AJC
Western Thunderer
Thank you, Graham. I’m tentatively quite pleased. Still scope for disaster, however! The contrast with the very tidy dairy roof is obvious and that’s key for the impression I’m after.
Adam
4mm Podimore: thoughts on operations
- Thread starter AJC
- Start date
Thank you, Graham. I’m tentatively quite pleased. Still scope for disaster, however! The contrast with the very tidy dairy roof is obvious and that’s key for the impression I’m after.
Adam
AJC
Western Thunderer
Thorne Coffin - on the blocked off road between Thorne Lane and Chilthorne Domer. A fairly smart (it's near the manor house) but typical field barn. I'd always rather liked it, and it happened to be the right size!
Adam
AJC
Western Thunderer
With the roof well under way - the other slope is to be tiled though no one will see it - I’ve been scribing the stonework. The real building is basically more or less coursed, neatly dressed and faced rubble from local Hamstone (a nice honey-russet-tinged limestone, it’s ubiquitous in south Somerset and west Dorset),but only on the front!
A little and often sort of a job. The Rowes and the Gravetts are the masters of this sort of thing, so it’s well trodden ground with pencil, worn scalpel blades and a scraper foil cutter.
Adam
A little and often sort of a job. The Rowes and the Gravetts are the masters of this sort of thing, so it’s well trodden ground with pencil, worn scalpel blades and a scraper foil cutter.
Adam
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AJC
Western Thunderer
Thanks, David, that's extremely kind. I do worry that this is a party piece with all the complex technique on the entire layout on a single building though. That said, there are only five (of six or seven) roofed buildings and of those, one is a concrete p way hut and another a grounded van, so I suppose I can allow it.
Adam
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AJC
Western Thunderer
And now it’s done, scribed, lightly distressed, and ridging added from 1/8” styrene tube cut down the middle and stuck on with JB Weld (complete overkill, but I have a tube and unlike epoxy, you can see where it’s been).
Paint will be as and when, nice to finally top this out.
Adam
Paint will be as and when, nice to finally top this out.
Adam
AJC
Western Thunderer
A bit of a break from the day's screen time meant the very early stages of hard landscaping around Podimore.
I quite like the way that buildings are grouping around this corner. The occupational bridge over the industrial line results in a skewed crossing over the front of the dairy yard which takes the lane around the back of the station building and up a lane towards the village or into the goods yard (ok, siding). The mainline mousehole will disappear from most angles behind a little bit of Exmouth Junction concrete fencing on the slope down to the double-ended siding in front of the platform road and some scrubby trees of the sort that turned up alongside the Northamptonshire ironstone railways. Two of my all time favourite layouts, Barrowfleet, and Ditchling Green, used a similar ruse very effectively. In fact, the silver birch on Ditchling Green was so effective, I never noticed or remembered the overbridge at the country end… The dairy siding will have a gantry over it so a mix of hard lines and soft foliage at this end with all the coupling and uncoupling taking place at the right hand end of the upper section (yes, I did plan this), and the industrial loop unimpeded.
A slightly better sense of the skewed crossing here - contrary to appearances, the foam bed for the road is comfortably below rail height.
A closer view of the station building (Cliddesden was the basis of the drawing, but all the stations on the Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway were similar, in case you're wondering), which is almost ready for paint.
Now, back to work!
Adam
I quite like the way that buildings are grouping around this corner. The occupational bridge over the industrial line results in a skewed crossing over the front of the dairy yard which takes the lane around the back of the station building and up a lane towards the village or into the goods yard (ok, siding). The mainline mousehole will disappear from most angles behind a little bit of Exmouth Junction concrete fencing on the slope down to the double-ended siding in front of the platform road and some scrubby trees of the sort that turned up alongside the Northamptonshire ironstone railways. Two of my all time favourite layouts, Barrowfleet, and Ditchling Green, used a similar ruse very effectively. In fact, the silver birch on Ditchling Green was so effective, I never noticed or remembered the overbridge at the country end… The dairy siding will have a gantry over it so a mix of hard lines and soft foliage at this end with all the coupling and uncoupling taking place at the right hand end of the upper section (yes, I did plan this), and the industrial loop unimpeded.
A slightly better sense of the skewed crossing here - contrary to appearances, the foam bed for the road is comfortably below rail height.
A closer view of the station building (Cliddesden was the basis of the drawing, but all the stations on the Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway were similar, in case you're wondering), which is almost ready for paint.
Now, back to work!
Adam
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Yorkshire Dave
Western Thunderer
AJC
Western Thunderer
You also need Will Hay, Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt to complete the scene....
It’s surely only a matter of time before ModelU or someone else gives that one a go. Personally, I’d prefer Betjeman, given the choice, the Ilchester branch isn’t quite ramshackle enough for ‘O Mr Porter!’.
Adam
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Tim Hale
Western Thunderer
BBC catch-up and I-player still have "Let's imagine" available to watch or download. For this South Somerset/West Dorset interloper, it is required viewing and a John Betjeman and maybe Bob Symes Schutzmann* would be perfect candidates for Modelu.
Tim
*I kept meeting him both in odd locations 'on the continent' and latterly at various home counties exhibitions.
Tim
*I kept meeting him both in odd locations 'on the continent' and latterly at various home counties exhibitions.
AJC
Western Thunderer
Yes - an important inspiration (and teaching aid, believe it or not): BBC - Let's Imagine, A Branch Line Railway with John Betjeman. (It's also about on YouTube).
