Moving home

Not me, the blog.

As mentioned before, I'm moving the blog to a new site. I'm going to use Wordpress from now on as it enables me to have a more traditional type site with pages in a style i prefer to blogger.

I won't be transferring over the information from this blog as I'd like to make a clean break from the remnants of Port na Cailliche, fun though it was. The new site will focus on Isle Ornsay and it's development.

For those of you who link to this site, please direct your links to the new address:

http://hlrco.wordpress.com/

Over and out.

Post Kew doodling

The trackplan above shows how the plan for Armadale has been adapted to fit in to the coastline around Isle Ornsay. I think it's adapted nicely and the area seems to suit it just as well as Armadale did!

The quay should extend to the edge of the baseboard joint to help mask the joint a little, or to just before and the fishing boat to mask it.

For a plan with annotations showing what elements are click here.

I'll be doing a full size plan when I'm back from an exhibition in Holland this coming weekend.

Post Kew excitement!

Well, today's trip to Kew was extremely successful!

All images below are reproduced with permission.

I wasn't anticipating finding much, but when collecting the first lot of records this is what I was presented with:

When unfurled this revealed a wealth of plans and long sections of the line including details of bridges, viaducts, and tunnels.

You'll have to excuse the weights on the end of the sheets in some shots, it was a constant battle to stop the sheets curling back up again! It all looked like it had'nt seen the light of day for some considerable time.

Here's an overview map of the whole system drawn onto an OS map sheet. Railway 1 runs from Isle Ornsay to Uig (52 miles in total), whilst Railway 2 branches off Railway 1 approximately 3 miles North of Portree and runs a further 24 miles to Dunvegan.

The trackplan I drew up for Armadale a while ago conveniently fits nicely into the area where Isle Ornsay station was proposed.

The sheet that shows the section of line I'm going to model is shown below:

More specifically the area immediately around Isle Ornsay station and pier:

As can be seen from the long section, the line was planned to pass through a headland in an 80 yard long tunnel - an ideal break for a fiddle yard! :)

Below is a general description of Railway 1 for it's entire length.

Notice to build the line under an order from the 1896 Light Railways Act in the form of an advert placed in the Northern Weekly on Thursday the 21st April 1898.

The line was proposed by a group of people from the London area. The directors are listed as being a Mr. Andrew M. Barr of Eltham, Harold E. Lewin also of Eltham, Charles Kemble (unreadable location), A. Hambury Tracey of Queensgate, W.M. Godward of Enfield, J.W. Hume Williams of Gloster Place, and T. Beaumont Hesseltine of Bond Street.

Some of the above were part of a well known railway manufacturer who's head office address matches that of the Hebridean Light Railway Co.

Dick Kerr feature on a lot of the paperwork and are listed as the promoter and official contractor for the line.

I've found several references to this proposal in different books, some mentioned the involvement of the North British Railway, the records don't show this. In one document it is stated that the line wasn't built due to lack of funds and the plan was abandoned. The company correspondence does make reference to them not wanting to immediately dissolve the company as they were keen to try and restart it in the future.

To make the model I have made one assumption:

When the costs for the line came in at more than expected (£598,977 9s 9d) the HLR approached the NBR to see if they would be interested in a joint project. The NBR agreed and part funded the line as well as agreeing to provide stock, and operate it. The provision of a government grant which the NBR aided the line in obtaining, was a great help towards some of the construction fees.

This would have meant that the line was more likely to get built, and to a reasonable standard with some interesting potential for stock.

The Highland Railway were approached to build a line on Skye and refused to do so on two occasions, so the NBR was the logical choice for this, especially as they were working on the Mallaig extension to the West Highland Line at the time this scheme was being proposed. Ferries could then have been run form Isle Ornsay to Mallaig to provide a connecting service.

The layout will be approximately a 9'x9' L shape, i'll be firming up the trackplan soon after i've made alterations to it to reflect the change in location. Things that will change are mainly the location, type and orientation of buildings as well as a minor re-site of the turntable and the addition of a tunnel mouth as the exit to the fiddle yard.

I wil be using some of the details from the National Archives (plus a little imagination) to write a history to accompany the layout.

