives from younger days in Kent, and much of the stock passes for Southern in the main if not strictly south and east of London. Names, industries etc are taken mainly from the Medway / Maidstone area. The through station is Lower Tovil - the name of the papermill Grandad worked in, when the Tovil goods branch was still working. The terminus is putatively on an estuary with a wharf, New Hythe (the mill several of us worked in) seemed a suitable name. I hope I'm not being presumptious, if nothing else it might be amusing to some of you?

Your post got me searching (I'm rather prone to running off at tangents), and found this oast house conversion between Sutton Valence and Langley Heath https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.2233084,0.5926311,3a,75y,278.46h,89.29t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1su55Q2Ax_haQ6WgEYNV02ww!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 However, thank you for the idea - because I could probably use one on my layout as the scenic side is still up in the air.

I can remember oast houses in Maidstone, on the corner of Loose Road and Plains Avenue (they burned down when I was a child early 60's), up Straw Mill Hill out of Tovil on the road to Loose, also some in the Ditton area as Reeds had their social club based in one. I also recall one up Weavering Street converted to a house, as I used to imagine trying to build a railway layout in a circular room, but the area has been comprehensively redeveloped, so I can't find it on google maps. Special trains to Leeds Castle - well that could be the excuse for that pullman in purple and cream (also serves as a directors' saloon?).

Would be less obvious than my 57' 2H made from Grafar suburbans - 'flavour of'.

I think the T9s swapped with 700s in a complicated roundabout which gave the watercarts to other 4-4-0s, the released 6w tenders to the 700s and the ex 700 tenders to the T9s for Kent, see SEMG -http://www.semgonline.com/steam/700class_01.html So a Hornby 700 tender should be ok. The tender bodies look similar 8w vs 6w except for length, so you might be able to shorten the watercart subject to getting a suitable tender chassis?

Well, the turntable has progressed, and is now awaiting the painters. It works after a fashion, in that I can drive a loco on and off without too much finger pokery, but rotation is entirely digital . in the meantime, as Head Gardener is digging for victory, the railway workshop has been turned over to 'munitions', turning unused 60 thou plastic sheet into desperately needed plant labels.

Great! Thank you for these photos, they illustrate your methods clearly. The 5mm foamboard I can cope with and concur with your comment on woodworking skills. However hard I try with squares, G clamps etc, I can never get 2x1 sawn, drilled and screwed square. I made an error with foamboard - used for a high level road, I glued wet and dry for the road surface with Bostik All Purpose, the solvent permeated the card layer and dissolved the polystyrene core, hence the road developed bubbles and sags. PVA next time! That T9 looks good too, in case you wanted something a bit different I think the preceeding Drummond 4-4-0 - LSWR C8 - had a shorter coupled wheelbase.

Sounds interesting, I'd be glad to see your methods. By foamboard do you mean the thick cellular stuff sold for cavity wall insulation - about 4cm thick? Or what I think of as foamboard - expanded polystyrene with a card layer each side about 5mm thick? I've heard of people using both types. Any good tips you have will inform any new layout I build - something small and maybe narrow gauge (been watching too many Youtube videos of feldbahnen).

Though a bit OT, a few bonus shots from the archive. The end of no 2 m/c. Rebuilt to make corrugating medium and limitation kraft liner in the mid-ish 70s it finally succumbed to being too narrow in the 90s, at only 4m deckle, when the corrugators moved to greater than 1800 mm webs regularly it was not economical to repulp the siderun paper, which is why no 6 at 6m deckle had been resurrected. No 24. The machine running in its latter days, some of its rebuilt plant occupying the space vacated when no 1 was removed. No 25. Last few cylinders of the original machine seen earlier being erected by Walmsley's staff. The white 'shed' beyond is the hood over the after dryers put in when the machine was rebuilt. A10. Reed's had its own fire brigade, based in a fire station at the end of New Hythe Lane, seen here in an early photo (only 1 and 2 conveyors present out of an eventual 5). Kent Fire Brigade used some derelict parts of east mill in the early 80s to practise rescue procedures, both in a general sense in constricted environs and also to maintain knowledge of the mill layout, since in the case of a fire alarm on site the fire stations over a wide area were alerted.

