It turns out that a branch line south from Berwick and Wooler might have happened, even without the fictitious town of Belstone. The Central Northumberland Railway was originally intended as a fifty mile line from Scotsgap on the Wansbeck Valley Line, through Rothbury, along the Coquet Valley to Alwinton, and thence over the Cheviots to Kelso. The project was taken over by the North British Railway as part of its drive from Scotland into the North Eastern Railway heartland, but in the end only the first thirteen miles to Rothbury were ever built. But had the railway reached Alwinton, a line from there to Berwick would have made some geographical sense, providing the North British with an alternative East Coast route from Berwick to Morpeth, within striking distance of Newcastle.
Meanwhile, back on planet Earth I have a constructional problem to resolve. It concerns ballast. Northumbrian branch lines typically used fine ash ballast, with the trackbed looking as though it was sunk into the ground rather than raised above it. Within station areas and goods yards this material would cover the whole area, with no visible ballast 'shoulder' or cess between running lines. So far all my attempts to reproduce this have failed. I have tried fine blasting sand (much too coarse, and horrible stuff if a stray grain gets into a locomotive mechanism), flour (about which experiment, the less said the better), various combinations of glue, sticky tape and foam. I even tried cutting out the shape of a piece of track in 2mm foam, but lost patience after about three sleepers.
One possibility is to embed the track in modelling clay, then use a stiff bristled brush to give the surface some texture. I'll see if I can get hold of the materials and give it a try.
Tuesday 30 April 2013
Monday 29 April 2013
Traffic and trains (still at the armchair modelling stage...)
There is a part of me that finds planning a model railway more interesting than actually building it. I read History at university, which may help explain this. Anyway, having got together a fictitious history for my fictitious railway to a fictitious town, it is time to think about the sort of traffic the railway might generate, and what locomotives and rolling stock I will need.
Passenger traffic - I reckon three trains per day at most. By the late 1950s the typical Border Country branch line train, where they still existed, would be made up of a single brake third (most often a Gresley corridor coach, or sometimes one of the newfangled BR Mk.1s), and a motley assortment of vanfits and four wheeled parcels vans. That shouldn't blow the budget.
Goods traffic - stone trains would probably be made up of short wheelbase 24 ton hoppers. Maximum train length I can accommodate is 10 wagons plus a brake van. I plan to build two rakes of wagons, one empty and one loaded with the distinctive red stone produced by Harden Quarry. A train of empties arrives at the station, reverses and is propelled into the quarry sidings (i.e. the fiddle yard). The locomotive then draws loaded wagons back into the station, runs round and departs. Not exactly the most exciting operation, but at least it gives viewers something else to watch if I ever take Belstone to an exhibition. I may be getting ahead of myself here...
Daily pick-up goods - 16 ton minerals for the local coal merchant, Vanfits with animal feed and other agricultural essentials, and the odd open wagon. In one of my boxes of bits I found a Ratio kit for a small oil terminal, so perhaps my coal merchant might have diversified into fuel oil. This would give me the chance to run the two very nice Peco tank wagons that I found in another box of stuff.
Livestock? In rapid decline by 1962: in that year British Railways reduced the number of stations handling livestock from two and a half thousand to two hundred. But there was (and still is) a large cattle market at Wooler, and I can imagine some farmers continuing to use the railway to move cattle to market for as long as they were able. So a couple of cattle vans, and the facilities to handle them, would not be totally out of place. The Farish BR standard cattle van is a particularly fine model. Being XP rated, cattle vans would most likely have been attached to the regular passenger service and shunted off at Wooler. There might have also been the odd horsebox turn up: perhaps containing hunters, for the purpose of hunting the Belstone Fox.
So that's the trains and traffic patterns sorted. What about locomotives? This being an entirely fictitious railway, I can run whatever I like. However, I am trying to recreate the feel of the long-lost Northumbrian branches, and having the 'right' motive power is I think an important part of that. So who would provide motive power for a branch line from Berwick-on-Tweed? Almost certainly Tweedmouth (52D), closed in June 1966. What would Tweedmouth have been able to turn out for the Belstone branch in the summer of 1962? Ignoring the 'big' engines (A2s and V2s, which would have spread the track underneath them long before reaching Wooler), we are left with two types: half a dozen Gresley J39s (all long-time Tweedmouth residents), and five Ivatt 2MT 2-6-0s, displaced from various other sheds in early 1962. Hence my choice of date. A few months earlier and J39s would have had a monopoly.
