Fal Vale – 00 Southern Railway in the Antipodes

[KymN]

I have had a look in the box of 'track shorts'.  Interesting.  Doubtless from failed layouts .  Most of the turnouts are code 100 unfortunately, while my layout is code 75 .  Might be useful for some of the fiddle yard sections though.  The are about 8 that might be salvageable.  The one still packaged is code 75.  In addition there are two 009 turnouts, operating but heavily 'weathered'.  I was surprised that the train set track is branded 'Lima', even though the set is Hornby!

 

 

In the meantime the usually prompt Australia Post seems to be struggling with the COVID issue.  A parcel of dual gauge track (Tillig) from my local model shop is still sitting at the Post Office where they posted it 8 days ago .

 

Take care everyone.

[KymN]

It has been a bit quiet on the railway front of late.  It seems that the social isolation that we are enjoying (?)  at the moment is not encouraging me to do much, contrary to the ‘get modelling’ suggestions that abound. Also I have had to take advantage of a few lovely autumn days to get out in the garden - another very slow project.  So to try and raise the motivation for the layout I had a little play and took a few a few pics - nothing much that is new though.

 

But first, Australia Post has found my missing dual gauge track after three weeks coming from 16 Km away.  And I got myself a mechanic's creeper to get under the layout and hopefully get out again. That must have been a good day - Charlie (my elderly cat) hadn't yelled at me all morning. 

 

Here is some of the track (with some trains). The little Climax/Shay was built from a Sekisui electric by my brother-in-law-to-be while we were still at school. The Heljan Exe is towing an ancient Liliput SKGLB coach.

 

 

I should say that I have not been totally idle on the Fal Vale front. The shot below of Kelly's Coal drops shows a bit of carpentry in progress on what will be an extension between two existing boards.  No I am not building a two-tier layout.  The board at the back has been raised to what will be the track height for the whole layout.  As for Kelly’s Coal, the sign says that it is a ‘division of Kelly’s Wood Yard’.  It was an old South Australian in-joke to answer the phone as ‘Kelly’s Wood Yard’.

 

 

A Great Western/BR departure from the wharf yard.

 

 

Close-up of the instantly recognisable wharf steps.

 

 

The Army is active in the wharf yard…

 

 

…while the Great Western is busy at Kelly’s.

 

[KymN]

Dear gentlefolk.

 

It has been quite a while since I last posted.  I am sure that you have been waiting in rapt anticipation .  I am afraid that this virus isolation has not encouraged me to get stuck into the modelling - just the opposite.  However there have been a few developments.  The main one is that Fal Vale is now rising to the lofty height of  height of 1.23 metres. It took a little experimentation (i.e. error) to get the legs and wall supports right. I have been able to reuse and extend the old legs as per the pic here:

 

 Reminds me to tidy up underneath.

 

I am now much happier with the way that the layout appears.  The perspective is much better, as the viewer no longer looks down on the track.  I am not sure if the pictures capture this.

 

 

 

 

The little loco is a new addition - a Dapol Adams B4 'Guernsey'. This is one of the best finished pieces that I have - superb.

 

In the distance is another new addition to my South Australian fleet - a Rapido Budd Car. This is currently lettered for Lehigh Valley, but is the same model as run by the Commonwealth Railways (CR) here.  The CR fleet was absorbed by Australian National Railways, once my employer, and the two Budds became the 'Iron Triangle' limited in a futile effort to retain South Australian passenger services. 

 

Edited June 8, 2020 by KymN

[KymN]

This was the Australian National Railways Budd RDC, now in our National Railway Museum in Adelaide.  In AN, we did our best to retain just few country passenger trains - the Iron Triangle Limited to Whyalla, the Blue Lake to Mount Gambier for example.  But economics were against us. 

 

Years before when I was at school, a few friends and I travelled into SA's north by steam and diesel, including the Commonwealth Railways Budd Car service from Port Augusta to Port Pirie.  Fast and unforgettable.  I remember the conductor saying to us at Port Germein  'watch that [motor] car -  we will overtake before the next stop'. He was right.