The hawthorn studded hedgerows of the pre-flail era are particularly evocative, and not only of hayfever, in my case.
Adam
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AJC
Western Thunderer
A bit more landscaping (with help from the junior surveyor and Yorkshire Tea’s finest cardboard).
What the above is meant to show (at the Ilchester end), is the level hut with the 1 in 100 up. Not quite sure it does! That polystyrene is clearly a bit wedge-shaped.
Someone got himself distracted and brought the heavy machinery in to help.
Adam
What the above is meant to show (at the Ilchester end), is the level hut with the 1 in 100 up. Not quite sure it does! That polystyrene is clearly a bit wedge-shaped.
Someone got himself distracted and brought the heavy machinery in to help.
Adam
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AJC
Western Thunderer
Just a quick thank you for all the likes - my eldest was very happy with this arrangement and is very keen to do more!
On the train in this morning, I was having a think about how traffic and operation will be handled in practise. Fundamentally, there are four strands to this and the motive power requirement is basically a pair of panniers and a pair of industrials and anything else is just for fun. The branch freight could take a tender loco...
Extras:
A three coach SLS railtour rake, headed by Brighton Works. Currently 3 mark 1s.
Departmental/track lifting trains, one rail, one ballast.
Obviously this feeds into fiddle yard design and this is something about which I have thoughts. More on the those anon. Of course, you could simply run trains out and back and move wagons around for the heck of it. That's all part of the fun too.
Adam
On the train in this morning, I was having a think about how traffic and operation will be handled in practise. Fundamentally, there are four strands to this and the motive power requirement is basically a pair of panniers and a pair of industrials and anything else is just for fun. The branch freight could take a tender loco...
- Branch passenger/mixed train (perhaps). Simple enough and I have sufficient coaches - though really one brake compo would do. The likely candidate, a Maunsell Push Pull set is not actually in EM, yet... This just goes out to Ilchester, the loco changes ends and returns.
- Milk - either as add ons to the passenger service or alone - three milk tanks are sufficient, and I have all the parts (but, none are remotely finished). They are simply tripped into a simple off-scene siding and are drawn in or out as desired. A couple of six wheel brakes are in the offing, too (because I like them. I really don't need them).
- Roadstone - two five wagon rakes, one loaded and one full.
- The idea is that the quarry line runs onto a cassette and so the loaded rake outbound can be swapped for the empty when they go off scene (and vice versa). This saves the messy and awkward business of loading and unloading which makes things easier. I almost certainly already have sufficient wagons, a mix of hoppers and flat bottom 16 tonners. Obviously, I have more in the drawer...
- Tar and oil products go with that, either tacked on to the branch freight, or hanging on to the mineral wagons. The odd wagon of coal for added interest.
- General freight. I could fill the layout 20 times over...
Extras:
A three coach SLS railtour rake, headed by Brighton Works. Currently 3 mark 1s.
Departmental/track lifting trains, one rail, one ballast.
Obviously this feeds into fiddle yard design and this is something about which I have thoughts. More on the those anon. Of course, you could simply run trains out and back and move wagons around for the heck of it. That's all part of the fun too.
Adam
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Tim Hale
Western Thunderer
Adam,
Based on working in the Yeovil area, a P+P migrant or gate set for the early ‘50s or even the Lyme set based on the logic that panelled coaches are so attractive. Failing that, something more modern from Maunsell or Bulleid but not P+P and just a brake….. Have you considered a livestock vehicle for calves, Crewkerne dispatched them each week and had a special calf cart on the platform.
I’ll get me coat
Tim
Based on working in the Yeovil area, a P+P migrant or gate set for the early ‘50s or even the Lyme set based on the logic that panelled coaches are so attractive. Failing that, something more modern from Maunsell or Bulleid but not P+P and just a brake….. Have you considered a livestock vehicle for calves, Crewkerne dispatched them each week and had a special calf cart on the platform.
I’ll get me coat
Tim
AJC
Western Thunderer
Hi Tim,
I happen to have the Maunsell set, so that's the natural choice. What I'd like to do is to have a decommissioned GWR Slip coach - several were used as swingers around Yeovil and cropped up at Chard, for example. But coaches take a disproportionate amount of effort... No livestock loading facility at Podimore, but cattle and horseboxes could turn up on the way to and from Ilchester and I have several. I suppose traffic might well include small stores for Yeovilton, too. Making the 1/144 scale Sea Venom I've got - unbuilt - actually fly is probably impossible (actually, it should probably be something a touch more modern - a Gannet, or a Wessex or something - at the date Podimore is set)...
Adam
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MarkR
Western Thunderer
Hi Adam,
What about a Sea Vixen, i saw lots of them, as I spent many hours parked at the end of Yeovilton’s runways in my mis-spent youth!
I think there were a couple of squadrons based there, Simons Sircus aerobatic team was drawn from the units at the airfield, don’t forget the VL tail code!
Mark
What about a Sea Vixen, i saw lots of them, as I spent many hours parked at the end of Yeovilton’s runways in my mis-spent youth!
I think there were a couple of squadrons based there, Simons Sircus aerobatic team was drawn from the units at the airfield, don’t forget the VL tail code!
Mark
AJC
Western Thunderer
That’d be good, wouldn’t it? Problem is, they’re quite big, and not available in 1/144 (perspective you see), in fact, the only really good kit seems to be in 1/48. The idea is a bit of photographic trickery. As a child of Westlands, it probably ought to be something with rotors…
Adam
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