4mm Far North Line

[Ben Alder]

One of last years jobs was a rebuild of the Thurso shed. This is at least thirty five years old and has been on about four layouts and was made of Wills sheets and Airfix windows and was a product of my modelling times, having been concocted when I was still doing more or less train set type modelling, but I have grown attached to it over the years. A replacement building was another of the to be done jobs that never seem to get less and it eventually reached the top of the list, so it was taken to the bench to act as a template for the new structure, and the sides were removed. However, I decided that a heavy overhaul was all it needed and a set of sides were made to fit Lochgorm HR shed window etches, again with Wills stone sheets as an outer, a middle of fomeboard and an inner skin of Slaters stone that was given a whitewash finish. Making the walls a realistic thickness made a big difference to its appearance - the original stayed straight with only a single layer of the Wills sheets and no bracing somehow....Smoke vents and a circular fanlight were added and a couple of offices etc grew as well. It is a bit of a melange of Kyle and Wick sheds although a lot shorter but ties in with the space available for it. Inspection pits were also cut into the baseboard internally and in the shed yard. I didn't take many pics at the time and those I did seem to have vanished in the morass of my image collections so all I can show is a before and after of the work.

As it was.



And the revised version - good for another thirty five years ......





Here is one poor image of the interior as WIP with the planked floor in place and pits installed. I haven't bothered with roof trusses as they can't be seen from any normal viewing angle.

 

[Ben Alder]

I managed to find the pics of the rehash of the shed - nothing special but it'll give an idea of the job.
Firstly, how not to do it - butt jointed sheets with no reinfoecements that somehow managed to stay in one piece . the white strips on the roof are additions from this work.



The sides were removed and replacements made - cutting out the window spaces was fun....



New side put in place for fitting trials.



The foamboard spacer on the end wall - this was attached with solvent free Evostick - great for this sort of thing with no smell and not stringy like its older cousin.


Couple of shots of the side showing the painting - a base coat followed by drybrushes of varying shades and a wash of cream with most wiped off when still wet, a technique copied from Allan Downes years ago.





And lastly a very grainy shot of the interior - the specks in the foreground are bits of detritus I didn't blow away as this was a WIP pic - I find this handy in checking progress.

 

[Ben Alder]

Some views of the yard taken just after I'd laid the Peco bullhead points to replace the Code 75 ones. Despite being standard Peco geometry I'm pleased with the visual effect of them.

 

[Simon]

Just lovely, to my eyes this is one of the very best model railway layouts around at the moment, full of atmosphere and a sense of (a very nice) place too.

Thank you for sharing your work!

Simon

 

[Ben Alder]

Flattery will get you more photos... Seriously, thanks, but its just my train set, although I do think i've managed to carch the look of the place. Here are one or two more from last year and then I've just about run out of material for the present. The work on the terminus took longer than I thought and it was then followed by another prolonged session at the bench, which is still ongoing, sorting out several gathered in locos and a couple of my own conversions, getting them properly fettled, so the photographic and play side of things has been neglected of late.
Anyway, a train of fish vans arriving and being shunted in to the fish sidings for filling...

 

[Peter Little]

Superb stuff Richard

Regards

Peter

 

[Ben Alder]

Just about the last of the pics here - a shoot of a build of LMS vans, based mainly on the Ratio kit with some Cambrian for earlier variants. It sort of beggars belief that the largest user of vans and wagons has hardly a single model available RTR, but fortunately there are kits for those who like making things. The van history of the LMS was quite complex, with numerous variations to keep a wagon geek happy, and the vans here show some of them, with no two exactly the same. I wont bore for Britain about them but I'm pleased with the results. I combined a record shooting with some actual shunting/playing and the pics reflect the two purposes.

Firstly, a freight draws up at the station.





And is moved about to the foreman's satisfaction...










A view of the engine - 57585, a CR design that spent most of the Fifties at Thurso and Wick. It has an extended cab shelter, a reminder of their original transfer as snowplough locos to the Far north.



And lastly a branch passenger leaving in the midst of all this activity.

 

[Nick Rogers]

Lovely stuff sir. I missed this completely on RMWeb, caught glimpses of your workbench projects.

I do like the ex LMS vans, I've just completed some Cambrian kits myself.

Best wishes,

Nick.