Photos below. Note the Strood to Maidstone West line has now been converted to colour light signals. Entry to the west mill siding, known as Brookgate Siding, on the right beyond the platform, there was a sharp drop in gradient into the mill here. Used by oil trains in the 70s and 80s, then coal trains when the new boiler house was commisioned (c.1985), and some experiments with export paper traffic from Aylesford Newsprint via a dutch barn type building at the far end near Aylesford station. First, taken from New Hythe station up platform showing the scaffolding under construction, it eventually reached the entire length of the building and up to the roof level, cantilevered out from under the machine floor level. Second, the machine services corridor with the scaffolding foundations, the railway is the other side of the fence on the right. You can just see the remains of the old siding in the concrete floor. Third, looking up the machine services corridor from the other direction, the sidings ran under hereone in the dirt where the cameraman is standing, the other beyond the line of columns - this was the track which entered the loading dock near the railway station, the left hand track ran along the roadway outside as in as previous picture. If you had passed the mill on a train in the 70s and early 80s it is under here that you would have caught a glimpse of the mill diesel shunter - Bounty (Ruston 88DS) and later also Hornblower (Ruston 165DE). Fourth, inside the remains of the machine house, the outside wall to the annexe which is the wall you see in the first view above and the previous boundary photos. Steel braces have been fixed to stabilise the wall during demolition. This is the machine floor at 32' OD. Fifth, a view from the basement level at 16'OD showing the braced outer wall and digger on the m/c floor level.

Some views of the railway aspect of East Mill. Nos 01, 02, 03 taken from West Mill side on Mill Hall road, where the cranes stood for the roof replacement. The lefthand bricked up window in 01 is where I hung out over the then extant steam pipe to take the pictures of the oil train leaving on the APM Railway Traffic thread. No 04 is taken from New Hythe station footbridge, the cream building on the left is the loading dock, originally one siding entered from under no 6 electrical annexe (later called the services corridor) and a parallel one along the roadway outside between New Hythe station embankment and the loading dock, visible in 05. The concreted over part at the bottom left was where New Hythe Sump was dug to intercept the drains here (they originally flowed direct to the river. The New Hythe Sump pump pit was tucked virtually under the down platform of New Hythe station. Visible in the distance beyond the end of the siding is the road bridge installed to avoid New Hythe Lane level crossing, when Blackhorse site was developed for warehousing. The crossing then closed, and when the line was resignalled with colour lights, New Hythe signal box closed.

First a couple of views of the cranes working on replacing no 6 m/c house roof. The other one shows how the south gable had been pushed out of vertical. The first thing the staff knew of this was finding holes in the paper on 6m/c from sheared rivets dropping from the ceiling and roof of the machine house. After propping the gable substantially, the whole roof was stripped of slates and woodwork, the steel work repaired and a new roof and ceiling installed. One theory was that the roof had been weakened by wartime bomb damage. The day view shows the cranes ranged along Mill Hall road to work on the roof by reaching over BR tracks, the proximity of the buildings to the railway boundary is clear. In the night shot taken from the end of the foot and pipe bridge over the Medway, you can see the cranes at work.

Looking for the demolition photos and found this! Best shot of one of the locos so far. Is that a re-railing beam along the solebar?

Judging from the blurred motion in some, they were taken on quite slow film and probably full plate. What is a shame is that there were none from later phases of the construction, 3 & 4 machines which were built subsequently, almost a repeat of 1 & 2 (3 was the same width as 2, 4 wider again), then the 'upstairs' machines 5, 6, 7 and 8 right up to the railway boundary. When the mill was demolished there were very strict controls demanded by Network Rail due to the proximity. Somewhere on the old hard drive are some photos of the prep for that demolition, also a couple taken when the roof of 6 m/c house started to collapse, and it had to be rebuilt mainly by cranes reaching across the mainline tracks, but only at night after services had stopped. Cost a fortune in crane hire. I'll post if anyone's interested.

