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Part 17. It all comes together .... Hopefully it will be gathered by now that the layout so far had been built in various peoples houses, sheds and garages. It had had a nomadic life and so far all the boards had spent very little time together. By September 2003 we decided it would probably be a good idea if the layout was gathered together in one location. This would help us with things like getting a good line on the track curves over board joints and generally seeing where we were up to. So far we had kept the layout's construction secret from all but a few at the club but got agreement that we could secretly set it up in the clubrooms a day one weekend. So, like the big arrows at the start of Dad's Army titles, we all converged on the club one Saturday bringing with us all the various bits we'd each been working on. The photos below show what it looked like on the day. (Sorry about the photo quality - the light was very poor) First off - the Padstow end of the layout showing that I'd bedded in the rock face and had started to make the bridge. At some stage prior to this session this board and the viaduct must have gone back to John or Damian's for track laying and ballasting. I would expect that Damian has added all the electrical droppers (one of the many jobs he did that you can't see on the finished layout). John has obviously given the rock face a first coat of paint. Moving on to the viaduct board. It looks like the original idea was to have the road crossing the stream on a bridge. This got amended to a ford crossing before the first show. Looking now down towards the Okehampton end of the layout we see the viaduct from the opposite angle. The next shot shows the station throat with sleepers laid. Obviously some serious thinking going on in the background. And now, for the first time in photographs, the developments on the station board. The station building and road bridge are still card mock ups, but work has begun on the waiting shelter. There's a small section of platform facing in place on the up platform too. The Pway gang have been busy laying track and a Bulleid coach is being used to test for platform clearances. Still lots to do. Turning back to the station throat there's obviously something funny going on - I would expect at John's expense! I don't recall how much we actually got sorted on the day but we did have time for a few posed shots. The second shows the rock face primer in more detail. Only 5 months left to the first show.....

Part 16. I've lost the plot .... To be honest I'm not quiet sure what happened next but at some point we decided that the layout ended after the viaduct too abruptly and trains should have something to disappear through. Anyway Damian built another board and we extended the layout by 4' to 24' of which 16' would be scenic. In retrospect this was a bit of a brash thing to do as we had committed to attending Stafford's 2004 show but hadn't yet finished the current boards. After John's site visit and looking at the real OS map of the area we noted there should really be a cutting to the west of the viaduct (embankment in real life). So that was that and very quickly I plopped some polystyrene onto the new board to make up the profile of a cutting. The photos show the work done on this section in August 2003. The first photos show the polystyrene in place and covered in a layer of plaster. To the right hand side that really is crumpled kitchen foil. Note spare bits of 'rock' on top of the LHS bank. It's a double thickness of foil screwed up and then teased out until flatish but still crinkly. This was offered up to the cutting and formed into the rough shape needed. Next sloppy plaster (with grey colouring in) was poured in to the horizontal foil 'mould' and left to set. The set plaster (still attached to the foil was attached to the cutting side with PVA glue and left to dry. Then the foil was carefully removed from the rock face. This is a close up of the raw effect. Lots of air holes and missing bits to sort out. These were filled using left over bits form the original mould that had been cut off from elsewhere and small bits of filler. The effect looking down the cutting from the driver's eye. Once all in place thoughts turned to the overbridge. As per the original, the road was on a gradient and in the photo below a steel bar has been placed in the approximate position of the bridge. The van gives a bit of scale.

The layouts I'm involved with: Treneglos - BR(S) late 50s - early 60s North Cornwall Railway (4mm / OO) Diesels in the Duchy - BR late 80s depot based on St Blazey (4mm / EM) Once Upon a Time in the West - America, ATSF New Mexico, around 1920 (3.5mm / HO) My info threads: North Cornwall Railway - Random details Other interesting threads: Torrington What was the NCR really like? Motive power on the NCR Alterations to a Hornby T9 St Merryn Book

Thanks Ian / Richard The research side is something I've really got into since starting Treneglos all those years ago. it's great finding information out and visiting the actual site of the prototype or the area you intend setting your fictional layout in. It's a great excuse for popping into pubs (they often have photos on the wall) or talking to the locals. Sadly you don't get the same 'feel' for an area off google earth or photos. This is the problem with our current project as there's 6000miles of water in the way! I was discussing with John the other night the order we built the cutting board in - track before or after the rock face - we'd convinced ourselves it was the former but then a photo proved otherwise. Learn from us, take plenty of photos/notes while you're building as you'll forget what you did in no time. There's lots more to come....

