Easton, Isle of Portland

[Mick Bonwick]

A long time ago (it seems) I started planning a layout. That was after I joined a well known model railway society and was invited to attend the monthly meetings of the local area group. Through the membership and fellowship of this area group I discovered the delights of research, planning and building.

 

I bought books, visited  a library, took notes and joined another organisation, all with a view to amassing sufficient information to make an accurate model of Easton, on the Isle of Portland. I had discovered that a scale model of the whole station area could be fitted into a 16' x 4' area without any compression or compromise.

 

Fast forward thirty five years and things have changed. Not surprising, really!

 

What hasn't changed, though, is the target of building a model railway based upon Easton. The idea of building a scale model has given way to the 'based upon' idea, mainy because there is now not enough time left for me to get involved in building everything myself. I am going to have to rely heavily upon most things being available ready to run, a much changed situation from that of 1994.

 

A much simplified diagram of the station area was finally created from studying Ordnance Survey maps, published works about the Portland area and, most importantly, the Easton and Church Hope Railway. The diagram:

 

[nickwood]

About time

 

Somewhere to run all that weathered stock.

[john new]

There are some useful shots of the station and goods yard buildings etc., on Pinterest.

[Mick Bonwick]

3 hours ago, john new said:

There are some useful shots of the station and goods yard buildings etc., on Pinterest.

 

Thank you for the notification, John. I did try Pinterest a couple of years ago, but found nothing new on there. I notice that you appear to have a connection to the area - you don't happen to have a photograph of the roadside elevation of the goods shed, do you? I have photographs of just about every elevation of every other building, but this one still eludes me. I have asked Mullie of this parish as well, but he doesn't know of one.

[john new]

There may not be one. I recall Brian Jackson saying during one of his local history talks that there is one building up there even he hasn’t got a photo of. My memory is that was of the entrances side of the station but there is one of that on Pinterest, and Brian has a shot of it in his Oakwood Press book, so most likely his comment was about the goods shed.

 

PS - the one I do know of is from 1960 in an aerial view of the whole of Easton and included in Stuart Morris' pictorial history, Portland Camera, but the angle is oblique and although the face angled to the road is visible not much of it is that distinct. Will send you a hi-res scan by PM as unsure about copyright for an open view posting.

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by john new
Changed the tense of the text and PS added.

[Mick Bonwick]

The decision to model this station was reached after quite a lot of helpful information was accumulated. As alluded to already, main sources of help were the library in Winchester, where I lived at the time, the South Western Circle and the Scalefour Society. Between them, all the detail I needed to build a mental picture of my planned layout was brought together. If I was to start again, now, I'd just need Google!

 

Some of the main decision factors were:

• Compact track layout
• Straightforward signalling
• Passenger terminal, but goods through lines
• Only small locomotives needed
• Restrictions on the number of goods vehicles allowed per train
• Restrictions on the number of passenger coaches allowed per train
• Severe speed restrictions on all trains

There was some consideration given to building an exhibition layout of 9' x 3' plus fiddle yard, but no progress was ever made with that. I did dabble with the refurbishment of a P4 layout, Lee-on-Solent, for a brief time, but work got in the way too much and the task was taken over by the East Hants Area Group of the Scalefour Society, subsequently turning into a complete rebuild with only the original buildings kept. The layout is still on the exhibition circuit or, at least, it was last year.

 

Many photographs have been found, from many sources, that enabled small but meaningful details to be replicated. People like Colin Caddy, Brian Jackson, John Flann, Peter Squibb, H. C. Casserley and Lens of Sutton have all provided a splendid selection of material, photographic and anecdotal.

Edited January 28, 2020 by Mick Bonwick
Rectifying the results of uncontrollable finger poking.

[Mick Bonwick]

Once the idea of building something meaningful had settled itself in my head, I started to work on baseboard shape, size and position. I had a luxurious space allocated for this layout and set to with enthusiasm. The scenic area would be an upper level and fiddle yard and storage would be on a lower level, with a gradient between the two at 1 in 40 (twice round the room) to allow the use of prototypical train lengths using small-ish locomotives.

 

The layout was never going to move outside the room, so there was no need to cater for mobility or weight saving. I had built or been involved in the building of plenty of layouts prior to this one, so the method of construction was not a difficult choice. It's nice to be able to practice on other people's layouts before starting on your own! Open frame supports, birch ply track surface with Sundeala glued and screwed to it - rigid, sturdy, quiet and easy to do. 3" x 2" plus 2" x 1" L girders with 2" x 1" cross supports that had the track surfaces screwed to them.

