BennyBobRM

Baby Steps still, but all important nonetheless! I have since completed the doors and brick mortar effect on the Goods Shed and redone the roof for the Dunsyre building, now in need of a little chimney. As you can see, it looks far more in proportion now, and weathered roof too! (the photo doesn't show the weathering too well though, I'll be sure to get better ones in the future!) Might as well show off some of the stock as well: The principle locomotive will be CR 419, although her earliest sheds are not known, by the First World War, she was at Polmadie. However, the earliest photo of her shows her at Lockerbie, and it could probably be safely assumed her shed was either Carstairs or Beattock, putting her in the right area. Also, being the survivor and the CR loco I have seen the most of, I therefore cite Rule 1 of railway modelling and she is my choice of loco! In the future, I would like to build the CR 104 class which would make a good fit for the branch. As far as passenger coaches go, I only have the (as of yet, uncompleted) preserved pair, which will be too long for the platform so will likely not feature much However, Hattons Genesis coaches to the rescue! They are producing LMS coaches which going by this photo: The Hattons one for comparison: are a pretty good match for the Caley ones which would place the time frame around 1923/24 initially. Hattons are planning on producing a Caley variant in Batch 3 as well, which I will no doubt pick up when they become available, whenever that is! Finally, I will probably build some of Jim Smellie's Balerno Branch coach kits at some point which would complement the genesis ones quite nicely, again placing the time frame around the early 20s. Goods Stock consists mostly of open wagons from the pre-grouping Southern Scottish companies (NBR, CR and GSWR) plus a couple of covered CR diagram 67 vans, a 15T brake van from a Caley Coaches kit and some proprietary private owners coal wagons. I do plan to extend running through the LMS period and into BR days. As far as LMS locos go, I will probably find a suitable tank engine, either a Jinty or, if I'm feeling cheeky, a foreign ex LYR 2-4-2T or ex LNWR Coal tank, but that is a while off yet in my plans. A couple more CR/NBR wagons with LMS and LNER liveries to complement the period should cover that. As far as BR period goes my plan is to run quite a variety of stock, I have a Standard 4 tank(No 80120) and a pair of BRCW Type 2s (26/27) along with Suburban brake coaches, both ex LMS and BR Mk1 types. Finally I am getting the Bachmann/Rails 812 class one of which will be in the BR livery and will be renumbered to one of the Carstairs (or maybe Beattock) engines so it would work very well for the task with a single brake coach. Anyways that is all for now, not much progress, but lots of plans!

Just a little update on further progress, the Goods Shed is mostly together, the mortar in the bricks needs added and an access ramp also needs added as well as some advertisement signs and further external weathering. The Roof has been fully painted and weathered. I have also taken the liberty of painting the rails on the points. The points are code 75 Peco and are placeholders till I can get their bullhead counterparts. The straight sections consist of DCC concepts code 75 stainless steel rail, which I opted for as there is not much bending required and (to my knowledge) the conduction is superior. Hopefully I'll pop up a photo of some of the rolling stock I intend to use on the layout shortly. The main delay in the layout right now is obtaining the baseboards, which my father is making for me back home, with me currently being at my student flat in Edinburgh and there being a national lockdown.

So shortly after putting the opening post up, the goods yard store kit arrived: which I started putting together without hesitation and after the initial construction was painted with the help of my girlfriend who has a wonderful eye for colour and has been lending a very helpful hand. The roof still needs painting and the trims, gutters and drainpipes need another coat of the purple brown paint, overall progressing very well. I think I will proceed with a brick base for the Goods Store as I want to make the station platform out of brick (the platform still at Victoria Lodge today is constructed from brick, image below) and the Caley seemed to favour brick construction more in its later days as far as I can tell. The platform at Victoria Lodge today; Many thanks go to Cheryl and Matthew Toomey, the current residents of Victoria Lodge, whom spent a lovely winter's afternoon with my father, girlfriend and I: showing us the old platform, giving a history of the line and passing on some very useful resources which have provided major inspiration for this project. I cannot thank them both enough!

@Londontram I have a kit built DJH model of the CR 439 class so all is good in that department! The curvature of the real Talla line I believe reduced it to only using small tank locomotives, there are certainly no photos or records (that I know of) of anything larger than that being used. I also suspect the weight restrictions would have been fairly tight had such a branch came into Caley hands.

So I am in the process of gathering the pieces for my next major railway modelling project - Tweedsmuir. Tweedsmuir is a little village in the former county of Peebleshire, not far from my childhood home and about 8 miles from the town of Biggar, the birthplace of the famous Albion motors automotive company. At the end of the 19th century, the Edinburgh and District Water Trust set out on the construction of the Talla Reservoir to meet the city's increasing water demand; this necessitated the construction of a service railway branching off the Caledonian's Symington to Peebles branch about a mile from Broughton at Rachan. The railway was opened on the 29th of September 1897 and ran to a platform at Victoria Lodge at the head of the dam (or where it was to be built). The reservoir was completed and inaugurated in 1905 with great fanfare (see photos attached) and the track was lifted in 1912. In addition to freight trains bringing in puddle clay for the construction of the dam, there was also a passenger service from Broughton for the workers and the locals known affectionately as the "Tweedsmuir Express". The line was mostly worked by the construction company's 0-6-0ST Peckett B1 Works No.897, named 'Talla' In 1909, a proposal was made by local minister the Reverend W.S. Crockett that the Caledonian should take over operation of the line for the convenience of the local population: however this was rejected. But what if this weren't the case? The layout is based on the premise that the Rev. Crockett's proposal had in fact been accepted and the Caledonian Railway Tweedsmuir branch became a thing. I have made the assumption that the Water Trust retained control of the (still existing) platform at Victoria Lodge and the Caledonian was forced to build a new station to the layout plan below, a very simple, but functional station consisting of a run-round loop and a single siding goods yard - all that would have been necessary for a little village like Tweedsmuir. The overall scenic area will be 125x28cm, very small indeed but necessary as I need it to fit on a shelf in my student flat! I may (in fact, probably will) add scenic extensions in the distant future. The rolling stock (for Caledonian operation, I will cover later periods in future posts) will consist of a CR 439 0-4-4T - the mostly likely engine to have ran the trains on such a branch - and a CR 812 class 0-6-0 (I would have gone for a Jumbo, but I'm not sure how good the DJH kit is and I have two of the Bachmann 812s ordered), probably for special trains. The station building, which I have already scratchbuilt from plastikard is a replica of that at Dunsyre (photos of the model and prototype included below). I have ordered a Wills kit of a goods yard store which I will paint up in Caledonian colours. I would have scratchbuilt such a structure, however I cannot find any suitable prototypes to follow (any help would be greatly appreciated!) and I feel the Wills kits, with a little modification and painting, can produce really individual looking structures - just google "Wills Goods Yard Store" and hopefully you'll see what I mean. I intend to put some very basic signalling controlled by a ground frame, this will be mostly for operational interest as the real thing would most likely have used "one engine in steam" operation. That is all for the time being and I look forward to the next update on this little foray into modelling a pre-grouping Scottish branch line! Photos of the Talla Railway and Dunsyre station courtesy of Biggar Museum Trust. Firstly, the historic photos of the Talla line: Next, the Station at Dunsyre on the CR Dolpinton branch, the main building I have replicated being on the far-left of the photo: And my model, the roof needs re-doing as it is too low proportionally (and of course needs a lum!) but otherwise, I'm pretty happy with it: and the interior: And finally the plan of Tweedsmuir: