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.

Scenery finalised.

One of the main things I wanted to create with this layout was a feeling of space and open countryside around the line, whilst having good operational potential... somewhat contradicting requirements!

However, i think i've come up with some minor alterations to the scenic side whilst leaving the track plan pretty much alone.  The only areas that will really change are the tidal inlet board, where the road is likely to run around the inlet then next to the line at the front, and follow the back of the yard.  Behind this there will be a road junction with another road climbing away up to the backscene.

The backscene has also been a subject of thought recently, the intention was to replicate a town which had developed on a ledge between the sea and some mountains.  To try and achieve this I will plan to have the rear of the baseboards climbing slightly to give the impression of the ground climbing towards the base of the mountains.  At the extreme rear of the layout there will be a band of trees hiding the joint between the scenery and the backscene, then above it will emerge a scene like this (section above treeline) to give the impression of the mountains...

Source: www.ashaig.co.uk

That scene is the opposite side of the bay to Plockton, so fits in the area that the rest of the layout is based on.  That in conjunction with the alterations to the end of the layout should give a good feeling of space and help create the impression of the town being sat of a ledge at the edge of the land.

I'm going to spend a whole day in Plockton in June taking plenty of pictures so there should be plenty of opportunity to make a panorama for the backscene.

I'll doodle my revised plan soon now that i've got it all sorted out.

Change of plan?

It always happens... i settle on a plan, then i come up with an 'improved' version...

I've been thinking of making PnC feel more like it's on a ledge set between the coast and some mountains.  With this in mind I began thinking of scenes that could be incorporated into the layout.  The trackplan is likely to remain the same, but the scenery will alter around it.

Once i've managed to work out the plan properly rather than scribbles then i'll post it on here.  It's likely to involve making the inlet into an estuary and having the hotel sat at one side of it, then a short road side section, and then into a slightly shortened (only slightly) version of the fiddle yard.  Behind this there would be a road climbing away up a hillside behind the hotel off into the backscene giving the impression of a road cutting through the mountains.  That's all i've got so far, now i need to put pen to paper and work out how to do it...

I don't want to change the trackplan as i think it'll make great fun operationally but we'll have to see...

Something curious

Ted Polet has been a huge influence on my modelling, and his layout the Craigcorrie & Dunalastair Railway is one of the reasons that I model in 009 set in Scotland now.

I often dip into the Dutch group of the 009 society's website, but on a recent visit i noticed on this page adjacent to the 7th picture down on the left hand side of the second block of photos  an interesting name that i'd not noticed before... 'Loch na Cailliche'.  Now I have read LOTS about Ted's layout in the past, and can only remember this area being referred to as Inverlochan Moor, but looking back through a CD I once bought on Ted's layout it has always had this name...

Happy coincidence.  Hopefully I can make my layout worthy of carrying the same name as part of Ted's very inspirational line.

On the planning front, due to the rush to get Dunbracken finished for Tonbridge i'm enjoying some time off modelling, and will be extremely busy with work for a part time degree that i'm studying on day release from work.  This will be over in May so hopefully I can crack on with the baseboard construction after then.  For now I will just stick to the odd bit of stock construction.

Full size planning session!

Here are the results of last night's full size planning session. I had to make some minor alterations to the trackplan to make it fit on the boards, but i'm very pleased with the end result.

The decision was made to reduce the size of the boards to 900x700 mm, this doesn't seem to have impacted on the feeling of space, or the length of trains that can be run on the layout so the added transportability is an added bonus.

The only compromise was the inclusion of a small 300x700 mm board at the end of the station to ensure that the station building across the end of the platform doesn't hover in mid air off the end of the board! The minimum radius on any of the curves is 18" and that is only a short section... the rest are all >24".

The first board off the fiddle yard (left). The building at the rear is Glencloy Lodge, this sits at the end of a tidal inlet which is based on an area of Plockton that looks like this...

The goods yard board. The small building at the end of the two mineral sidings is just a yard office. The good shed is sat at the back of the yard with a small shed next to it which will house a small inspection railcar. To the right of the goods shed is the platform with cattle docks. The track with dotted lines along it at the rear is supposed to represent a dirt track that will lead off into the backscene supposedly to a croft. The area either side of this will be sparsely covered with crofts and rusty corrugated sheds.

This is the 'Plockton' board. The curve at the rear will represent the main road in Plockton which looks like this.... I may retain the palm tree, might be something different to have on the layout... The buildings will be more like the ones in the link, more tightly packed. The signal box is on the left of the shot, and the boat builder's is sat on the tombolo/spit.

The station board and the 300x700 mm scenic board. The station building will be removable and sit over the join of the two boards. At the front of the station will be a stone retaining wall leading down to water level. From this there is a wooden jetty leading out to the steamer. Behind the station the building is a white washed church. On the end of the platform sit the water tower (weird torpedo shape - i do have a prototype :wink: ) and the coal stage.

View across the 'bay' towards the Plockton scene.

