Trawden

Back in the introduction I said that model railways has been a life long interest, which though true does gloss over those few years in my late teens and very early twenties when no active model making took place as most of my free time was spent either in the pub or the great outdoors, climbing and walking in the hills. Fortunately for my liver the urge to go out to the pub every night waned once I settled down and started paying a mortgage. Having disposed of most of my earlier models, I started afresh in 00 and having the twin ills of financial responsibilities and small wage, economy was the watchword, hence my layout of the time, Trawden, was built on the cheap.

Both the locos featured here are the result of extreme economy; junk second hand models, stripped for their working under-gubbins and topped off with scratchbuilt plasticard bodies. The one in the photo above represents a battery electric loco and uses an old Triang motor bogie, that to the left a Sentinel shunter utilising a Lima chassis. Like my childhood creations photos rather than plans formed the guidance for construction, and the models could be better described as characterful rather than accurate.

Looking beyond the trains, the scenery and structures were again built by hand. The cotton mill that spanned the line beyond the level crossing was a mongel cross of imagination and memories of the Worth valley. The platform shelter has some Lancashire and Yorkshire features in a much shortened form so that it didn't dominate the platform and unbalance the layout. At the left of the view, the terrace house this side of the crossing was a pretty accurate scribed card model of my house at the time, though I edited away the ugly kitchen and bathroom extension that it had been blessed with sometime in the seventies. All in all I was rather pleased with Trawden in its early format as a 4'x1' micro layout, it appeared at a few exhibitions and made it into the pages of the Railway Modeller. I have to confess that I tried to extend it and it wasn't a success, the carefully planned visual balance was spoiled and operation became less railway like. The extension lasted for one show and was scrapped, thankfully no photos were taken.

Round the Bend

My latest layout isn't the only pizza that I've built, nor does it push the boundaries of what's possible in four squre feet. Several years ago I used the same two by two footprint for a finescale OO gauge layout. Like my current narrow gauge project it was aimed at an exhibition audience; the similarities also encompassing punter push button operation. Obviously only short wheelbase stock was comfortable with the ten inch curves on the main line (the sidings being purely decorative) but even the six wheels of my 03 and 04 shunters made it round the corners. The limiting factor was actually the three link couplings, which to stop buffer locking had to be temporarily lengthened to four links. Anyway here are some photos and trackplan of the layout.

Though the layout is long gone there are a few remains. The buildings sit gathering dust on one of my playroom shelves waiting till I find a use for them, and somewhere I have the point and crossing formation though I seriously doubt I'll ever manage to recycle it into any layout.

Back to the future ................

As a young boy I progressed from Hornby 0 gauge tinplate, via the usual sixties Triang in 00 to an interest in 009 no doubt brought about by family holidays to Wales an exposure to the Ffestiniog, Talyllyn, Rheidol and Llanberis Lake railways. The first narrow gauge layout was a Playcraft pre-formed expanded polystyrene foam effort with a loop of track that climbed over itself. All I have left, and possibly the earliest remaining piece of railway kit is this much butchered Decauville loco from the set.

It'll come as no surprise to those who know me that I wasn't one for keeping my toys in pristine condition; I'd take stuff apart to see how it worked, get the Humbrol out if I didn't fancy the colour it came in and feel quite happy cutting bits off or sticking bits on to better suit my purpose. Here we see a result of all this early practice, built to resemble a Neilson box tank, the chassis was a Bachmann n gauge USA dock tank, the body hacked from plasticard and was like most of my early work completed in an afternoon. The wagons are repaints of standard Eggerbahn items and reflect my enduring interest in rust and grime

A few years on and by my mid teens I'd learned a few more tricks. The loco still employs a commercial n gauge chassis, but has a body soldered up from brass sheet. The matching Corris Railway van is like earlier models built from plasticard. The building behind features walls of individually cast plaster blocks, and cut out paper slates overlaid onto a deliberately saggy thin card roof.


It's funny how things come full circle. Since Easter I've been building a 009 'pizza' layout to take to the Corris model railway show this August bank holiday and though there's some new build going on, it has been a rather pleasant exercise to track down all my old models, dust them off and indulge in a bit of repair and restoration. Here's a Kerr Stuart diesel, a scratchbuild on a Bachmann mechanism built a couple of years ago heading some of my old stock round the new pizza.

Looking Back

When I look in the mirror I'm surprised to see a middle aged bloke staring back at me, it doesn't seem that long ago since I first started mucking about with my trainset. I've an idea that my parents were pleased that I'd found an absorbing and creative hobby, yet regretted the spilt pots of Humbrol on the carpet, the all pervading smell of glue and my inattention to homework. Despite the negatives, I was encouraged in a hobby that has turned out to be a life long interest. Looking at the grey beard, and the hair heading that way, I thought I'd try and make sense of the passing years by examining the models made and layouts built over the years.