 

Edited January 28, 2020 by Mick Bonwick
Photograph added.

[Bulwell Hall]

Hi Mick

 

Just picked up on this post.  Easton is a station that has long interested me and I have collected photos, etc. on the Portland line for many years.  I have searched through my collection and found two photos of the goods shed which may help.  I do not have a direct roadside elevation but do have a view of the end of the building with a glimpse of the roadside elevation.  It looks to be the exact opposite to the railside elevation but without the loading platform.  Unfortunately the photographers camera seems to have been playing up on the day of his visit - 6th July 1955 - and all the photos in his survey of Easton are slightly out of focus.  His work was normally good which is unfortunate as he took quite number of useful photos around the site - including Sheepcroft sidings.  If this of interest do let me know and I will see what we can arrange.

 

Gerry

[Mick Bonwick]

Hi Gerry,

 

Hooray! This photograph sounds very promising. I'd certainly like to have a look at this one and maybe some others if that is permissable. They may contain information that I don't have. Please PM me if that's acceptable.

[Gilbert]

Hi Mick - what track are you using?

Chris

[john new]

57 minutes ago, Mick Bonwick said:

Hi Gerry,

 

Hooray! This photograph sounds very promising. I'd certainly like to have a look at this one and maybe some others if that is permissable. They may contain information that I don't have. Please PM me if that's acceptable.

Me too please.

[john new]

If it is of any help I was up In Easton Sq earlier this afternoon food shopping so walked over to the old station site.  Not many of the original east side boundary walls remain, the two sections that probably are original are both drystone construction using what looks like Portland slat laid longitudinally with vertically placed capping stones.  This bit of wall would have been alongside the station throat, south end, just before the siding swung off into the stone yard that is now under Tesco.

 

NB The cropped photo originally done for RMWeb lost so replaced in the reload by the original.

 

 

Edited November 18, 2022 by john new
Photo(s) found and/or replaced post crash.

[john new]

Just a couple of minor points - Reforne (single word) is the street name, it does not also have the street suffix you've added on your plan and Railway Road is actually called Station Road.

[Mick Bonwick]

1 hour ago, Gilbert said:

Hi Mick - what track are you using?

Chris

 

Hi Chris,

 

The original plan was to use hand made track to retain the smooth curves of the prototype layout. This went to the dogs once the new (achievable) plan was devised. An attempt has been made to retain curves, though, by employing curved points where possible. All track will be Peco code 75, therefore restricted to that geometry. You will see, eventually (!) how that works out.

[Gilbert]

Cheers Mick

BH or presumably  if curves are required I assume the original 75?

Chris

[Mick Bonwick]

It's track I've had for many years,so all FB.

[Mick Bonwick]

1 hour ago, john new said:

Just a couple of minor points - Reforne (single word) is the street name, it does not also have the street suffix you've added on your plan and Railway Road is actually called Station Road.

 

You have an advantage over me, you're on the spot. When I created the plan I had to rely upon the 1929 Ordnance Survey map that showed the names as they are on my plan. They are also shown that way on an Estate Publications Red Book (street maps) that I bought sometime in the 1990s in preparation for a site visit.

Edited January 29, 2020 by Mick Bonwick
Removing excess characters. It's those fingers again.

[john new]

1 hour ago, Mick Bonwick said:

 

You have an advantage over me, you're on the spot. When I created the plan I had to rely upon the 1929 Ordnance Survey map that showed the names as they are on my plan. They are also shown that way on an Estate Publications Red Book (street maps) that I bought sometime in the 1990s in preparation for a site visit.

 

This is an odd one and a puzzle I may try to solve just out of "locals" curiosity.

 

Reforne - I doubt it has ever been officially anything else but at times the OS  can be a law unto themselves, and were worse in the pre-GIS past than today.*

 

Railway Road (Station Street) - I checked this as my memory (probably completely incorrect) for some reason thought that road was called Railway Terrace. On all modern mapping, and on the street name sign, it is Station Road. I concur with you though that it is on 1920s maps as Railway Road. (Just checked my Godfrey's reprint of the 1927 edition).

 

I know someone who may well know when, and why, it changed both through his former work role and also as the leading local historian. If some searching on old maps doesn't resolve it, as to date at least, I will ask him.

 

* The NSG and NLPG introduced circa year 2000 resolved a lot of naming oddity clashes.

Edited January 29, 2020 by john new
Formatting error as posted.

