7mm Pencarrow - Cornish BR(S)

[Pencarrow]

What is Pencarrow?
It's a 7mm BLT layout I'm slowly building which has for its inspiration the ex LSWR lines in the Bodmin, Wenford and Wadebridge area. It's set in the late 50s /early 60s. I started the project in 2013 as a complete 7mm novice and have recorded progress to date here: Pencarrow Bridge: Maunsell BCK (pg 130 post 3249) - 7mm+ modelling. (Apologies to those who are allergic to 'other' forums.)

Poor old Bodmin North was not a location I previously considered modelling due to the limited nature of the services. I was previously modelling in 4mm and thoughts often turned to something based on Padstow or Wadebridge - much more of interest going on. A change to 7mm in the same space obviously meant those ideas were out of the window. My initial thoughts were a smallish shunting layout based on Wenford Bridge but with the addition of a small halt. As time went on ideas moved on to a scenario that would justify slightly larger locos and a greater variety of stock. As this journey unwound the low-key Wenford-esq buildings have slowly been replaced by those from around Bodmin North.

I don't however plan to build Bodmin North, although it's a relatively small scale station, it's far bigger than my domestic environment allows and therefore it's going to be more of a condensed 'inspired by' type layout. I am however aiming to recreate various common views of Bodmin North within parts of the layout.

Track Plan and Standards
As intimated in the intro the track plan has evolved over the last few years, with the handing and position of various features moving around, but essentially it's still a loop with a couple of sidings and a kick-back to a freight only line. Below is a sketch I knocked up before Christmas 2015 showing how I then saw all the elements fitting together. Each of the four scenic boards is 1m wide by 960mm deep giving a total area of 4m x 960mm. The fiddle yard is off to the right, about 1300mm long and will probably use cassettes.


The track will be hand built using C&L components to the 31.5mm 'modified fine' gauge. All the points are B6s. Just about all the lines are curved to some degree and the minimum radius I'm using in Templot is 1800mm.

The AnyRail image below shows a quick and dirty version of the 2015 track plan but obviously the Templot version will use sweeping curves and not have the gap in the loop caused by the limitations of AnyRail.

Track building is a new skill I'm learning but my first attempts can be seen below:


Building a layout such as Pencarrow as a solo project is obviously time consuming and involves a fair chunk of cash. So it's a big commitment and needs to be right. Through 2016 I started worrying that the plan I had was a little bit too much like a bog standard BLT and not enough like Bodmin North.

In a break with the tradition on most BLTs I therefore decide to bring the platform to the front and, on the left two boards, copy as close as I could the layout of Bodmin North.

At 960mm my boards are deeper than average but even so not wide enough to accommodate all the tracks, roads and buildings. One of the sidings between the platform and loading dock was therefore deleted.

The photo below shows the 1:10 mock up I made showing the revised plan, with the layout taking shape behind.


I think the following shots show what I'm trying to achieve, the feel of Bodmin North in a much smaller area.

Compared to...

 

[Pencarrow]

Looking back through the thread it looks like I didn't record the arrival of yet more GWR RTR back in April 2017, the Lionheart/Dapol B-set:





Seen here with Peter's Ivatt tank.

SR fans shouldn't worry that I've gone over to the dark GWR side though. Other than the Prairie that's on order, all future stock builds should be well and truly SR.

Having stock from the 'other' company does add operational interest and variety to the layout and buying it RTR doesn't steal time from my main area of modelling interest.

Interesting to see how far the track has progressed in 5 months...

 

[Pencarrow]

Pencarrow is based on a much compressed and rearranged version of Bodmin North. A few bits are fairly accurate but much of it falls more into the 'inspired by' category.

The lack of a 30m long space to do the job properly to scale does mean I've made some serious compromises along the way. Tony Wright wouldn't be impressed with the amount of compression used (or the fact I've not built a BR(E) mainline ;-p. )

As a result of my crimes against prototype fidelity there are a few areas I've struggled with getting to look right. One if these is the rear left corner of the layout where a lack of board width means that the bank, wall, road and buildings behind the yard can't be fitted in and there's a length of the layout between the grain store and the provender stores that ends too abruptly for my liking.

I've been mulling this over for a while, and perhaps for a bit too stuck on trying to make prototype features fit. Reality check, I'm building an 'inspired by'! With that in mind I've been looking for something to better finish the rear of the layout.

Flicking through books I looked again at the old Bodmin Wharf, the old B&W goods only terminus before it was rebuilt as a passenger station by the LSWR. The buildings below were a key part of the wharf but we're demolished by the LSWR prior to the new station layout opening on 1/11/1895.


These same few images are in just about every book and website covering the B&W.

So I decided to draw them up using a range of things to scale them such as the wagon wheelbase and height plus a guess at the height of the people in the photos. The full run of buildings is a good 40% too long so some amalgamation of the key features into a shorter set was undertaken.






Still some tweaking on the height of the ground the buildings sit on (a tad higher) and their orientation but I quite like them. The back story is that they, like the grain store, we're originally rail served prior to the site being remodeled by the LSWR who lowered the track levels - hence the buildings need to be a little higher.

There will be a path leading down to the station yard which runs between the grain store and the wharf buildings. Hints of a road will be visible behind the buildings.

One interesting element will be trying to guess how the buildings would have looked in the late 50s / early 60s period I'm modelling. That's c65 years after they were demolished. I doubt the bay windows and nice glazing would have survived...

I'll leave the drawing in place a few days to see how it sits with me.