 

[Ben Alder]

Quick glimpse of one of the current batch on my bench - some mainly Jidenco HR gathers in that are being bullied in to actual runners rather than the shelf sitters as they spent their lives up to the original owners presumed demises. Not my favourite part of the hobby - I will do this by necessity rather than enthusiasm, but it comes with the territory and for me, its better than starting from scratch. I'll look at them soon once I get round to photographing them but as a diversion I hacked away at two RTR's as a bit of light relief, and here is one of them - a proposed Drummond 0-8-0 that never made it beyond the drawing office. For ease on my part and to ensure good running it is based on the Bachmann G2 with a T9 tender and three GBL T9 bodies. On reflection I might have used a slightly beefier boiler as a basis but it'll do me .
Photo taken on the phone this afternoon in sunlight.

 

[Ben Alder]

Another hack around has joined the fleet - a Hornby Radial has been compressed in to a fairly close version of the HR Yankee tank. I have a kit of this class sitting in the stash but loco building is not my favourite part of the hobby and I will live with compromises if I can get a modern RTR to look passable. Again, it is an engine that has had a life extension in my little world - being of a failed export order acquired by the highland, it had little chance of survival under the LMS standarisation policies. Here it is on the bench nearly finished beside a photo of the real thing.



And on shed at Thurso. Quick snap on the phone when I was doing something else - I will have more pics once I get round to a photo session. I have been playing around with weathering powders on this loco as a trial- this is something I never used at all until a year or so ago on a Peckett and was pleased with the results on it, so thought I'd see how it works on a black engine.

 

[Ben Alder]

Another here only survivor - a Jones/Big Goods that has been kept as a reserve for the special freights that were needed for livestock and fish. Here it is on a cattle van working, although it is likely that it may carry lambs - huge sales in August at Thurso, Forsinard and Lairg could generate up to thirty special runs in three days, plus regular monthly sales on top of that. Taken in overcast light last Monday, it actually made things a bit too bright in places.

 

[Ben Alder]

Another working at Helmsdale the same day - the 0-8-0 with a train of empty minerals for Brora colliery. This was a small mine producing young coal with not great combustion qualities but lasted till the seventies and in this part of the world expanded enough to warrant a traffic of its own, hence the freight slogger to handle it....

 

[john lewsey]

First time I've seen this superb

 

[Dave Holt]

Very nice, indeed, Ben.
My mother and I travelled to Thurso by train, from Oldham in Lancashire, in about 1957, to visit my father who was working on the construction of the nearby nuclear power station. I would be 7 and can't remember much about it except there was thick fog or mist nearly the whole way up from Inverness, limiting the view from the window and making the journey seem to last for ever. It was winter and bitterly cold.
What is the origins of the yard crane that appears in a couple of the photos?

 

[Ben Alder]

The weather here today is exactly the same! Wet, cold and misty.... Haven't seen blue skies for four days now...The yard crane is a Mike's models one, a L&Y design, but similar or the same to the design the HR used. Here is a shot of the one at Thurso taken in 1935 unloading cable drums for the electric company - Thurso must have been about the last largish settlement to get mains electricity; it was that year it happened, although there were private generators around. Yet twenty years later a nuclear reactor was being started.

 

[Ben Alder]

Another look at the YT, now in service. I used weathering powders on this engine, something I had never done at all until I tried it on a Peckett a year or so ago. I quite like the effect it has - seems to give a bit more relief than my usual airbrushing. I'm going to give this some thought..

 

[Ben Alder]

Some shots of one of the workings at Helmsdale - the swapping over of the restaurant car between the north and south bound trains. It was detached by the station pilot - in this case the resting Dornoch branch engine and the train loco of the southbound picked it up and shunted it on to the front of its load.

 

[D6356]

Great set of pics and ideas ! The YT is inspired ! The 7F 0-8-0 must give the PW the shakes ! but certainly an idea - I imagine a S&D 7F chassis and river class body might have the same effect !
Thanks
Robert

 

[Ben Alder]

Thanks. Stop giving me ideas for more hybrids please....! The HR did think about ROD's after the War, and that is something that pops up in my mind from time to time.....

 

[Ben Alder]

Just a few from a distraction during a tidying up session in the railway room - some daylight shots of some of its inhabitants -