The plans also showed lines proposed across the conjoined islands of Lewis and Harris, namely Railways 3 and 4. I will post some more details of this at some point if people are interested.

I've not modelled a real life location before, but the opportunity to do so is something that i'm looking forward to, although the proposed line will allow me to model the area immediately around the station as it could have developed had the line been built.

Quick catch up

Just a quick post to say that I'm off to Kew to go and examine the plans for the proposed line on Skye tomorrow.

I've also found some more details on the proposals and have used these to compile a history for the new layout. This is currently running at 12 a4 pages long! It's been helpful to establish some ground rules though, before starting on the new layout.

Last week I drew out the two straight boards (half of the goods yard and the station) on lining paper and the plan fits in nicely. If I make the boards 50mm shorter then I can get them to fit widthways across the boot of my VW Golf. This is quite surprising, but also an added bonus, if i can fit it in the car then transport costs to shows are going to be considerably lower so it's likely to get more invites. I'll now design it with this in mind. I just assumed that it was going to be in van hire territory so hadn't given the car any thought until now.

Dunbracken has an invite to the Smalspoormuseum at Valkenburg in the Netherlands on the 1th and 12th September, i'm really looking forward to this show as it's my first trip to Holland for 13 years, my first show abroad, and I get to see Ted Polet's Dunalastair which doesn't normally make it over to the UK due to it's more cumbersome nature than Rae Bridge... Exciting!

Next week i'll post an update on what I uncovered at Kew.

Building Momentum

In my last post I mentioned that I was finding my enthusiasm for modelling rather lacking at the moment, and that this time of year my mind is normally on other hobbies.

Well, I attended a nice little 'do' at the weekend which was privately organised and only open to friends of friends who had received an invite. There were some really nice layouts there and I think most seemed to have a good day, me especially. It was nice to see some layouts that I've heard about or seen photographs of but never seen in real life, and a good opportunity to catch up with some friends.

I received two invites for Dunbracken for 2011, one to Arundel, and a potential one to Crawley.

I've also finally managed to sort out a date to go and look at the Hebridean Light Railway Proposal drawings in Kew in early september. I will report back on this in due course.

Recently I've been working on setting up the new website/blog that I referred to in a recent blog post, and I've been looking at the trackplan for Armadale and trying to work out where/how to fit in a turntable and avoid reverse curves.

A recent pleasant surprise was that I was awared a B&Q voucher for £75 at work recently for my performance, so that's the initial plywood budget for Armadale sorted out!

All of the above has resulted in a considerable raise in levels of enthusiasm, and I'm now getting really excited about the project again. We've recently had a big sort out at home and organised a lot of our possessions, we did this in a relatively short time so i'm hoping to continue these efforts in finishing the loft clearance off very soon.

Slow summer

My modelling is normally quite slow in the summer, I tend to amuse myself with the usual modelling forum trawling, reading, doodling and my other hobbies. So progress is generally slow in the summer, especially when it's near 30 degrees fairly regularly! Too nice to be sat at the modelling bench.

I've now got a date sorted to go and look at the drawings at Kew, there are some other items there associated with the line on Skye, company papers and such. How useful any of it will be is beyond me until I get there, hopefully it's going to be clear enough to be of interest though.

I'm slowly working on a new blog, i rather feel that this one has run it's course, covering the planning of the layout and a bit of history of the line. I'm going to make a fresh start for the construction phase, so keep an eye out for a new link if you link to this one at the mo. I'll do a specific post linking to the new one when it's ready.

In 'other' news, I recently accepted an invite to an exhibition at Valkenburg in Holland with Dunbracken, it should be fun going abroad with the layout, especially as I get to see Ted Polet's Dunalastair!

Portree Shed, AKA "What can I fit in a boxfile....?"

For a while now I've been thinking about doing a small photographic diorama to pose my stock on for photographic purposes, and for a bit of fun whilst I'm avoiding finishing off clearing the loft to start 'the big layout'.

A thread on NGRM really spurred me on with the idea, before then I was thinking of constructing something like a long section of totally rural track on a foamboard base. However, after reading the thread and discussing ideas for other people's boxfiles it go me on to thinking about doing an engine shed for myself.

As Portree is the end of the branches to Uig and Dunvegan I thought that would be a good place for a stabling shed. There was a 1:24 layout based on the same idea.

