Paint, what paint??

Developing on the latter part of my last post... The plan to build the layout with some friends building other layouts that will make it a modular affair (albeit rather large) eventually is good fun. Ideas are bounced about, and one such recent idea was to move the period the layout is set in to pre-grouping.

This would mean moving the period from the 1930s to somewhere in the region of 1913. Ultimately this means that the line could have been operated by the North British Railway. There seems to be surprisingly little information recorded about the NBR in a country that has managed to preserve plenty of history about the other lines of the era.

Paint is a real issue, there were several different liveries carried by the NBR, but periods that these were used over seem rather vague, and there were some locos that overlapped from one period to another anyway. Phoneix paints produce some NBR colours, however I find them difficult to achieve a good finish with compared to other brands of paint.

Instead, from looking at photos of a preserved NBR loco (Glen Douglas), I found Citadel Colour 'Gretchin Green' foundation paint.

The colour is a close enough match for me to be happy. Now to try and sort out how to do the lining!!

A little more history

I've been doing some research recently into proposals for Scottish narrow gauge lines in some of my books. In 1896 the Light Railway Act was passed, and two years later there were 35 proposals in one year for light railways in Scotland, some brand new schemes, and some revivals of old ideas. There are some quite interesting proposals, one of which particularly captivated me.

The Hebridean Light Railway Proposal was to build lines on the Isle of Skye and The Isle of Lewis that would total a running distance of 97 miles. The main route on Skye was the one that interested me, this could potentially make the ideal setting for Port na Cailliche. The route proposed ran from North to South along the island with branches to Dunvegan and Uig. Other stations on the route mentioned are Sligachan, Broadford and Isleornsay. The intention was to take all traffic from Isleornsay to Mallaig where it could meet up with the North British Railway's West Highland Line. Therfore the line would likely have been operated by the NBR.

For whatever reason this proposal did not materialise. In 1898 the Highland Railway were invited to build a line on Skye from Portree to Dunvegan with a branch to Uig, again this did not materialise.

In 1980 'railways for the islands' were considered by a government comission, but again did not prove fruitful. There was strong opposition to any building of a line from the Highland Railway, this was likely to be because it would have been an NBR funded/operated scheme.

One line did materialise on Skye in 1904, a 3' gauge line from a marble quarry in Torrin to Broadford pier. It employed a Kerr Stuart Skylark (from 1910 onwards) and operated until closure in 1939.

From reading this it occurred to me that Port na Cailliche could be located on the Isle of Skye, and could have been a new port (like Mallaig) built to improve access to fisheries and ferry navigation routes. A likely location would be on the South Western corner of the island due to the shorter route to Mallaig by sea. Likely traffic could have been passengers to and from the Islands to meet ferries, local passengers, rock, fish, inter-island goods etc.

I decided to keep the location fairly imaginative and just leave it as 'somewhere in the Lochaber region', thus enabling me a bit more freedom with my plans, and with the history.

One thing that the reading did make me realise though, was that it would be different to set the line pre World War 1 in a period when it was operating at it's heyday rather than in the 1930s. Many narrow gauge lines would have been in decline by the 30s, so a more interesting range of operations could probably be modelled if set pre-WW1. Anothe thing that occured, was the possible ownership/endorsement by the NBR, so I will be experimenting with NBR livery on a loco kit and some stock that I am working on at present to see how it turns out.

Dunbracken is to be exhibited at ExpoNG in October, realistically before this I don't think i'll have time to get anything done on PnC, but after that it will be full steam ahead for the winter to make a start on the baseboards!

Trackplan!

Here’s a copy of the revised trackplan as promised… it’s got the right angled bend in it to make it take up less space in the loft, whilst still retaining the feel of the curvy design.

Click here for a larger copy to look at

Now that this if finalised, just to plan the construction of the baseboards now… woodwork, not something that I get on with too well!

The other Lochaber Railway

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while may have heard me refer to the Lochaber Railway which ran from the pier at Fort William up around the edges of Ben Nevis and Aonach Mor to Loch Treig.

I’ve recently returned from a holiday in the highlands, and have had a lot of inspiration for the layout. It has not made me change the trackplan for PnC in any way from the last revision, but has given me ideas of specific buildings to use of the layout. One thing that I did decide to do whilst there was to give the layout a sense of place, a location better than ‘somewhere in the Scottish Highlands’.

To do this I’ve decided to locate it on the edge of the Lochaber region, and give some subtle hints to this within the layout, and the history that will accompany it. In Fort William I purchased a very helpful book of historic photos of the Lochaber region:

Source: www.alibris.co.uk

From reading through this book I’ve decided to give hints to the region, such as having the local store named ‘Nether Lochaber Stores’ which had a branch in Onich run by John Mackinnon. It is highly possible that Mr. Mackinnon could have opened another branch of the Nether Lochaber stores at Port na Cailliche.