Part 15. John goes wandering in the SW .... Strangely my records are a bit quiet with regards to what we did between May and August but I'm sure we did quite a lot. One thing is for certain though, In mid August John decided to take his long suffering better half on a nice trip down to Devon and Cornwall. Little did she know but this was a cunning excuse for a field trip. John being an 'artist', drew up details of the bridges he saw. This is what Damian and I received in the post.... Hopefully the sketches and notes may be of use to someone else.

Thanks Kris It's only really when you do a sequence of shots like that that you realise how much work went into creating the scene - from baseboards, track and arty stuff! It's good to reflect sometimes and realise what was achieved in such a short timespan.

Part 14. John does another note .... Ok, back to the plot. On the 6th April 2003 John took stock of where we were at with the layout in his usual 'post-Horns' style and minuted up actions from our end of March session and a cunning master-plan for the various boards to travel round various parts of the East and West Midlands to have work done on them. Looking back at these comments nearly 8 years later it is interesting now to note: 1. The possibility of a 4th scenic board after the viaduct board raised its head - this we did (but more of that later) 2. We never used tungsten-type mini spotlights but went for eco-friendly (as long as you don't break one) low energy lamps 3. The lighting fascia didn't get supported by 'slim steel rods' at the front of the layout (as favoured by John) but instead by some substantial steel section trusses from the rear 4. Lots of activities going on in various houses spread geographically around in the Midlands. In fact the layout seldom was seen all together during the construction year. I do wish we'd recorded the mileage clocked up moving boards around and the various car parks that dodgy board-swapping deals were done!

Oh no, we made a boo boo. Interesting discussion about Treneglos and the 'serious gaffe' of non-accurate catch / trap points installed on the down loop here. For the record can I say that had we set out from the very first day to model a station on the NCR then we would have made sure that such things as the location of ground discs and the presence of catch / trap points was correct. However....the preceding posts in this thread should show that when the layout was born we originally had no intention of modelling a typical NCR station 100% accurately or otherwise. That idea crept in 'organically' as time progressed and we learnt more and more about the Southern's Withered Arm. At the time the track plan was devised we had very limited access to prototype books on the line (for instance the original David Wroe volume was out of print and very hard to find) and resources on the net were much more limited than today - 8 years later. To be honest, I'd have loved to have had then the information we now have about the line. That way other 'gaffes' such as the station building being too short would have been avoided. We first found out about the layout incorrectly having catch / trap points on the main passing loop at the Wadebridge exhibition in November 2005 - nearly 2 years after the layout was built. This information and lots of other interesting details came from a fireman who regularly worked the NCR route. Obviously we were disappointed to find out about this inaccuracy. It is worth pointing out though that in 8 years of operation, nearly 30 shows and various articles printed in the modelling press pointed only one person and a specialist signalling website have ever taken the time to point out this error (and only the ex-fireman contacted us directly). I do wonder how many thousand people have enjoyed watching the layout completely oblivious to the 'serious gaffe'. Most of the comments we get relate to how well the layout captures the 'character' of the line. In truth I'm happier getting that sort of comment than say producing something 100% accurate but with no character. The latter is easily done in the quest for absolute fidelity. So in hindsight, yes we'd have done things differently second time round, knowing what we know now. Also in hindsight, and now knowing how useful the RMweb community can be, were we to build the layout from scratch again we'd make full use of the 'web knowledge' present on this site to get the details of a new 'Treneglos' right. With regard to correcting the mistake.... well, the layout is now a fair way through it's life - and that we have two other projects demanding time, effort and exhibition invites - the likelihood of ripping up track and ballast is probably zero. If anyone does point out the error at future shows then yes we can hold our hand up and say 'yes we know'. It's not that we're not bothered by accuracy. The original coal yard was deleted two years ago because we found out that they didn't exist on the NCR. It's more a case of available time to fix (and disturbance to the layout) vs the degree to which the viewing public may be aware of the problem. Pragmatism. So there we have it, my response to 'trial by specialist website'.

So which is the narrow end again? I do remember much discussion when the round house was under construction about the roof. There were two possibilities: 1. the pitch stayed the same and the ridge line got higher as the roof segment got wider. 2. the ridge line was horizontal and the pitch increased as the roof segment got narrower. I think, eventually Damian got photos of the far gable end and a brick course count confirmed it was case 2.

Is it me or do the wasp stripes on the LHS of the middle door have a stagger in them? Does this point to them being bi-fold?

thanks Mark. Looks like bang on period then. Tre Pol Pen - by these 3 you know the names of all Cornishmen..... Or something like that.