The trackplan is simpler than simple, but then it's not intended to be operational, just a photographic diorama. I think any more and it may begin to look crowded.

Here's an annotated version which shows what all the various elements are.

In these shots the Backwoods Fowler and NBR tank are on the shed lines, and the WD Hunslet is on the running line.

I'm hoping to cram a small workshop down one side of the shed, a bit like Pilton. There's going to be a workbench with tools on, a lathe and maybe a drill press.

I might add some grass to the front flap of the boxfile, not sure yet. I'm also hoping to add lighting to the buildings and hide a battery and switch in the low relief carriage shed opposite the engine shed.

This might prove useful for helping establish the 'identity' of the Isle of Skye Railway too and seeing how building and stock styles work together. At the least it should help me 'keep my eye in' until Armadale is at the scenic stage.

The lines of Skye

I've been using Google maps for a while now to work on a map of all the lines on Skye, the following map is the result.


View Isle of Skye Railway in a larger map

The blue lines represent both of the planned lines by the North British and Highland Railways, and the Skye Marble Railway (as this followed the same route as the HR proposal to Torrin). This also is the 'network' that I will be using as the basis for my 'history' that I will create for the IoSR when the layout is complete.

The turquoise line is the Ord quartzite quarry tramway, a line of only a few tens of metres long from the quarry to the main road.

The purple line shows the Talisker distillery tramway from the distillery, to the pier at Carbostbeg.

The yellow line is a funiclar railway for the Storr Lochs hydroelectic power schemes which was built to help transport materials during the construction of the HEP scheme.

The red line is the longest of the 'independent' railways on Skye, the Lealt Valley Diatomite Railway, running from the coast at Invertote, to Loch Cuithir.

Over time I hope to visit all of these sites and photograph whatever remains. For now though, the map will have to do.

I'll be posting some shots from Streetview soon which show some of the lines, along with some of the history of each.

Skye Marble Railway

Time for a little more history...

The Skye Marble Company set up a quarry in the Kilchrist area of Skye near the foot of Ben Suardal, however they had problems transporting their produce to the then new pier at Broadford. In the latter half of the 1890's the grandiose schemes for lines across the majority of Skye were taking place, however none of these ever got off the ground. This consequently left the marble company still unable to transport their wares further afield to somewhere like the pier. In 1904 a 3'6" gauge line was opened from Kilchrist to Broadford Pier at a cost of £30,000 including the construction of a bridge to span the Broadford River so that it could connect to the pier.

The line was initially operated by horse power, however this clearly wasn't sufficient as Skye Marble Ltd. purchased two locos. The first is conspicuously absent from all sources of information on the line, however there is substantially more information about the second.

It was a Hunslet 0-4-0ST named 'Skylark' (works number 564 of 1892). This loco was initially delivered to T.S. Dixon with the name of 'Bruckless' in May 1892 for use in the construction of the Donegal to Kilbegys section of the County Donegal Railway in Ireland. It was sold in 1894 following completion of the line and was subsequently purchased by the Preston Corporation Waterworks Department for use in the construction of their 'Spade Mill no. 1 Reservoir'. It was here that it gained the name 'Skylark'. In the period between July 1897 and March 1905 the loco was under the ownership of the Newcastle & Gateshead Waterworks. It was from this owner that it was transferred to the ownership of Skye Marble in 1907.

There are some images of the loco and some of the quarry operation reproduced in 'Last Ferry to Skye' by Christopher J Uncles.

The company quarried material from their site at Kilchrist using a partly Belgian migrant workforce. The company seemed prosperous throughout the early years of the 20th century, however by 1913/14 the company had gone into liquidation. Like many schemes of this era it didn't prove as lucrative as first thought, however if it had lasted a while longer I don't think that it could survived the loss of large numbers of islanders to the front during World War 1. By 1914 the company had dismantled it's works at Kilbride and demolished the workers cottages. The managers house, the shop and quarries were all vacant and the railway was derelict.

'Skylark' was sold in May 1914 to John Mackay of Dublin Waterworks, and it ended it's days back in Ireland where it had been initially delivered.