Isn't the Internet a wonderful thing? No need to dig about in old Ian Allan ABCs any more. I just went to the excellent BR Database, and in a few seconds I had the entire 52D loco allocation for June 1962 in front of me.
As previously mentioned, I already have a J39. It is an older Union Mills model, not especially detailed and to my mind the proportions are not quite right. It looks a little narrow from the front. But it runs well, can apparently be converted to DCC without too much hassle, and a bit of detailing should see it looking more like a scale model locomotive and less like a pre-war Hornby Dublo model that has shrunk in the wash. Ivatt 2MT is on the list of forthcoming releases by Graham Farish, along with a J39 (in case the Union Mills project doesn't work out)... and a 24 ton stone hopper. Bless them.
I suppose that by 1962 the passenger service might have been dieselised, almost certainly with a 2-car Metro-Cammell DMU (Farish again), but I can't see a lot of operational interest in that. Perhaps one for exhibitions, to be brought out towards the end of the day when everything else has stopped running properly. I can't imagine diesels being used on the branch freight services at that date, though I like the look of the new Dapol BRCW Type 2s. But as things stand, a J39 and a 2MT should handle pretty much all Belstone's needs. Dear Santa....
Passenger traffic - I reckon three trains per day at most. By the late 1950s the typical Border Country branch line train, where they still existed, would be made up of a single brake third (most often a Gresley corridor coach, or sometimes one of the newfangled BR Mk.1s), and a motley assortment of vanfits and four wheeled parcels vans. That shouldn't blow the budget.
Goods traffic - stone trains would probably be made up of short wheelbase 24 ton hoppers. Maximum train length I can accommodate is 10 wagons plus a brake van. I plan to build two rakes of wagons, one empty and one loaded with the distinctive red stone produced by Harden Quarry. A train of empties arrives at the station, reverses and is propelled into the quarry sidings (i.e. the fiddle yard). The locomotive then draws loaded wagons back into the station, runs round and departs. Not exactly the most exciting operation, but at least it gives viewers something else to watch if I ever take Belstone to an exhibition. I may be getting ahead of myself here...
Daily pick-up goods - 16 ton minerals for the local coal merchant, Vanfits with animal feed and other agricultural essentials, and the odd open wagon. In one of my boxes of bits I found a Ratio kit for a small oil terminal, so perhaps my coal merchant might have diversified into fuel oil. This would give me the chance to run the two very nice Peco tank wagons that I found in another box of stuff.
Livestock? In rapid decline by 1962: in that year British Railways reduced the number of stations handling livestock from two and a half thousand to two hundred. But there was (and still is) a large cattle market at Wooler, and I can imagine some farmers continuing to use the railway to move cattle to market for as long as they were able. So a couple of cattle vans, and the facilities to handle them, would not be totally out of place. The Farish BR standard cattle van is a particularly fine model. Being XP rated, cattle vans would most likely have been attached to the regular passenger service and shunted off at Wooler. There might have also been the odd horsebox turn up: perhaps containing hunters, for the purpose of hunting the Belstone Fox.
So that's the trains and traffic patterns sorted. What about locomotives? This being an entirely fictitious railway, I can run whatever I like. However, I am trying to recreate the feel of the long-lost Northumbrian branches, and having the 'right' motive power is I think an important part of that. So who would provide motive power for a branch line from Berwick-on-Tweed? Almost certainly Tweedmouth (52D), closed in June 1966. What would Tweedmouth have been able to turn out for the Belstone branch in the summer of 1962? Ignoring the 'big' engines (A2s and V2s, which would have spread the track underneath them long before reaching Wooler), we are left with two types: half a dozen Gresley J39s (all long-time Tweedmouth residents), and five Ivatt 2MT 2-6-0s, displaced from various other sheds in early 1962. Hence my choice of date. A few months earlier and J39s would have had a monopoly.
Isn't the Internet a wonderful thing? No need to dig about in old Ian Allan ABCs any more. I just went to the excellent BR Database, and in a few seconds I had the entire 52D loco allocation for June 1962 in front of me.
As previously mentioned, I already have a J39. It is an older Union Mills model, not especially detailed and to my mind the proportions are not quite right. It looks a little narrow from the front. But it runs well, can apparently be converted to DCC without too much hassle, and a bit of detailing should see it looking more like a scale model locomotive and less like a pre-war Hornby Dublo model that has shrunk in the wash. Ivatt 2MT is on the list of forthcoming releases by Graham Farish, along with a J39 (in case the Union Mills project doesn't work out)... and a 24 ton stone hopper. Bless them.