View over the tombolo with the boat builders at the front of the layout, the area between this and the seawall will be submerged at high tide, so will give me a good chance to experiment with more types of seaweed and grime than on Dunbracken... It's all based on the same sort of scene at Plockton (again) a mini version of this...

View along the entire length of the layout. The edges of the boards will be tidied up to make them more flowing curves...

Final Developments?

I've just returned home from Narrow Gauge South West, I used to go every year when I lived in the Westcountry, but have missed it for the last few years so it was nice to return.

While there I met up with two friends who are planning to build layouts that will join onto PnC.  We had a planning session and have come up with a scheme that should prove quite interesting to watch and operate.  

The junction has disappeared from the trackplan on PnC, but the rest of it will remain the same (just have to finalise how much of a curve it will sit on).  This was done to allow more free space on the layout, having that extra line was just that bit 'too far'.   So, the intention now is for PnC to act as the end of the layout, coupled to this will be an 8' wide, 6' deep glen scene which the line will travel up one side of and down the other.  On this module (if you can call it a module being that big!) will be a passing loop and stabling siding for a banking loco.  The banker will be needed to assist locos climbing the 3" from one side of the glen to the other, a challenge if we run long trains!  Finally the last module before the fiddle yard looks like it will be a contractors yard and staging point for a major construction scheme.  This is heavily inspired by Fersit from the Lochaber Railway.  The intention of this site is to represent something major being constructed (like a pipeline) and spoil being removed from this site, taken to the dock at PnC and tipped into the puffer.

So, these additions to the layout should make it very interesting to operate, and allow someone at an exhibition to follow a train along around 20-30' of layout!

I don't anticipate any changes to the trackplan from now on, so now i've just got to decide construction methods for the baseboard and plan that... then I can begin! It's looking likely to be either a ply frame with blue foam centre, or a ply frame with chicken wire over formers... both will be light, but i'll have to work out shapes etc. to check which is best suited to the trackplan.

Super Power

The release of the Graham Farish 08 chassis has made me think about uses for it, and then seeing how John de Frayssinet has used them in his mallet River Brue and to remotor his Backwoods Miniatures Manning Wardle really got me thinking.

I came up with a design for a tank loco to be based on a Roco 0-6-0 tender loco chassis.  This ran really well initially, but developed a slight case of the wobbles as the chassis block wore slightly.  There is a solution to this, to add some bushes to eliminate play on the rear axle.  However the advent of the Graham Farish 08 diesel chassis should provide another solution to outside framed chassis...

Source: Kernow Model Centre

The plan I came up with was very much inspired by the compound locos that ran on the Ballycastle Railway in Ireland.  The wheel arrangement would be changed from 2-4-2T to 2-6-2T, and the whole loco would have a longer and slightly lower appearance.  I'd like at least two of these, and will make a start on them after the rush of getting Dunbracken ready for exhibition is over.  Frames will be plasticard i think, and valve gear is likely to be either Backwoods Miniatures or Roco transplanted onto the chassis.  The chassis seems easier than other Farish models to fit DCC decoders to and one feature that i'm pleased i've managed to incorporate into the design is a bunker which will be large enough to house a Soundtraxx speaker, and form a small box to amplify the sound as much as possible.

I'll upload a copy of the plan once i've managed to revise it to fit on the 08 chassis.

If this one goes well then I expect i'll construct a couple more on the same design, and possibly venture into the area of larger stock if all goes well.

Swanley!

Normally getting home from work and opening white envelopes means someone is telling either A) how much money I owe them, or B) how much money i've not got... Fortuntately today I got a rather nice surprise in a white letter...

I've been asked to exhibit Dunbracken at this years ExpoNG at Swanley (31st Oct). This was one of my modelling goals when building an exhibition layout. I guess i'll have to think of a new one for PnC...!

Dunbracken is going to be replaced by PnC, and unfortunately I don't have room for both of them at home, so at Swanley it is going to be up for sale.

I'll be making a start on PnC later this year (probably cutting up baseboard bits in summer time) so hopefully the blog should become more construction orientated than planning soon(ish).

RTR 009

To be honest i'm suprised someone else out of my fellow bloggers hasn't posted on this yet...



This week Roco announced that they are to release a ready to run 009 Ffestiniog Railway Fairlie as shown below in an excerpt from their 2009 catalogue that was found online.

This is great for 009, but many people are discussing on internet forums that it is likely to be pretty pricey, especially given the current exchange rate between the Euro and the Pound. However you look at it though it's a great thing for 009, yes we've had ready to run with Eggerbahn before, and maybe the hobby wouldn't be where it is now without that but this is great step forward.

I can't help feel that there would have been a more universally appealing loco than the Fairlie, but it's a pretty safe bet that it'll still be popular regardless (price issues forgotten about until they actually confirm a price!).

Will one be appearing on PnC? Maybe... we'll have to see.

Update - I've emailed Roco and had a response saying that they can't give a set release date or price as yet. I also questioned if they would consider any other UK prototypes after this one, and again they weren't able to comment but have logged the suggestion, so fingers crossed!