[KymN]

Despite the lack of writing on my part, Fal Vale has progressed at least a little.  It has been slow largely because of my indecision and other matters happening at the same time - mainly house renovation.  I mentioned the lofty height to which the station boards have now risen.  The board that was to contain the Gothers tunnel and Treviscoe viaduct has been up and down like the bride's nightie. I have now removed the extra leg length previously added, and attached the board to the wall. The brings substructure (up to the L-girders) back to where it was.  I now plan on raising the superstructure to the new height to make the viaduct valley a lot deeper and more dramatic. I might have to move Fal Vale to a more rugged area!

 

 

This picture shows the changes. The bottom of the valley is the lower board (where I put my foot through - If you look closely you can see the hole!).  The new track level is on top of the box (marked 'BOX') on which is sitting the Great Western liveried bubble car DMU.  The DMU is the Dapol model, on sale ahead of the release of the new Bachmann one, will work low-loaded services between Fal Vale and Truro.

 

The gap between the station and the viaduct and tunnel will be bridged with countryside, expanding the track length in each case by about 1 metre. The old trackbed board will be removed and the superstructure modified to bring the track to the higher level.

[St Enodoc]

2 minutes ago, KymN said:

up and down like the bride's nightie

You are far more polite than I.

[KymN]

My other option was '… like the tart's knickers'

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, KymN said:

My other option was '… like the tart's knickers'

That's more like it.

[Oldddudders]

3 hours ago, KymN said:

My other option was '… like the tart's knickers'

Aka w-hores' drawers.

Edited June 27, 2020 by Oldddudders

[KymN]

A GERMAN CONNECTION

I was reminded this week by a new railway modelling acquaintance - who is German - that a number of structures on my layout appear to be German in origin.  Indeed, the diligent observer of architecture and the built environment may note a Germanic influence in the vicinity of Fal Vale, notably in its industrial buildings and even in the railway’s goods facilities, Royal Engineers block and locomotive shed.  The back story of Fal Vale may go somewhere to explain this, and several other matters.

 

Much of the Fal Vale story derives from a genealogy of the family of my late mother-in-law (bless her - she was a wonderful soul) still in preparation.  There are three significant elements:

• An ancestry that includes the Adams dynasty of railway and dock engineers, notably William Adams of the London and South Western Railway.  I will return to that later in these pages.
• A Cornish connection with the Landers of Truro
•  A German link through my first wife’s grandfather.  The position of wife #2 remains vacant.

Here are just a few elements.  You may choose what is fact and what is fiction.

 

The Ungewöhnlicherzverarbeitung Gesellschaft

In the late Nineteenth Century a small number of companies established themselves near Fal Vale and in the Brighton Cross area.  One that was particularly notable was a German company Ungewöhnlicherzverarbeitung Gesellschaft.  The Ungewöhnlicherzverarbeitung Works had their own rail siding near the old Brighton Wharf of the failed Retyn canal, and imported a second-hand locomotive, some open wagons and a few other items of rolling stock from Europe to work from the works to the wharf.  The works railway was in Stephenson’s ‘other gauge’ of one metre, which he had used for a mineral line at Crich, now the Tramway Museum.  While the works locomotive bears a strong resemblance to the Bavarian T3 of 1882, it is in fact smaller (almost exactly 7/8 in proportion) reflecting its narrow gauge origins. 

The Bavarian T3

The rest of the Ungewöhnlicherzverarbeitung fleet was similarly smaller in scale.  The small fleet and the wharf lines were converted to standard gauge and connected via Treviscoe Junction in 1899.

German Style Carriages in Cornwall

Along with a number of industrialists of the nineteenth century, the firm had philanthropic ideologies, in this case derived from their strong Lutheran faith.  In Germany, or more specifically Prussia, devotees of the Old Lutheran faith had been persecuted. King Frederick William III of Prussia issued a decree for a new common liturgical Agenda (service book) to be published, which occurred in 1821.  The Protestant congregations were directed in 1822 to use only the newly formulated agenda for worship, and this met with strong objections and non-compliance from Lutheran pastors. By 1835 many dissenting Old Lutheran groups were looking to emigration as a means to finding religious freedom. We believe that the German presence in Cornwall was, at least in part, a result. 