I suppose that by 1962 the passenger service might have been dieselised, almost certainly with a 2-car Metro-Cammell DMU (Farish again), but I can't see a lot of operational interest in that. Perhaps one for exhibitions, to be brought out towards the end of the day when everything else has stopped running properly. I can't imagine diesels being used on the branch freight services at that date, though I like the look of the new Dapol BRCW Type 2s. But as things stand, a J39 and a 2MT should handle pretty much all Belstone's needs. Dear Santa....
Why "Belstone"?
I have long been intrigued by the railways which run (or ran, as all are now long closed) through the beautiful rural landscape of northern Northumberland. I blame Ian Futers: his minimalist models of various Northumbrian branches fascinated me when I read about them in the Railway Modeller in the late 1970s. Hexham to Riccarton via Reedsmouth: Morpeth to Reedsmouth via Scotsgap: Scotsgap to Rothbury (all North British Railway): and the most hopeless of all, the North Eastern's straggling branch from Alnwick to Coldstream via Wooler, beautifully engineered with some of the most magnificent station buildings ever to grace a branch line, and carrying about five passengers a week. None survived long enough for Dr Beeching to get his hands on them. The Coldstream line lost its passenger service as early as 1930. But much of the trackbed and most of the buildings and other structures have survived. Most of the stations on these lines are now private homes, and very solid substantial homes at that.
Unfortunately, none of the lines in the area lent themselves to my 4' x 1' baseboard. The only termini, Rothbury and Alnwick, were both substantial, sprawling affairs which would need at least twice as much space as I have. So I did what countless modellers have done before me, and invented a suitable location. We must imagine Belstone as a small market town, about the size of Rothbury, nestling at the foot of the Cheviot Hills. Close by is a large stone quarry. (If you guessed Biddlestone as the real-life location, have a gold star). In the late 1870s the North British Railway constructed a line from just south of Berwick-on-Tweed, running across the fertile agricultural land to Wooler, then hugging the contours of the edge of the Cheviots to reach Belstone, some thirty miles from Berwick.
Construction of the railway was prompted as much by a desire to thwart the North-Eastern's drive into Scotland as by any conviction that the line would generate enough traffic to pay the interest on the capital needed to build it. (There was a lot of that kind of thinking in the construction of Northumbrian branch lines.) However a healthy trade in moving agricultural produce and livestock, the stone traffic from the quarry when it opened in 1935, and the fact that the branch provided a direct connection with the East Coast route at Berwick, meant that it survived rather longer than most of the other branches in the area - certainly long enough for Dr Beeching to add it to his list. It is now 1962, and closure of the passenger service is just a few months away. Much of the passenger traffic has already been lost to the roads, and a single Gresley brake third plus a couple of vans are normally ample accommodation for the few passengers still making the leisurely one and a quarter hour journey to Berwick.
Goods traffic is in rapid decline, with livestock movements almost ended, and normally just three or four wagons for the daily pick-up goods to shunt at Belstone. But the stone quarry remains busy, accessed via a short spur from just outside the station and despatching one or sometimes two trains a day. The freight service will survive a little longer, with final closure not coming until 1969.
Why "Belstone"? Obviously a corruption of "Biddlestone", and a nice Northumbrian sounding name (although in real life the only Belstone I can find is in Devon). It sits nicely alongside names such as Saughtree, West Woodburn, Scotsgap, Ilderton and Edlingham - all once served by the branch lines of northern Northumberland.
Unfortunately, none of the lines in the area lent themselves to my 4' x 1' baseboard. The only termini, Rothbury and Alnwick, were both substantial, sprawling affairs which would need at least twice as much space as I have. So I did what countless modellers have done before me, and invented a suitable location. We must imagine Belstone as a small market town, about the size of Rothbury, nestling at the foot of the Cheviot Hills. Close by is a large stone quarry. (If you guessed Biddlestone as the real-life location, have a gold star). In the late 1870s the North British Railway constructed a line from just south of Berwick-on-Tweed, running across the fertile agricultural land to Wooler, then hugging the contours of the edge of the Cheviots to reach Belstone, some thirty miles from Berwick.
