Pete Goss

I am trying to capture the main parts of a whole brewery, from malting's, brewery, to ale stores and banks, company offices, cooperage and cask washing bays, workers cottages together with a High Street single track crossing scene. The fiddle yard is next to no size as most of the stock will be out front, parked up or going somewhere. I am happy with track layout and the way it has gone so far. 5 boards out of 6 will be fully scenic. I am working with RMWebber Black Five on the DCC electrics this time which we are just battling through with at the moment. There are some issues which he may discuss here later on. cheers

Trackwork all laid now. All higgledy piggledy - Just the job! Standard Peco Code 75. I shan't be doing any more scenic work at board level until all the wiring is complete and everything has been fully tested. This could be months away. Meanwhile I have drilled holes for the electro magnet de couplers. The points have their springs removed and wire in tube laid ready for servo motors, and wire droppers are being soldered onto the track next. Most of the track work will be covered in either blue setts or have gravel /ash ballast. I shall now move back to figure conversions (pictures soon) , wagon building and building construction.

The figures have a metal peg under one of the feet generally. Personally I carefully cut this off and file the bottom of the feet flat so the figure can virtually stand on its own. Then I drill a 0.55mm hole into one of the soles of a foot before supergluing a piece of 0.5mm brass wire into the hole. Filing off any burr at the bottom of the wire. This provides I) flat feet on the ground and ii) a means of bending the figure into place one placed into the baseboard that otherwise may be difficult to do. Wrap the figure in a little piece of kitchen paper while drilling as, as you hold the figure it becomes very hot while drilling and don't drill your finger. Or you could wrap it and put it in a vice but damage may occur. The figure illustrated with a piece of white plasticard under a foot was either because I was repairing a foot or making him stand more vertical . Can't remember which. The figures come with a metal peg under one of the feet generally. This is part of the casting process. Personally I cut this off carefully, file the feet flat, then with the figures wrapped in a paper towel to prevent fingers burning, drill a 0.55mm hole into the sole of one of the feet. Then superglue a piece of 0.5mm brass wire into the hole and file off any spur at the bottom of the cut wire. This gives a certain flexibility when locating the figure, otherwise the thick metal casting peg may become detached and take opoart of a foot with it.

Exactly right The layout has, and will eventually have, about half and half PG Figures and Darts, with numerous conversions, and additions here and there of resin cast baggage. All the figures have 0.5mm brass wire bases, are painted and matt varnished before being located into drilled holes in the baseboard deck.

I really like the photograph taken for the title page. Good eye level shot with plenty going on in the background.. Slightly sepia with day light coming in from behind. Very atmospheric.

Gone For A Burton at Chasewater Industrial Engine Brewery Day today. I caught up with Joe in the carriage shed at Brownhills West station this morning as he was in full exhibiting flow with a small crowd of enthusiasts bustling him as he was trying to eat a sausage sandwich!. This is the first outing for the layout and mighty fine it looked as well. Full of atmosphere and little cameo details which held peoples attention.

John Oh yes, Blankenburge! Was getting the layouts into the venue still via a giant scissor lift outside the building with layouts being pushed through a door at first floor level? I do remember the French having to go under their layouts regularly to 'fix' something. Yes a crate of wine under the layout. Think I was on the Belgian Blonde stuff that weekend and couldn't get out of bed on the second day till lunch time. My son and his friend had to run the ETTON layout till I got there.... eventually. It was a good show though, but you weren't allowed to take your little sign post with national flag attached home with you. The French simply broke theirs in half and stuffed it into a packing box when packing up. Memories...

Very good, observant questions. It is a fair cop guv! The planning started about 12 months ago. Site visits and drawings prepared at the end of last year. Baseboards were completed a month or so ago (by Colin Stark), and model building construction began from around the beginning of 2017. Only just got round to showing it on RM Web. At present there is a lull in proceedings as The Worlds End layout requires some attention and also recent family affairs, wedding etc. Generally the single walled buildings will probably have a second blacked out wall at the back of the egg crate construction, particularly as one track goes inside a building at the brewery and will therefore be exposed on the operators side. And although some internal parts may be visible which could be lit and detailed, I was perhaps considering an open sided building around the joiners shop area opposite the cooperage so the internal workings could be modelled as a one off. Not decided yet. Might be too gimmicky. The High Street area requires a full design as yet, which has not been thought about too much although I have a basic idea in my head. I will need to develop this a little more before the track goes down in this area as the crossing needs locating properly. (and working hopefully). I am aware most people will think it bonkers to build buildings and even convert and scratch build dozens of miniature figures (more pictures of this soon) well before any track goes down, but I maybe believe in the visual art form to begin with. I am not pursuing the model building detail any further than shown other than new building carcasses not constructed yet now until the track is down so no worries there hopefully. There are around 40 wagons to build and say half a dozen locomotives to worry about as well. More of this later.