 

The Ungewöhnlicherzverarbeitung company was a major benefactor in the region, in one case to a school for wayward young ladies near St Dennis, intended to save them from the evils of their ways.  At this point readers should note that non-PC schoolboy jokes about saving one for me are no longer acceptable.  The correspondents’ decision on this is final and no judges shall be entered into! The building still exists, although it was sold after the First War. 

Unfortunately the anti-German sentiment that emerged with the Great War forced the Ungewöhnlicherzverarbeitung Gesellschaft to sell up and to leave Britain.  It is rumoured that it was purchased by HM Government Ministry of Magic to become a prep school for the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in Scotland. This is not certain, but it would explain the shields of the Hogwarts houses now visible on the Fal Vale academy, and the occasional appearance of a red liveried Castle class at Fal Vale. 

 

But as John Harrison of Torpoint (GWR) famously wrote: 

~ ‘Ooever eard of a red engine? Tes vlyin in the faace of natur…. Everybody knaws the praaper colour vur an engine is green and braassen.  Even they Zouth   Western people knaws that an they dawn knaw much’

(Harrison J. (1963). ‘Progress Report’. Railway Modeller. December 1963 pp290f.)

 

The Koll Adams German Connection

The Australian branch of the Adams’ descends from Robert Adams, who was the younger brother of William.  Kathleen Adams, my first wife’s grandmother, married Christopher Koll, who came from the Isle of Fehmarn via England to Australia.  Here he became a soldier of some distinction and then a vigneron.  He served in the Australian 3rd Light Horse at Gallipoli and in Egypt and the 15/27th Infantry Battalion on the Western Front. 

 

The nationality of the Kolls was always a cause for debate and amusement in our house.  The Kolls came from Fehmarn, an island in the Baltic Sea off the eastern coast and part of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. From the Middle Ages until 1864 Fehmarn formed part of the Danish Duchy of Schleswig, although physically it was closer to Holstein. In 1864 Schleswig passed to Prussia as a result of the Second Schleswig War. Fehmarn now belongs to the district of Ostholstein, Germany. 

Koll is a common name in Germany, notably in the Düsseldorf area, and is not uncommon in Denmark. My Mother-in-law would have none of it: they were Danish.  ‘Don’t mention the War!’ was my children’s catch-cry.  She was most likely right.  Fehmarn was under Danish rule and had been for centuries until about twenty years before Christopher Koll left.  OK, it had no physical connection to Denmark, and the culture was more likely German, but it was a Duchy of Denmark.  It is certainly now German and the kick-off for The Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link, proposed to provide a direct link by railway and highway between northern Germany and to the Danish island of Zealand and Copenhagen.

 

Kathleen was not just an Adams but she was also of Cornish descent – her mother was a Lander. Richard Lemon Lander (1804 –1834) was a Cornish explorer of western Africa. He was the son of a Truro innkeeper.  Lander's explorations began as an assistant to the Scottish explorer Hugh Clapperton on an expedition to Western Africa in 1825. Lander was the only surviving European member of the expedition, but he returned there.  A monument to his memory stands at the top of Lemon Street in Truro, and one of the local secondary schools is named in his honour. In 1832 he became the first winner of the Royal Geographical Society Founder's Medal, ‘for important services in determining the course and termination of the Niger’.

 

 

The Reality

As for the Germans in Cornwall, this is in fact part of South Australian history, not Cornish. The first to come here in any significant number arrived in 1838 with Pastor August Kavel. These immigrants created three settlements at Klemzig, Hahndorf, and Glen Osmond in South Australia. In 1841, a second wave of Prussian immigrants arrived, led by Pastor Gotthard Fritzsche. His group settled in Lobethal and Bethanien in the Adelaide Hills.  A number of towns in South Australia, notably in the Adelaide Hills lost their German names as a result of the First War. The Hills, where I live, now has a thriving tourist scene based on this German heritage, notably in the town of Hahndorf. It is also quite noticeable that many Hills families have German surnames.

 

The Hahndorf Inn

 

In truth, the architecture of Fal Vale the model derives largely from the ready availability of Faller, Vollmer and similar kits. This provided a relatively quick way of adding structures to my layout.  Unfortunately it would seem that my attempts to anglicise them has largely failed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 17, 2020 by KymN

[St Enodoc]

Ah, the Schleswig-Holstein question!