In the 1980s there was a skip wagon from the line that was still visible in the forecourt of a garage at Breakish near Broadford. These wagons arrived at the garage from a short line at Ord quarry on the West of Sleat, having previously operated on the Skye Marble network. Traces of the line on the pier were beginning to disappear during the 1980s when it was coated with new layers of tarmac, subsequently burying the rails.

I hope to walk the entire course of the line the next time I go to Skye, and will post some images of the route on here when I do.

There were several other minor industrial lines on Skye, I will cover each of these in turn in future blog posts.

Rebranding

Regular visitors should be able to note the change of header on this blog to now say 'Isle of Skye Railway', this is to reflect the change from modelling a completely fictitious setting, to an actual proposed line on the Isle of Skye.

In time I expect I will create a dedicated website, but for now I'll keep the blog going and add a link to the new site when it's done.

All my modelling bits and bobs are up in the loft now and things are beginning to take shape. Half of the space required is cleared, but there is still some more work to do. I'd like to get this sorted during the summer so that I can enjoy the sun cutting up baseboard materials in the sunshine in the garden.

I must try and get to the National Archives at Kew to see the actual plan and survey results of the Hebridean Light Railway Proposal soon too.

New Toy!

Well, Narrow Gauge South went better than I was expecting it to after the recent tribulations!

Dunbracken began the day being a little tempremental after the alterations to the fiddle yard. The end of the cassette mount had risen up somehow and was causing stock to derail. This was fixed with some abuse with a needle file to flatten off the track to the required level. Apologies if you witnessed the ensuing mock earthquake whilst I was doing this!

The 009 Society Sales stand is always worth a visit, and on this occasion I got to buy something that I've been looking for for a while. The last time I saw one it was on the sales stand but I decided not to go for it and have regretted it ever since. However I was fortunate enough to get it this time.

The item I am talking about is an N gauge MicroAce 0-6-6-0 mallet. Most mallets that I've seen before are tank locos, so the tender version is going to be huge!



This runs really well and watching two sets of valve gear go round is great. After some discussion on NGRM online I have pretty much decided to build a mini Burma Railways Mallet body on it.

I'm tempted to get this working fairly soon, it will be rather large to use on Dunbracken but it'll be good fun to build the body for it as it's like nothing I've tried before.

We're not at home to Mr. Cock up!

Or so goes the quote from Blackadder....

Whilst I may not be permenantly at home to Mr. Cock up, he does seem to take up temporary residence at our house prior to exhbitions! This evening the layout was being turned around so that I could work on the fiddle yard. Whilst turning it round one end gave way and the layout collapsed, ripping off the lighting pelmet!

So, I've now got to refix the pelmet before Narrow Gauge South this weekend, as well as finishing off some stock. Fortunately, I have a 'cunning plan' to fix it and improve things slightly from before.

If anyone comes along to Narrow Gauge South that reads this make sure to come and say hello!

Tanking along

I have been working on some rolling stock recently in preparation for taking Dunbracken to Narrow Gauge South in early April. The main focus at the moment has been on some Innisfail tramway coaches.

I have also been refining the North British tank loco design to the point where I've now resolved all the issues that would present a problem with the design in real life and I'm ready to get it etched (well, once all the changes are accounted for on my etch sheet drawing I am).

I'm really pleased with the result and am looking forward to getting it done. This will be one of my main projects after Narrow Gauge South. I also have Easter weekend pencilled in for loft clearance with the assistance of my fiancée which means it might get done this time!

Armadale Trackplan

Here's the definitive plan for Armadle, I've taken the old plan for Port na Cailliche and flipped it over with some other minor alterations. This has interpolated quite well to the landscape of Armadale and could easily represent how the village might have developed had the railway arrived.

There's a link to a larger image at the end of this post. Any larger and it doesn't all appear on my blog without cutting off the right hand end!

There are only two times where I've had to apply modeller's license:

1 - The Plockton-esque frontage remains as this would locate the centre of the town near the station, this would mean a slight movement of the road towards the sea.

2 - The headland at the right hand end of the plan, this does exist in real life near this location, but in real life would be slightly further to the left. This area has been foreshortened to create a visual barrier to mask stock exiting to/entering from the fiddle yard.

