2mm Paisley St James

[Ian Smeeton]

For over thirty years I was in the licensed trade, running pubs, hotels & restaraunts. Consequently I had no time at all for modelling. Three years ago, I managed to get out of thetrade and discovered some of the things that I had been missing, like weekends, evenings. A bit like a battery chicken released into the open for the first time!

After domestic duties had beenbeaten into submission, Mission Control gave permission for a start to be made on some railway modellling.

I had been doing a little research in advance of the go-ahead being given, but had no real ideas of what to model.

A chance discovery of the 'Britain from Above' website led to many lost hours. (If you haven't been there, please go, just be ready to lose the rest of the day, and probably several more!)

Browsing around the areas where I used to live, or had conections with, I stumbled across this image:

Britain From Above

(If you register(free) , or log in, the images are zoomable, but yet more time WILL be lost)

There are another half dozen or so images associated with this one, scroll down the page to see the thumbnails.

The Old Maps website was checked first, and a couple of screendumps taken to get an idea of the track plan and the space needed. Later, the NLS website threw up some later maps, which put a spanner in the works. Then, a tussle with Templot, and a track plan was produced. I really needed about 16 feet to do it justice, but some jiggery pokery with the pointwork, and compressing both Underwood Yard and the station area slightly, meant that it would fit in 12', just.

I had been a member of the 2mm Scale Association for a good few years, although, apart from admiring others' work, I had done nothing at all.

A trip to the Tutbury Supermeet in 2016 after I had played around with pointwork on a temporary baseboard left me feeling very flatr, indeed. I reckoned that there was no way that I would ever get to a reasonable standard compared to the layouts on show there.

However, a conversation with Laurie Adams led to an invitation to attend the North Mercia 2mm Area Groupl, where I was made very welcome, fed coffee and cake, and found that though I was still at the bottom of the learning curve, there were others in the same boat.

Enough for now, more to follow in due course, But I MUST stop rambling.

Justa couple more links/photos to give an idea



First attempt with Templot, later superseded, see anon



The 1912 map which gave me the first track plan.

Then/, during one of my occasional web searches for photos, I came across this:

Paisley St. James

Sorry it is just a link, but worth following. It is the only colour photo form steam days that I have found (yet).

More anon.

Regards

Ian

 

[Ian Smeeton]

A bit more.....

I grew up around the Paisley area, with a few years in Ardrossan, so most of my memories, and photos, are of the ubiquitous class 303/AM3 Glasgow 'Blue Trains' and their later brethren the 311s.

However, the intention is to model St James in the 1948-1965 time period, so no 'Blue Trains'......think again.

They were, after all, (at least, the 303s) built at the Pressed Steel Plant at Linwood, and were hauled through St James on delivery to Hyndland for comissioning, so I CAN have a couple!

See below



Pressed Steel were responsible for quite a bit of BR stock, including Mk1 GUVs, BGs, Restaraunt cars, 3 car Class 117 & Class 121 'Bubble cars, HTV Hoppers and, of course, the ubiquitous 16t Minerals. Do you think I could get away with a rake of 16 tonners, ex works, AND consecutively numbered, without getting a comment or two?

In addition to the above traffic, there would have been coal, steel, more coal, scrap, empties, more coal, fuel oil, vans, more coal AND a passenger service, to boot. Munitions from Bishopton, Molasses from Greenock, and bagged sugar in vans, too, was just some of the outbound traffic.

Before dieselisation, most traffic was in the hands of Standard 2-6-4Ts and Black 5s, however Polmadie was not averse to pinching something which had come from further afield, with recorded instances of Kingmoor locos, and even Jubilees from Leeds Holbeck.

Polmadie's 'pinching policy' did not end with steam, though, and the Metrovick Co-Bos were used on Wemyss Bay trains from time to time. after the last of the Caley Westinghouse locos were withdrawn, Polmadie even had 2 EE Type 1s, (Class 20 in New money) fitted with high level air pipes for Blue Train stock moves.

Most of this rambling is still some way in the future, as i am still laying track and wiring the boards. It is a long term project after all.

More anon,

Regards

Ian