 

“The Schleswig-Holstein question is so complicated, only three men in Europe have ever understood it. One was Prince Albert, the Prince Consort, who is dead. The second was a German professor who became mad. I am the third and I have forgotten all about it.”

[Oldddudders]

50 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Ah, the Schleswig-Holstein question!

 

“The Schleswig-Holstein question is so complicated, only three men in Europe have ever understood it. One was Prince Albert, the Prince Consort, who is dead. The second was a German professor who became mad. I am the third and I have forgotten all about it.”

Your erudition never ceases to amaze me. 

[KymN]

5 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Ah, the Schleswig-Holstein question!

 

 With any luck somebody will explain it to me! 

[Oldddudders]

A neighbouring farmer has "prim'holsteins" but they are cows.  

[KymN]

For the most part over the past few weeks I have been house renovating (new ceiling finish in the snug/media room  and gas BBQ/outdoor kitchen in the new undercover patio). However, all is not lost.  Although Fal Vale is a bit quiet I have had a few sessions with a group of local H0 modelers.  One has a large dual-gauge American-themed double-deck layout that is being fettled back to order after a house move.  I have helped with some simple modelling.  The other is a South Australian Railways layout, also a double-deck room filler that is at a completion stage.  It is set up for operation with 5 cabs, some 16 yard/stations each with its own yard control, automatic signaling and documented movements via a card system.  Superb, and great fun, and with any luck I will stay as a member of the operating crew.

 

My other 'work' has been writing the Adams family genealogy.  I have finished chapters on two more of the family.   The second John Henry Adams was the third son of William and Isabella.  He had a career not unlike his father, but firstly in Brazil and then back in England as Assistant Works Manager of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway under Harry Wainwright.  In March 1902 he was appointed as Locomotive, Carriage and Wagon Superintendent of the North Staffordshire Railway – ‘the Knotty’.  He passed away suddenly in November 1915 from heart disease, aged just 55, where he was regarded with great affection by his men and the directors. 

 

John Henry Adams G and L Classes

 

 

I have also completed the chapter on William's nephew Thomas.  Thomas was also a career railway man with the North London, London and South Western and the Knotty, principally as a draftsman and engineering assistant.  Much of what is documented about Thomas Adams concerns his beliefs and lifestyle.  He was a professed atheist, a member of the Rationalist Peace Association and he studied ethical principles and the promotion of human welfare. He had very strong views about sustainability and the ability of the earth to support humankind and growing population.  His politics followed Socialist principles.

 

The rest of the week is forecast to be wet, so I shall try and return to Fal Vale!  Stay safe.  

 

Edited August 10, 2020 by KymN
Tidy up.

[KymN]

On 11/07/2020 at 22:58, Oldddudders said:

A neighbouring farmer has "prim'holsteins" but they are cows.  

 

With thanks to Gary Larson.

 

[St Enodoc]

6 hours ago, KymN said:

 

With thanks to Gary Larson.

 

If they went in winter, it would have been Friesian.

[KymN]

Progress report

OK, I am back on the model railway after diversions for house renovation/redecoration, genealogy (albeit railway-related) and gardening during the first dry days of the past two weeks.  My new-found model railway group has offered some hobby sessions - a couple of evenings building minor structures, some ballasting, and a couple of operating sessions.  I am learning about club dynamics - how to work together when members have differing approaches and standards!  The operating sessions have been great.  They are run to a sequence with cards for each wagon and loco, using walkaround controllers for driving and boards for point control at each station or yard.

 

The main advance with Fal Vale is that I have now raised the three station boards to the same (higher) level, and aligned them.  This is something that I never achieved once I moved the layout downstairs in Sydney. This view picks up (just) the three station boards.  Brighton Cross is the lower level on the left, Fal Vale yard (two boards) is in the middle with the loco depot behind, and the approach board is where the end of the train is.

 

 

The train entering the back station road is a Maunsell set hauled by a Brighton Atlantic.  Must have been borrowed from further east.

 

 

To work on the back I need a step - purchased from Bunnings - B&Q type warehouse I guess.  Please excuse the mess.