I'm coming to the end of the ones with railway interest. No 80. No 2 m/c being erected. The standard gauge temporary track is visible across the far end of the machine house. The NG snaking along over the pipe tunnel* under the floor (you can just see the arch of it in the extreme foreground) with the workmen unloading concrete for laying the machine house floor. To the right is No 1 m/c dryer pit, soleplates and the drain gulley down the front side of the machine (paper machines have a front (or tending) side and a back (or drive) side. A load of dryer frame components on the floor - probably for no 1, and a drying cylinder on the floor at the far end ready to be lifted and installed. *It was tidied up and cleaned when no 1 was taken out and no 2 rebuilt in around 1975/6, but was still a squalid hole in the early 80s, but not as bad as no 3 next door which had been rebuilt many years earlier. I never saw the rats reputed to live down there but the cockroaches, living on leaked starch, were legion and crunched under foot. The far end under the driers was known as Piccadilly Circus on account of the multitude of pipes traversing the space. No 82. Water Tower. Looking towards the river where the big steam crane is at work excavating the river bank. The track in the foreground is either the siding connection from the mainline, or parallel to it. Referring back to the 'modern' photo taken from Hornblower's cab above, looking back towards the mill, the later water tower (6 legs, tall) was built just to the right of the original 8 legged one in photo 82, so gives some idea of the relationship between the tracks. No 85. Fitting the drying cylinders. The SG temporary siding is seen, complete with the trolley seen in other photos (might have been more than 1). The 'shed' on it looks very much like the hoist cabin for the pulp conveyor (see photos 106, 107) what it is doing here is unclear since it cannot fit through the doorway out into the boilerhouse and wharf area (where it might have been moved along and lifted up onto the conveyor rails). It may well be here having been lifted off a railway wagon by the machine house crane, prior to being hauled back round to the conveyor. Nos 106, 107. Views of the conveyor area, showing the cabin in place and sundry NG track and wagons. That's about it, hope you enjoyed them.

Something I tried years ago, read it in a magazine, was to stick some clear sticky tape to a piece of glass (lightly so you can peel it easily later), paint it the required colour, then cut it into strips with a scalpel and steel ruler. Carefully peel the strips of tape off and apply them to the model. I used it to replicate lined out panelling on an old Farish OO coach, trying for LBSCR umber and white. It was fiddly and you had to be careful not to stretch the tape or the paint film cracked. That would have been with the old cellulose based tape, modern polypropylene tapes might not take the paint so well. Only works for straight lines though so wouldn't help much for splashers.

No 111. The river bank has been cut back, the concrete surface of the wharf is under construction complete with the inset rails for the eventual dockside cranes. A large steam crane has appeared, this may be the one later used at the coal tip in the south part of the site, but isn't the Smith, Rodley crane we had still in the 70s. Two standard gauge wagons present - I'm inclined to guess the steam cranes were used to shunt them into position. Narrow gauge poking out from under the end of the Lancashire boiler house and along the front of the coal bunkers. The big brackets along the top front of the bunkers support the trolley wires for the dockside cranes. No 112. Not much of railway interest, but included for the dodgy work practice of two ladders roped together. Looking towards the river, the stack in the background looks like pulp bales, but not stacked in the pulp yard under the conveyor, so a bit of a mystery. No 75. The wharf road and coal bunkers at an earlier stage, bloke leaning on a skip in the distance. Wonderful bit of tracklaying.

There is a British Pathe News film of electricians fitting lighting to the Clifton Suspension Bridge. It is the bit where the bloke slides through the little gap in the tower cap and down the suspension chain that churns my stomach. I find it hard just to walk across the bridge! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6lp0KAEHOM There were enough blokes in the mill when I worked there in the 70s - 80s who had finger joints missing etc from ingoing nip accidents. We often measured drying cylinder temperatures by poking a long handle mounting a thermocouple in between the rotating dryer cylinders - no 2 had 68 cylinders by then, at 2-3 mins per cylinder it was an afternoon's work. There was not much clear gap bewteen the cylinders at up to 130 deg C, moving paper at 300 m/min, carrier ropes etc. On one occasion the carrier rope came off and snagged a bearing cover lifting it up and through the dryer hood - it was quite a big bit of cast metal and made quite a thump when it landed! since around 2000 you couldn't even get near the cylinders - 1.6m high guard fences all round. Crews were dead scared of anything 'acid' but handled caustic soda prill with insouciance - when I challenged the lack of eye protection one said 'but it's only like washing soda.' A tip from one H&S professional - if you want to test or demonstrate the hazards of a nip - use baby carrots, they're just about the same size as a finger.