Here are some preliminary building construction pictures. I have made each wall face separately to start with in a very basic form before adding the substantial detail. It is my normal method to use embossed plastic card on 1.25mm mount board in single and double thickness before bracing the reverse side with an egg crate type construction ensuring all exposed edges are also braced. This makes the panels very strong and flat. The constructed walls will then be formed together into the 3D building shape before adding all the detail and painting. The baseboard trestles are going to be modified by relocating the hinges to the sides of the pairs of legs to make them into hinged clothes horse contraptions rather than the artist easel's at present. That should enable layout access and under board storage to be more practical.

I have just looked at Gramodel website and item 00411 Ramp Wagon kit is available in 4mm scale. I suspect you need to add wheels and brass cups etc. Not sure. They also do a War Flat resin wagon bodyand diamond framed bogies etc.

I converted a ramp wagon from a single plank wagon kit from Parkside Dundas. Removed the single plank side, added a little detail to the deck and added mock stabilisers at one end. I found a couple of photos and just copied the photo. Gramodels resin kits produce a ramp wagon kit I think. At least last time I spoke to Graham he was certainly building one after he had seen my scratch built effort. I will check out his website and let you know

Hi John. Good to hear from you again. In this case I am confident we can suitably organise things ..... I hope. Here are some original sketches I prepared ages ago. From here I put them into AutoCAD to produce the scale drawings required. More pictures following of modelling progress to date later this pm..

Hi Pirouets Yes the operator will need a wet suit as having made his first barrel has to undergo this initiation ceremony, as will any operator who cares to volunteer. Can't have the fame and glory without the pain and the rain --- or beer tipped over you. Timescale is as soon as possible for me. Once the track is down, a few wires, lick of paint , job done. What do you think? A couple of years? Must get on.. Pete cheers

Andy, I have all those photos plus many more. I spent a day with Joe Stamper., local malting's employee and local history expert and also looks after the N gauge model in the National Brewery Centre in Burton. Joe took me around every corner of every street to view all the remaining buildings. I have been back since a few times to take more detailed information. Building construction well under way. Basebo0ards are all made and all the components are pretty much collected. More photo's shortly. Peter

Alexander Copper and James Wort were merchant brewers in Burton-on-Trent before 1835. But within 10 to 15 years both the partners had passed away. Their descendants formed a public limited liability company in the late 1880's. Copper Wort & Co. Ltd. The company was later bought out and was amalgamated in 1910 with a larger company. Our period modelled of the early Edwardian 1900’s is perfect as that was the high point of the brewing industry in Burton on Trent, extremely busy with the bigger breweries establishing their potential with the Midland Railway network with the smaller breweries muscling in between them. To add substance to what is essentially a little known small brewery company and make it work for a round and round layout I have given it a few of its own 0-4-0 locomotives to support the larger Midland Railway locomotives running through the town and includes a track plan based on Worthington’s arrangement to accommodate the numerous Midland Railway and Great Northern open wagons and outside framed Midland Railway vans. The buildings are based on the those of Bass, Ind Coope, Trumans and others, all based in and around Burton on Trent, some of which is still there today even though the railways have long gone. It is being built to 4mm scale OO gauge on a hexagon shaped 6 board arrangement (4 feet length per hex outside edge) and is about 1/3 size of my previous layouts. The track plan is a continuous round and round run with lots of shunting and sidings. 4 of the boards contain the complete brewery process. The 5th board is the High Street crossing with shops and houses with the track running between buildings, and the 6th is a small fiddle yard. Most of the stock will therefore be out front. Assistance and advice has been gleaned so far from various people including Joe Stamper from Burton and the National Brewing Centre also at Burton. Boards constructed by Col Stark and we are currently under way with construction of the buildings together with the DCC electrics designs.

My goodness, suddenly all the Shermans are appearing, good stuff. They all look good sat on their Warwell wagons. Yes, the Rowlands Castle layout is now with the Rowlands Castle Heritage Centre and is currently on public display at Stanstead House in Rowlands Castle village (Hampshire). If you require further technical information about wartime activity that I may have previously researched for my project as then, please ask. best regards Pete

Yes, I had 6 Warflat wagons on the Rowlands Castle layout, along with a brake third SR coach at both ends, a scratch built ramp wagon and an old SR tools van. For your interest here is a picture of Warwell wagons with Sherman tank loads. This picture was included in a booklet slightly post war, so late 1940's regards Pete