The Nether Lochaber Stores, Onich - Source: www.theoldstore.co.uk

Road signs and busses to Fort William (the largest town in the Lochaber Region) will also help to give the layout a better sense of place.

What was also interesting was to get a better understanding of the narrow gauge railways that existed in the Loch Leven area whilst staying there. The two that I looked at were the Kinlochleven Railway that ran through the village of Kinlochleven, and the quarry line at Ballachulish.

The Kinlochleven line was built to carry bauxite and other materials to the plant, and then aluminium to ships at the loch. It was operated by electric locos in it’s final years.

Route of the Kinlochleven Railway since closure - Source: http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk

Kinlochleven Aluminium Works Pipe Line - Source: www.grough.co.uk

The Lochaber area accounted for about a third of the world’s aluminium production in the early 1900’s, so a third plant in close proximity is feasible. I’d like to have one of these plants located somewhere on the railway network attached to PnC, and given that PnC is supposed to be relatively close to Fort William it is feasible.

I’m going back to Scotland in September, so hopefully I can try and walk the route of the railway if time permits.

I know very little about the Ballachuilish line, other than there was a small narrow gauge line built to carry slate from the nearby quarry to the Caledonian branch from Oban. I will investigate this further in the future for personal interest.

Ballachulish Quarry - Source: www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk

I was suprised to see a structure that has mainly Welsh narrow gauge associations though: a quarry incline made of slate! I’d not noticed it before, but will go for more of a wander around it when I’m there in September if possible.

Ballachuilish incline – Source: www.flickr.com

I think given that both a quarry and an aluminium plant existed in the area anyway, to add more of the same onto my line wouldn’t seem out of place for the area. However, I don’t want to have slate trains, I think i’d rather have something more associated with Scotland than slate is… granite perhaps?

Finally, on the way home from Scotland we stopped in the Lake District. Whilst there we rode on the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway. I’ve always had a soft spot for their logo, so i’m tempted to adapt it for my line. I’ve got an idea, but need to draw it out a bit more presentably before showing it online!

Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway emblem

Future proofing

When designing the layout I was thinking of it being a standalone layout that would operate independently of anything else.  One source of inspiration for this layout is Ted Polet’s Craigcorrie & Dunalastair Railway which operates on two levels. 

I’ve always thought this was a good idea as it has allowed Ted to model near enough a whole line.  This brings in levels of operation that you would expect to see on large American basement layouts, but not in something that occupies a space of about 10’x6’.

Consequently, I may well revert to the more right angled design of the layout plan that was posted originally, but adapt the layout of everything on the existing plan to fit into the ‘new’ (old?) shape.  This should make it a much more practical shape, whilst still allowing me to represent the curve for the Plockton board.  It will also hopefully future proof it a little by making it much more likely to fit into rooms if and when we move house.  I don’t want to loose the individuality of the design however, so part of the the curve will be retained rather than it simply becoming an L shape with right angled edges.

Hopefully this will make it the ideal base for me to some time begin my own double decked plan that I drew out years ago.

I’m aiming to begin ‘proper’' work on the layout during July rather than waffling here about the planning stage.  I’ve had a lot of time consuming things to deal with recently, and not enough spare time for me to get on with building a layout once more mundane things are done.  Hopefully that can be put right soon, and progress will be shown here over the coming months.

Cold spell...

Jeff Bissonnette and others have described themselves as having 'hot and cold' spells of modelling enthusiasm, where lots gets done during the 'hot' times, while during the 'cold' periods time is spent on other things.

I have to admit that this is very much how I am with modelling, I will go a long time without doing any, then have a prolonged spell of it and a flurry of things is produced.  At present I'm experiencing a cold period, and cannot seem to summon up the enthusiasm to do any modelling at the moment.  This often happens during the summer for me, my modelling is very much a winter hobby, but the odd bit does get done during the summer.

This summer I'd like to get the loft organised and the space made for Port na Cailliche to be assembled up there, then make a start on the baseboards.  Other than that I think I'll struggle to find the motivation to get much done.  Dunbracken is off to EXPOng at Swanley in October, and I'll be doing some preparation work for that.  Once that's out of the way I expect I'll be well under way with PnC.

Hopefully normal service will resume soon, and I'll post here when it does.  I do have some stock to construct, so I expect I'll post about this soon(ish).

What's in a name?

I've finally worked out a justifiable reason for the name of the layout, although i've been settled on a name for quite some time now i've not come up with a reason for the name to go into the history that will accompany the layout...

Cailliche (or Cailleach in Irish pronunciation) is associated with a mythical goddess who is rumoured to have traversed Ireland and Scotland and dropped rocks from her apron.  These rocks allegedly formed mountains such as Beinn na Caillieach on the Isle of Skye, or the rock that forms the end of the tombolo at Port na Cailliche which is now the site of boat builders yard.