And some other things I found.... Oh look, WR steam at St B. And some 1976 action 1989 shed bash (not mine!)

Ok, I've asked a few times if anybody knew of a photo showing the St B wagon works with doors on. Strangely today, whilst looking at Bodmin related images thrown up by Google, I came across this beauty. Can any of our resident experts date the photo? Does this now mean I have to make 5 sets of double doors and paint wasp stripes on them?

Part 13. Second fix scenery and a concrete viaduct .... (Funny how there's been little comment on the thread until there's mention of a bird on Page 3 ) Anywho, back to the story... Well the cork trackbed got laid by John and Damian faced up the boards with ply to match the contours of the land. Track laying began on the station board. The photo below shows Damian's ply facing fixed to the viaduct board. Towards the end of May two of the boards arrived back at my house for a 'second fix' of scenery. The photos blow show this starting to take place and a foamboard mock up of the viaduct in place. Around this time,having referred to the David Wroe books of the area, we found that Treneglos embankment was originally planned to be a viaduct. This idea was scrapped due to the ground conditions being too poor to support the masonry piers. In actually fact poor ground here continued to blight the real railway, photos of the embankment show level markers set in the track to record slips. We found that the Bude branch, built around the same period, had a couple of viaducts and that they were actually built from precast concrete blocks owing to the shortage of decent building stone. So we tinkered with history and used a reduced version of the Bude branch viaduct design as the basis of our viaduct.

Invites updated.....

The realistic 'home' sized proportions of the layout was something that attracted me to this layout when it first appeared in Model Rail. At the time it was close to the 12'x7' space that I could have used and had stock on that I liked! Very different to the large club layouts that often fill mags but are out of scale with the home environment. Mind you I never got to use the home space for my own layout and instead got involved building a 32' long exhibition layout with friends. There's logic there somewhere.....

More of the same please - I do like the 'then and now' type comparisons.

The bridges were made completely out of plasticard in five units: 2 abutments in brick with a hint of stone, the main deck and the 2 side girders. There's a central girder which has yet to be added...oh and the handrailing and the pilasters.... First, some shots of the prototype taken by Damian (note a footpath crosses the line at the point so he wasn't trespassing): Not much to go on in terms of detail of the abutments, shadow and vegetation killed most views. Underside of the deck including pads for the beams - a view unlikely to be seen! The deeper abutment that has the stream running against it. The shallower abutment that sits in the other bank - more of a bank seat. Fronts of both Backs of both All shown in undercoat grey prior to painting.

I actually think Bertie was the driving force behind John's earlier modelling. Constant tweets of approval / disapproval, a helpful beak, complete knowledge of permanent way practice and happy to listen to his ramblings. What more could you want?

Yes, of course

John I've edited the picture to protect the identity of the innocent....

Gosh, we managed to do a fair bit that weekend. Can't believe it was nearly a year and a half ago.

Part 12. Bertie the Budge does Ballasting.... Now obviously once the main 'heavy scenics' were done it was time for the boards to travel 40miles West to John and Damian's houses for a touch of trackwork, electrics and ballasting. Now I've no real recollection of who did what at this stage because my son was born and the mind was elsewhere at the time.... John has however managed to dig up just one photo of the ballast work underway on the original three boards. Here's what he has to say: "Here's the only photo I have of working on Treneglos track. As you may remember, I had to paint neat PVA between the sleepers with a fine brush and then apply the dry ballast mix very carefully. A small sprinkle at a time and then tamp with a dry finger into position, because the yellow stuff (Javis granite, maybe 10%) which had been mixed with the Woodland scenics buff (about 70%) and some gray, turned a hideous bright orange if it got too wet. So I had to plod slowly on down the track, all sixteen feet of it. Should have tested a small bit, before deciding to make the whole mix!! As you can see Bertie is making sure I do it correctly, whilst it appears I'm also engaged in drinking some alcohol!" Apparently Bertie is the one on the right

Just as a bit of a play here the viaduct board in five stages of construction: Bare board Coarse scenics Getting there Nearly complete Finished with backscene

Just noticed that the 3D mock up actually appears in one of the photos I've just posted above. See it did exist!: Very small, sorry. Keen observers will also note that a gap was left in the scenics between boards. This was intentional and for Damian to fill in with two strips of ply - one on each board face. These were cut to follow the landscape perfectly. Also note that the long edges of the boards were also polystyrene faced in places. Again this was because the ply fascia hadn't yet been added - something much easier to do after the landscape has been formed.