Yes, That makes sense. regards

For anyone modelling a more period layout (1940's) the War-wells were used exclusively to carry Sherman tanks in rakes of 9 with old brake coaches each end for the tank crews and a van or two for tools and parts and ramp wagons at each end of the war wells. Shermans were higher relative to British tanks and they needed the extra ht that a warwell wagon well bottom provides. Turrets were generally pointed to the back of a train irrespective to vehicle posture and barrels strapped down to the body. British Churchill tanks were not as high and could be loaded onto first world war built War-Flat wagons, again 9 or 10 in a rake. Or 2 Stuart tanks as they were smaller. Any spare space was used up for small soft skin vehicles. It would be unusual to mix war well and war flat wagon types at this time. Churchill side body parts were removed to fit the railway guage and chains were fastened at both ends of each vehicle in a X format to brace the vehicle in the stowed position.. Tanks were loaded either horizontally from a side platform or end dock or with the use of a small Ramp-wagon. Ramp wagons were generally detested as they took a lot of time to set up and a few loose sleepers were required to protect rails at the bottom of the ramp. Tanks would rumble along the full length of the train to dis-embark or embark. Looking at the more modern pictures the tank seems to be sat on a raised cradle. Presumably this eases the rise and drop of the tank travel as it droves along the train? Not sure. If tanks didn't have very far to travel they would go by road under their own steam. During the1940's etc various mileages were laid down for different tank types and that determined whether they travelled by rail or not. cheers

Many thanks for your comments Hroth. We found the pictures you refer to, or similar ones, and talking it over with John I believe I could re-paint the figures in-situ as they are at the front of the layout. However then realised they are without coats as modelled, so we think we will leave them as fixed in their dresses. I will do a couple more in coats and fix them down nearby. Also, after gluing the figures in place, they retained a shiny patch of dried superglue around their feet so that has now been sprayed out matt and the marks have disappeared. Removing figures for re-fitting of coats would certainly damage the pavement areas locally. Taking your point further I noticed that I hadn't included many black coated clothed figures in general so that will be remedied on the next visit with infiltrating black coated figures. This will include populating the rear platforms 1 to 5 next time. cheers

Just catching up with this thread again.. The red and green items are indeed the flags carried by the lookout. A Dart Monty's figure. The track gang is a mix of Edwardian workers and Period figures from our range. Some of these are not on the website yet as I havn't updated it for ages. ED3 has the 4 workers sat around all wearing flat caps. The University students are mostly Dart Monty's figures with any hats cut off and hair re-sculptured following some photos I used for reference. These together with the track working gang are now all planted on John Holden's Liverpool Lime Street layout. I am currently preparing the next 150 or so figures for Lime Street itself, with many conversions and modelling additions to standard PG and Dart figures. I am adding suitcases, brief cases and luggage to quite a few figures having produced a set of 10 mixed loose luggage and bags in resin for the range. The lipstick is not intentional. I am aware of it. It is just a painting style I used to have to emphasise facial features. Probably over did it. I have since toned this back a bit by using washes together with lighter colour highlighting. Cheers Pete

May I add to all this with some examples from a couple of projects I have been helping out with recently. First, a supply of various 4mm scale Edwardian figures, and second a selection of (mixed manufacture) figures for the 1940's layout. My painting methods have changed over the years and now include face detail as much as I can, and some subtle highlighting on the clothing with a dry brushing technique together with a hint of dark wash in crevices here and there.. I always enamel matt varnish afterwards and generally first cut off the metal 'pegs' and re-base all figures with 0.5mm brass wire rod drilled and super glue into one of the figures' feet[attachment) to assist layout location.

Yes indeed, the people have been under detailed planning for some time now. Lime Street will be next. I am currently preparing at least 150 figures taken from more than one manufacturer together with a few special conversions for specific characters just for the Lime Street scene alone, including hopefully some new late 1940's figures in autumn long coat and trilby's etc prepared specifically for this project. Once I get onto the platforms, bus queues, railway working areas and back streets the masses will definately swell in number. As you say there will be hundreds!

Just got back from Brisbane after attending the BRMA convention held there this year. As part of the layout tours arranged for Sunday and Monday, we were invited to visit Anthony's place outside Brisbane on the Monday. Anthony had also given one of the talks at the Saturday convention describing the designing of the landscape for Conway Castle and some of the problems encountered, and how they were overcome. Track plan layouts were also described. I don't think that most of the audience who had never seen the layout were actually aware of the scale involved and the enormity of what was being said. It wasn't until the Monday site visit that I and those others who had no idea on the extent of this layout, realised how big it actually is. It is enormous by UK standards for N gauge. Even large UK N gauge layouts would look small compared to this. Un-usually I was speechless. Once the enormity of it had sunk in, and listening to Anthony describing this and that all round the layout I looked at a colleague and nothing was said between us except we were both thinking the same thing. How can one person create such a large scale N gauge structural layout including several full size station areas virtually on his own in only 2 years? Apparently a friend does help out on Fridays but even so, there is some extraordinary personal momentum here. I am not an N gauge modeller as a norm but I shall have to start following this thread further. I attach a shot of the man himself aside the layout, photographed on the Monday just gone. Hope that is OK Anthony. best regards Pete