[Mick Bonwick]

Having completed the basic board support framework on two sides of the room (the corner being shown in the photograph a few posts ago), I decided that my plan needed to be changed! The cross-rails were being affixed with screws through them into the support rails, but this wouldn't be suitable at a later stage because I wouldn't be able to access the screw heads once basebords were in place. Why would I need access? Baseboards were being positioned upon cross braces that might eventually be in the wrong place for point motor placing. The screws holding them in place should really be inserted from beneath, through the side rails.  The horizontal components of the side rails, the 2" x 1" parts, were not deep enough for my electric drill to insert screws, from beneath, through the rails and into the supports. Before going any further with construction, I dismantled the lot, and replaced the support rails with a 3" x 1" plus 3" x 1" system. One disaster avoided.

 

Once the support rails and legs were all in place, I could start to assemble the baseboard surfaces. The fiddle yard was to be solid plywood+Sundeala surface, but the scenic area was to be open frame with plywood+Sundeala track bed. Starting point was the fiddle yard, the Sundeala being screwed and glued to the plywood one sheet at a time and left on the floor, covered in all sorts of heavy things, for 24 hours. Jump forward a few months and the fiddle yard track was laid loose to check that everything would work as planned.

 

 

 

The two tracks on the left were to be the start of the incline up to the scenic area which would be two feet above. To achieve a 1 in 40 gradient would mean that the incline would need to go round the room twice to get that level of separation.

Edited February 3, 2020 by Mick Bonwick
Still having trouble with the fingers.

[Mick Bonwick]

Accepting that a proper scale model of the area was no longer achievable, some ideas were explored wth a view to placing most of the 'proper' buildings and adding a few more to crreate more reasons for there being rail traffic. Bringing more buildings into the Park Quarry area than there really were, and compressing the quarry area closer to the siding(s) was one idea, and adding a small industry to the siding south of the footbridge was another.

 

By using lumps of polystyrene to represent various structures, I was able to gain an understanding of how all these things could (or could not) fit in to the space available. I had plenty of photographs of the station area (as already mentioned) and kept them to hand while all this planning was proceeding:

 

[Mick Bonwick]

Time passed, unsurprisingly, and ideas kept changing. The scenic area changed over to the other side of the room and an altered track plan was devised, still trying to retain the prototype trackplan. Try as I might, I could not get the continuous smooth curve through the station to fit into the boards I had constructed. I ended up with this as the most suitable, or so I thought at the time.

 

 

The thinking was that an additional strip of trackwork support could be added at the centre left to allow the curve to be retained.

Edited February 20, 2020 by Mick Bonwick
Anybody know of a good proofreader?

[mullie]

I've just found this whilst looking for an article on baseboard legs for my Em test plank that will be at Taunton SWAG in April!

 

We had a discussion about this last year I believe, glad to see you are making a start. I do have some photos on my Pinterest account but doubt there is anything you haven't seen. I too am really interested in any roadside views of the goods shed as I haven't seen any. The link to my HLF project is below but my project was essentially about collecting audio memories of those who remembered the line. I did put a renumbered Bachmann pannier, 2mt and a Kernow 02 tank in the Portland Museum as part of a display linked to the project. When the Museum have finished I will reclaim them and get them working on something. I would like to try modelling the period when the branch line and the old Merchants Railway were both running, probably 1920s -30s as road transport was also in transition but it will depend on available time and space.

 

I live in Reforne and walked over the railway bridge today to collect my Sunday paper and have driven across the old route whilst giving my wife a lift to Tesco! I did walk part of the line and take photos out on the cliffs in 2016, the area is stunning.

 

I will follow this with interest.

 

Martyn

[mullie]

Mick

 

I seem to remember that the Study Centre in Reforne had some interesting photos, John New may also be aware of these. If you were looking for something in particular I could investigate for you when I am not at work during school holidays as I don't think they are open at weekends.

 

Martyn

[KNP]

Just come across this so will follow with interest.

 

Don't forget you will need a lorry with a crate on and a group of workmen working out how to remove it...….it's all the rage you know.

[Mick Bonwick]

Trying to keep the gentle curves of the prototype eventually proved too difficult because the space available precluded it. The idea of adding an extension to take the engine shed (top left of the previous photograph) was thrown in the bin and a new track layout devised. The same number of sidings was retained and a less flowing arrangement devised through the station area.

 

 

The box of buildings (second-hand resin ones and a few Superquick/Scalescenes assemblies) was raided to find some which would create additional interest. The direction was changing a little at this stage, and wandering away from fidelity towards make-believe. Still fun, though!