E. R. Calthrop

Whilst down in the Westcountry over Christmas and New Year I went to visit the Launceston Railway and had a ride on one of their 'Bah Humbug Specials', however this was only half the reason for going. They have quite a good shop, and i can normally guarantee that when i go there i'll come back with a new narrow gauge orientated book!


This time i found this...

Not quite how to build your own light railway, but an interesting paper written by E.R. Calthrop (of Leek and Manifold and Barsi railway fame) in 1897. In the paper he goes into the cost effectiveness of using narrow gauge, and how 2'6" is the ideal gauge for a combination of reduced build costs and maximum carrying capacity. He also goes on to talk about standardisation of parts between all items of rolling stock etc. and basically reducing costs... dare i say it, something that a Scottish line would be interested in?

It's ideas like this that i find interesting (maybe from being an engineer by trade, i don't know...) and as such i've decided to incorporate him into the history of the Aradig Bay Joint Railway Co.

As i've alluded to in a previous blog entry of mine i'm going to come up with a history of the line for an added bit of fun. The basic concept is that two lines operated independently, then merged and paid for a line to be constructed through the hilly area that separated them.

My thought was to have the joint company appoint E.R. Calthrop as the chief engineer for the design and construction of the line that would pass through the mountains. This would give me three sets of stock that i could run...

1 - From the first original line - one distinct style. Possibly smallish locos as it would have run on a comparatively flat route.

2 - From the second original line - same as above, although one these original sets would very rarely venture over the hills...

3 - That bought for the new joint line which was powerful enough to operate through the hills - more likely to be of a slightly more modern appearance.

This would basically justify me having all sorts of items of stock running on PnC from small(ish) tank locos to large locos for the more strenuous route. Also a variety of carriage and wagon stock could be built up. E.R. Calthrop advocates the use of stock with the same axle loading as the locos (5 tons for the Barsi rly. mentioned in the book), so a variety of older and more modern stock also.

Plus i've always liked the Leek and Manifold locos, and he seems to have adopted that style as a standard design, simply experimenting with the wheel arrangement as can be seen with this shot of a Leek and Manifold loco at the top and a Barsi loco below it...

The Barsi one seems a little over the top, but a variation on the L&M one might well appear in some form.

When the layout proper gets underway i'd like to set up a website and use this blog for build updates, so all that is being developed for the history will transfer over to the website to form the story of the line...

I always enjoyed reading Narrow Gauge Adventure by P.D. Hancock, i'm sure mine won't be as influential as that, but hopefully someone will enjoy reading it.

Trackplan again!

Between Christmas and New Year there are always moments of quiet thought for me, and during one of these i looked at the track plan for PnC. The first track plan i ever came up with was for a T shaped junction, and being T shaped had a junction in the track plan with the station being at the base of the T on a pier. This plan was pretty impractical, i can't see many exhibition managers liking a T shaped layout, so with this in mind i redesigned it, but still wanted it to be different.

Then i came up with the curved plan that I have now. This smaller (ish) plan meant that the junction was lost, and that was the main aspect i had associated with the station in the little bit of the Scottish Highlands i have floating around in my head! So, i got to thinking about things, firstly what the coastline would have looked like before any railway was built there...

This is based on the coastline of Plockton (albeit juggled about a little). The dotted line indicates where the two lines are supposed to be located. The area where they join is to the right of the goods yard. This plan shows two areas where the line would need building up, the first is the area after the tidal inlet on the left of the plan (crossed by a steel bridge), this section is where the 'old quay' falls. This is intended to be a stone quay used for minerals etc. to goods ships.

The area in the bottom right area of the plan is where the station is located. This is also the site of the 'new quay', this is to be stone with a wood pier to enable steamers to moor closer to the land. This is area didn't quite seem to fit it when it was based on Portree, so i've decided to make the whole layout more like Plockton and have it more barren as the plan and cross section below show. The large building behind the station is a church.

I prefer the arrangement of this end now, and will stick with this as i think it will give a better overall impression of being in a barren area. Plus the church would have been an obstacle for the railway to be built around so the idea of a line being squeezed along the coast still applies.

With regards to the junction i've decided to run the second line along the side of the road out of Port na Cailliche like the roadside section on the Glyn Valley Tramway (a scene i've always wanted to model). I think this incorporates the second line in a way that keeps operatingfun by having to run back from the station to the goods yard still, and not overcrowded the layout. The area behind the line where the crofts are will have to be rethought, i'm going to draw the layout out full size before any work starts. It may be that the line in red below doesn't run the length of the layout, and disappears between a couple of crofts long before reaching the area of the tidal inlet.

Dunbracken is progressing well, and has to be complete for its first exhibition as an operating layout at Tonbridge on February 14th. After this i shall start far more serious work on PnC with baseboard construciton beginning sometime shortly after the exhibition.

I'm looking to sell Dunbracken, so if anyone fancies rehoming it for a modest fee then please let me know. You can keep up to date with its completion on RMweb here.