 

 

I am pleased with the alignment where the track is in good shape.  No, that is not a waterfall - just the break between boards!  And I am not sure where the red flowers (lower left) came from

 

 

Unfortunately there was a fair bit of damage at the ends of the boards, like this:

 

 

The next steps are to fix this, and to complete the viaduct board.  This has been raised, but needs the superstructure to be rebuilt to make use of the extra height for the viaduct.  I can also restore Brighton Cross Wharf station (the lower level) to operating condition.  This is wired for DC analogue and I still have the control panel.  I also want to build the running in track so I can run in some of my DCC collection.

 

Until next time, stay safe.

Edited August 30, 2020 by KymN
Just to fix formatting.

[KymN]

Things are still moving slowly - but they are still moving!  I have now finished another of the baseboards.  This one fills a gap in the overall circuit with a smaller circuit, and has a bit of a history.

 

It began life as nothing more than an oval to be used for running-in purposes. I very soon figured that it could be more than that - I could add some scenery and operating potential.  One of my favourite track plans would be adapted.   It was to be based on Rev. Wilbert Awdry's 6' by 4' Ffarquhar  Branch that was Railway of the Month in the December 1959 Railway Modeller. I still think that this was one of the cleverest of small layout plans, based on an idea by Maurice Dean.  This placed the fiddle yard behind the station on the main circuit, and the station formed a branch off it.  Thus it could be run as a fiddle yard to terminus, but retain a continuous run disguised as a branch, in this case to a quarry.

I built the board for this purpose, such that it could be folded longitudinally as a portable layout.  All points etc. would be on one board.  The picture below shows the obverse view of the layout as built.

 

 

Essentially it is two 2.4m by 600mm boards bolted together with DCC Concepts alignment dowels. The frame is 90mm*19mm meranti screwed and glued, with 40mm*19mm cross members. The 90mm came about because the local hardware shop's supplier was short on a smaller size.  The legs fold into the frame. The surface is 9mm ply.  The intent was that, as a portable layout, it could fold onto itself with hinges on top of the backscene. 

 

But it proved to be too heavy and clumsy to be portable. 

 

I was still unsure of if I wanted to incorporate it into the main layout, and if so, how.  The problem was that the main layout has quite generous curves, while the running-in board is limited to 500mm radius at best.  Blending the two would be near impossible. The 'mainline' radius would cut across the area needed for the 'Ffarquhar' (or whatever it is to be called)  station.

 

As I was planning the legs the penny dropped: 'Eureka'! If I were to make the running -in board at the lower level of the Brighton Wharf area, the mainlines could pass over the top of 'Ffarquhar'.  It would still need a bit of tricky scenery, but no flat crossings.  In this way 'Ffarquhar'  would become the terminus for the Brighton Wharf branch.  I think that I mentioned earlier that the running-in board would be dual gauge 00-009.   I still have to work out the detailed track plan and the scenery to avoid a rabbit warren on that side of the layout, but the intention has always been that the country there would need tunnels and viaducts, even if  the prototype country was flat (but I like them).

 

The next picture shows the completed but unadorned board the right way up.  Sorry about the non-British rolling stock on it.

 

 

I should mention that I have been accepted as a member of that local group of railway modellers, and learning the intricacies of operating the 'South Adminga Railway' with its complex track layout, signals and formal operations. This is a superb South Australian layout that has all the elements of the railway of my formative years. 

 

I have also acquired an SDS model of one of the most striking of the NR class locomotives that National Rail Corporation had had built when I was working with the company.  Back in 1997 we commissioned Bessie Liddle to decorate two of the real ones. Bessie Liddle was a Luritja/Pertame artist who had grown up near Hermannsburg, south of the Alice.  This is NR30 Warmi, with its dot painting of a snake, bush tucker and women’s footprints, launched by our Cathy Freeman. 

 

I must be getting nostalgic!

 

 

 

[KymN]

I was troubled by the thought that I had spelt Maurice Deane’s name incorrectly in my last post.  I had.  Deane ends with an ‘e’.   I suffer badly from pedantry.  However Google is so good now that every time I use it I learn something more than I intended.