Here is a link to the original image on Flickr which has notes on it. These indicate what is what on the plan and show the inspiration behind the buildings/objects on the layout.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/16967289@N02/4449679845/

Very Proud

Whilst exhibiting Dunbracken at Expo Narrow Gauge (ExpoNG) late last year I was asked to write an article for the French modelling magazine Voie Libre. When I spoke to them they promised me a couple of free copies of the magazine. I received them this week and was very pleased with the article.

What was the really nice surprise was that Dunbracken made the feature photo on the front cover!! The photos that François took of the layout at the show are superb and certainly reproduce well in the magazine.

François also produced a very nice trackplan of the layout, much nicer than the crewd one I drew in Microsoft paint!!

Large version here: 4438073631_db2b3183a2_b.jpg

Remote Research

Being (very) remote from my chosen modelling subject has the disadvantage that if I want to go and have a look at something I can't just jump in the car and go and have a look. Well, I could but it takes a little more organising than that to sort out the time for the 11 hour drive!

On Narrow Gauge Railway Modelling online recently a discussion thread was started about various NG trains spotted on Google Streetview. After looking at some of the preserved lines in the UK I wondered how useful it would be for looking at the Isle of Skye for research purposes for Armadale to help me refine the track plan and surrounding topography. I wasn't expecting great coverage on Skye yet, but it turns out that the marjority of the route of the proposed line has been covered already!

Here is the bay at Armadale:

View Larger Map

They quay on the right hand of this shot is going to be a mineral and general goods quay, whilst the passenger platform will be off the right hand foreground of this shot where the modern day ferry terminal is.

This is the location of the goods yard and the sidings down to the quay.

View Larger Map

This is the last section of the station looking towards the fiddle yard. The line here is intended to run between the road and the sea. I am going to try and include some of the curves in the road which are off in the distance, but that depends on how it all pans out when I produce a full size plan. If this works then I will create a headland on the seaward side of the road to act as a view block to allow the train to exit to the fiddle yard in a little less conspicuous manner.

View Larger Map

I'm busy getting Dunbracken ready for Narrow Gauge South at the moment, building stock and making some alterations to the fiddle yard. When this is finished I WILL move on to loft clearance and then the full sized plan for Armadale. It does feel like a big upheaval from what was the rather finalised track plan of Port na Cailliche, but I think portraying a real location will be fun!

Change of plan continued...

Here's an aerial view with the layout I will be working to, it ties in nicely between the original trackplan and the coastline of Armadale.

Change of plan

Having thought I'd finalised the track plan, I came across records of the Hebridean Light Railway proposal at the National Archive which include plans of the line. This got me thinking, and I'd like to model a station that was part of the proposed route from Armadale through to Broadford, then off towards Kyleakin, or Portree and then eventually branches to Dunvegan and Uig.

Whilst looking around Skye and looking at the trackplan Armadale began looking rather like Port na Cailliche in reverse, so I quickly doodled the trackplan crewdly on top of google

maps...

As if by magic the reverse layout seems to fit in perfectly! I'm now going to look at this in more detail, but I can see more fun to be had with a real location and planning how it would have developed with the railway arriving there.

Essentially it will be a flipped version of PnC, but I think I may have to loose the tidal inlet as it just doesn't seem to tie in with the coastline north of Armadale.

This might inspire me to pull my finger out and clear the loft... I did say might though!

Nearly there!

Happy New Year to anyone who reads this blog!

I am now in the rather slow process of clearing the loft to make way for the layout, it will be a fairly slow process as there is so much c**p up there! However, once clear I hope to have a nice modelling room which will allow for the layout to be up all the time and create some storage underneath.

Over the holidays I came up with a sketch of a loco design based on a combination of North British Railway tank locos, this is likely to be based on a Graham Farish 08 chassis using Backwoods Miniatures valve gear.

I'm hoping to make a start on this to coincide with the testing of the track on the new layout so that it can be the first loco to properly turn a wheel on it.

Finally, I've decided on the form of the baseboards, I will be using the same principal as Pempoul (so it can't be bad!), that is a ply outer frame to provide some rigidity and an extruded (pink) foam insulation centre for the running surface and scenic foundation. This should prove strong and lightweight, the latter being important as it will take two people to man handle (or should that now be person handle) the boards down from my loft!