Another photo with a loco visible - No 88. The loco appears to be shunting a couple of empty skips to receive material excavated from the river bank. This photo also shows how far the river bank was cut back to make berths for unloading lighters carrying pulp bales. The river piers of the conveyor cranes were (I'm fairly sure) constructed in pits on 'dry' land. In other pictures the width of the wharf from the coal bunkers to the river seems much wider than it was in my time, showing the excavation of the bank was carried further north to accommodate coal barges. No 89. A bit further to the left, the loco and steam crane visible and loaded skips being pushed by 2 men each further down the wharf. Bearing in mind Nearholmer's observations about the strength of the skips, perhaps the loco was only used to move rakes of empties?

Evidence of any motive power is scanty in these photos, however: Nos 98 and 99, taken from the water tower show a small petrol loco - possibly a Simplex 20HP. No 108. A similar view, note the standard gauge temporary track in 98/99 has been moved to the further door into the turbine house in the interim period. No 109. The water tower, with the standard gauge siding off the main line on the left and the temporary connections curving off to the turbine house and the far end of the machine house visible. On the main line embankment to the left a white post may be the signal protecting New Hythe Lane level crossing, and also just visible what looks like a gantry arrangement seen in photo no 97. My interpretation of this is that machinery could be transferred from main line wagons to the 4 wheel trolleys for internal use, and moved on the temporary track to their location, thus obviating the need for a standard gauge shunting loco. The trolleys might be moved with winches - several are visible in the series of photos. The sparse sleepering of the temporary track into the turbine house wouldn't have supported much weight.

No 49. Looking roughly south east, the mainline is behind the cameraman, the sidings visible are standard gauge, with the ramp up to the side of the machine house, where the machine parts were brought in. No 50. Looking roughly south east, mainline behind the photographer but further south than 49 (the tent like edifice in both photos), std gauge in the foreground on the alignment of the later (1930s) permanent siding that ran under the kraft beaterfloor, no 6 electrical annexe and into no 6 loading dock. The further SG track is the one which swings round to enter the dry end of no 1 & 2 m/c house, seen in 49. No 51. Down by the riverside again looking north, some wonderful track laying, especially where the NG crosses the SG. No 52. Back inside 1 & 2 m/c house. The lower NG track on the left is in what becomes the pipe tunnel running the length of the machine house, no 2's dryer basement beyond it, no 1's dryer basement on the right hand side. No 55. Standing in the Salle area, north of the machine houses looking roughly west towards the main line and New Hythe Lane. The main line is on the dark embankment beyond the post and wire fence, the home signal protecting New Hythe Lane crossing is visible. New Hythe Halt does not seem the have been built yet - it was originally just a wooden platform, on the site of the later New Hythe station, adjacent to the level crossing. Some of those wooden huts, WW1 army surplus, were still in use as management offices in the 1980s and lasted almost until the end of the mill in the early 2000s. A note on terminology: Papermachines have a wet end - at the beginning where the pulp slurry is fed onto the wire mesh belt forming wire (or just 'wire'), the paper web is pressed then dried on steam heater cylinders (the dry end) and is then reeled up. Pulps and papers are often referred to by the pulp type, depending on pulping process; kraft (from the German for strong) is chemically pulped wood by the 'kraft' or suplhate process, used for wrapping, bag and sack papers, unbleached it is brown, but can be bleached to cream or white. Beaters (and refiners) are machines which defibre pulp sheets or rags and fibrillate the fibres to improve the fibre bonding characteristics, and so the strength of the paper. Beaters are a batch process, refiners continuous process. Salle (German for hall) is traditionally the room where the paper is further processed to the form required by the customer (slit into narrower reels, cut into sheets, inspected, sorted, packed etc).

Some for today. No 22. Inside the machine house - excavating the basements, the tops of the concrete foundations are the future machine floor level 16' OD, the basements were at 8' OD. NG points and a turnplate in the foreground, one of the skips looks as though it has also been turned off the spur on a turnplate. The 3 hole link evident on this one. No 23. Having turned 180 degrees, now looking south, mobile derrick erecting the beater house and power house steelwork. No 26. A view down on the area of no 23, from the top of the chimney. I've tried the clarity editor on this to sharpen it up a bit. A nice array of NG and SG track. I'm tempted to interpret the NG track coming in top centre and swinging round to parallel the SG as coming from the site of the ballast pit, bringing ballast for the concrete plants, it might then be that the odd shed near the river bank in some shots, with a tall chimney, was a washing and grading plant, using water pumped from either the river, or excavations to wash the gravel before use.