 

Maurice Deane was clearly a modeller of some influence and respect back in the 50s and 60s.  Cyril Freezer regularly cited Deane, and various writers rank him up there with Ahern, P.D. Hancock and John Charman as a scenic layout builder of the time.  Evidently he was a serial builder of small branch line layouts, often GWR branches or light railways, including Portreath, Culm Valley, Wantage, Welshpool NG, the Weston Clevedon and Portishead, Jersey Railways and the Rye and Camber Tramway.  He was a Bank Manager in his day job, but spent many Sundays photographing railways.

 

In the course of this exercise I found my copy of Cyril Freezer’s 60 Plans for Small Locations (2nd Ed.). Plans 15 and 29 are referenced as using the 'Deane Fiddle Yard'.  It would be unusual to find Freezer-type layouts today, other than as toys. His minimum radius was 15 inches, and most seek to get as much track in the space as possible. This in part is the problem with my running-in board - I am trying to impose a plan from the 50s into a modern layout, even though I have more space than 6’ by 4’.  Nevertheless I shall persevere and have already considered how I might justify the extension of the Brighton Wharf line westward.

[KymN]

A little more progress. 

 

The new board now has an appended widening so as to allow the minimum radius for the branch (533mm) to fit.  The mainline uses c.760mm. This projects from the side per the pic.  I have also shown a somewhat incomplete track diagram - I still need to figure out how to configure the fiddle yard on this board, per Maurice Deane's principles.  Essentially it extends the Brighton Cross Wharf branch to join the dual gauge 'running-in' oval that now is planned to have a standard gauge station/yard on a spur, plus the Deane fiddle yard in the oval at the back.  The little bit of loose track seen at the back of the photo (near the roller door of the garage/railway room) will be in tunnel.  This board has been painted on the top to seal it.  I have not done this in the past, but it would seem to be good practice, even though there has been no problem with the older parts. There will be a stream cut into it from the extension which will have a low viaduct across it.

 

 

 

The part of the layout depicted in the extension was not part of the original plan.  Until last week it didn't have name, and was simply known to be a line that the had been built by the Ungewöhnlicherzverarbeitung, the German company that had operated near Brighton Cross until forced to leave prior to the first war.  However it now has a working title at least. 

 

Thanks to an article by Paul Lunn in the September issue of Model Rail, the branch station has now been named as Buggleskelly after the station in the Will Hay film Oh Mr. Porter!  OK, so its a bit silly, but I like to have a bit of fun.  And it fits.  Oh Mr Porter! was based on Arthur Ridley's play The Ghost Train that gave me Fal Vale.  Although about events in  Ireland, the movie was filmed in England at Cliddesden ('Buggleskelly') and Basingsoke ('West Belfast').   This was Southern Railway (ex LSWR) territory, using several Adams locomotives, albeit with chimneys changed and lettered for the Southern Railway Northern Ireland.  There are Buggleskelly-lettered wagons (Dapol) available from The Will Hay Appreciation Society, and my treacle tanks deserve a Buggleskelly link. 

So there you go - some stills from the film. The loco is an Adams X6, and the carriages are very Southern Railway!

 

 

 

[KymN]

I have given some thought to the fiddle yard on my running-in board.  It is just too complicated, especially with the dual gauge main running line.  Wiring Tillig dual gauge points for DCC is going to be difficult enough without multiplying it with extra pointwork.  An option to declutter by putting the fiddle roads away from the running line gets in the way of opening the doors of my car that shares the 'hobbies room'.

 

 

I mentioned that the Will Hay Appreciation Society sells vans (and wagons) suitably lettered.  These are Dapol products.  Murphy is the bloke who finds his 'two pigs' on the consignment note aren't the same pigs he was expecting.  One has become bacon for the station staff breakfast and has been replaced by a piglet.  Joseph Miller is 'One-eyed Joe, the villain.  Looks like I will need a windmill over the tunnel.

 

And one other matter.  After sitting outside of Heathrow for three weeks my new EFE  J94 has arrived to add to my small collection of army machines.  Unfortunately the boiler/tank assembly had become detached at the front and, most peculiarly the running board seems to be warped.  The picture shows the problem. 

 

 

I also received a new Terrier - the Rails version, which appears to be better than the Hornby product.  I couldn't resist it.  This the WC&P version and the sole reason I bought it is because of the yarn about the porter, when asked how to get between two GWR termini, told the lady to try the WC and P.

[KymN]

Who says railway modelling is a serious business? Two great British comedy drama films were based on Arnold Ridley's play 'The Ghost Train'. One was based on the Great Western Railway in Cornwall and followed Ridley's plot and place names, including Fal Vale. The other 'Oh. Mr Porter!' took a looser approach and moved the location to an obscure division of the Southern Railway in Northern Ireland.  I now have a suitable running-in board for my current project.

 

Edited December 8, 2020 by KymN
Correction of Arnold Ridley's name.

[KymN]

Progress Report

At last I am beginning to feel as if I am making some progress.  The baseboard for the Buggleskelly Branch is now complete and the roadbed fixed down for the main dual gauge running lines.  This will form the running-in circuit for the layout, and will be wired for both DCC and analogue.  It looks a bit like a train set at the moment; however I hope that the tunnel that covers two sides of the board will reduce this effect. The curves are sharp (513mm radius) compared to other parts, but will suffice for running in commercial models.  For operations four and six-wheel stock will be used - it is a branch after all.

 

One of the keys to progress has been the purchase of a nail gun.  This makes construction of the landscape formers so much easier than hammering or screwing.  Thanks to my mate Dan of Hillbilly Carpentry (yes, that is the name of his company) for encouraging me in this direction.

 

 

 

 

I won’t say that this part of Fal Vale was an afterthought, but it was not part of the original plan other than as a space to be filled.  Fal Vale has an extensively documented historic backstory, some of which has been reproduced on these pages and has been read by several in this parish.  This historical record is not the case with Buggleskerry.  This is, however, to be expected – rail historians have tended to focus on ’legitimate’ common carrier railways rather than those that were part of an industry production line.  The Buggleskelly Branch was an industrial railway, rather than being built as part of the Southern Railway or its predecessors (the Bodmin and Wadebridge and London & South Western).  It provided a standard gauge link to Brighton Cross Wharf and some narrow gauge (660mm)  works trackage for the Ungewöhnlicherzverarbeitung company that existed prior to WW1.

 

A small village had grown near the old works complex.  It had been named Bugledorf by the migrant workers that brought the original expertise for the company’s processing works. This of course was not acceptable and had to be changed post-war*.  It was changed to Buggleskerry.  This is a curiosity in itself – why an Irish sounding name?  Whatever the reason, it seems to have given rise to the local belief that the Buggleskelly Branch was once part of the Southern Railway of Northern Ireland.

 

Now for the interesting challenging part – wiring Tillig dual gauge points for DCC.  Well perhaps I need to give priority to cleaning up the railway room that had become a carpentry shop and is full of sawdust and offcuts.

 

* This occurred in South Australia.  The major beak-of-gauge rail town of Petersburg became Peterborough, Blumberg became Birdwood, Germantown Hill became Vimy Ridge, and there were many others, especially in the Adelaide Hills.  Hahndorf became Ambleside, but reverted in 1935 to become a much loved and promoted German-themed tourist town.  Ambleside remained the name of a railway station in the vicinity until closed in the 1960s.

[KymN]

I have a fetish for pretty little engines and could not resist this one - a pea green Beattie Well Tank by Kernow from via EFE from Bachmann  . I'm certain that these tanks never saw revenue service in this livery.  It purports to be a heritage livery (Dart Valley I think, but can't find a pic).  William Adams painted LSWR's passenger engines this colour in his later years (1885-1895) there.  However all bar three of the well tanks were gone by 1900 - the three had been exiled to deepest Cornwall as goods (Wenfordbridge) and general dogsbody engines.  They would never have carried Southern lettering with this livery.

 

 

 

There have been a few bad reviews of this loco, mainly about its light weight and lack of traction.  The body should be cast metal is the cry.  I'm not too fussed, as it is finished well and I don't need it for heavy haul.  I did not see bad reviews for the earlier DJM/Dapol version, and there has been no real change.

 

Meantime I have started laying track on the Buggleskelly Branch, and my Buggleskelly wagons will be posted in a few days' time.  More on this later.

 

 

Edited December 8, 2020 by KymN
Minor corrections & adds.