Construction of the railway was prompted as much by a desire to thwart the North-Eastern's drive into Scotland as by any conviction that the line would generate enough traffic to pay the interest on the capital needed to build it. (There was a lot of that kind of thinking in the construction of Northumbrian branch lines.) However a healthy trade in moving agricultural produce and livestock, the stone traffic from the quarry when it opened in 1935, and the fact that the branch provided a direct connection with the East Coast route at Berwick, meant that it survived rather longer than most of the other branches in the area - certainly long enough for Dr Beeching to add it to his list. It is now 1962, and closure of the passenger service is just a few months away. Much of the passenger traffic has already been lost to the roads, and a single Gresley brake third plus a couple of vans are normally ample accommodation for the few passengers still making the leisurely one and a quarter hour journey to Berwick.
Goods traffic is in rapid decline, with livestock movements almost ended, and normally just three or four wagons for the daily pick-up goods to shunt at Belstone. But the stone quarry remains busy, accessed via a short spur from just outside the station and despatching one or sometimes two trains a day. The freight service will survive a little longer, with final closure not coming until 1969.
Why "Belstone"? Obviously a corruption of "Biddlestone", and a nice Northumbrian sounding name (although in real life the only Belstone I can find is in Devon). It sits nicely alongside names such as Saughtree, West Woodburn, Scotsgap, Ilderton and Edlingham - all once served by the branch lines of northern Northumberland.
Welcome to Belstone!
The idea behind this blog is to describe the construction of a very small model railway. Some background: until my late teens I was an enthusiastic railway modeller. I started innumerable layouts in various scales, but none of them ever seemed to progress beyond the basic scenery stage. I dabbled in EM gauge and built a fully compensated chassis for an Airfix '4F' which almost ran. Then, like most teenagers I discovered cars, girls and beer. Railway modelling was desperately uncool: also my father had moved overseas. He was an early pioneer in 'N' gauge: if anyone reading this was at the Doncaster model railway exhibition in around 1973 and remembers a scratch-built model of the prototype HST whizzing round a large 'N' gauge layout, that was him. My father was the inspiration for my own modelling efforts, and without his encouragement my interest in very small trains fizzled out.
About twelve years ago, being bored and living in a house with a large loft, I decided to get back into model railways. I chose 'N' gauge, built a moderate sized terminus station and then ran into various problems. It was a bad period for commercial British 'N'. Hornby-Minitrix was dead: Graham Farish had ceased production while their new owners moved production to China. The locomotives available were second-hand, crude in appearance and mechanically temperamental. Farish diesels were a nightmare of split drive gears and burnt-out motors: Minitrix steam locos proved that even the Germans make mistakes sometimes. About the only loco I had that could be relied upon was an old Peco 'Jubilee' and that wasn't exactly a branch line engine.
So I started again in 2mm finescale, and quickly found the limits of my own modelling ability. Building a steam loco chassis in such a small scale, even an inside-cylinder 0-6-0, required a level of patience and precision that I could not manage. Then I got married: all my 'N' gauge and 2mm FS bits were slung into boxes and stored away.
Until last week, when I thought I would start clearing out the old barn that I keep all my junk in. The junk includes two and a half Land Rovers, a VW Golf, an old American Dodge, a partly built kit car, about twenty boxes of books, some hopeless furniture and, right at the back, several boxes of model railway equipment. I started digging around in the boxes, and was soon finding things that I had forgotten ever buying. I thought about putting the whole lot on eBay, and then I found something else I had forgotten about. An experimental baseboard, 4' x 1', constructed of plywood. Despite eight years in damp storage it had not warped. I also turned up the fiddle yard from my old 'N' gauge layout, various unbuilt and half-built buildings, scenic materials, a box full of point motors and switches, some rather nice wagons on 2mm FS wheels, a badly-painted Union Mills 'J39' and a couple of boxes of broken loco mechanisms and bodies. Layouts have been started with a lot less.
So here is the plan: build a fairly minimalist terminus station in a space 4' x 1' (plus fiddle yard) and see if, for the first time in my life, I can get it (a) running reliably (b) scenically finished and (c) looking good enough that I would not be embarrassed to show it off in public. In achieving (a) I have a couple of things to help me. Firstly the quality of commercial 'N' is a lot better than it was a few years ago. Secondly this is by far the smallest layout I have ever built, so I should be able to pay very careful attention to getting the trackwork absolutely flat, which is three-quarters of the battle in such a small scale. Thirdly (and yet to be tested) we now have DCC control. One of the problems with 'N' gauge has always been trying to transmit tiny voltages and currents through tiny wheels with very little weight to keep them in firm contact with the track. I am hoping that DCC, with a constant 16 volt supply to the track, makes for more reliable slow running. We will see.
About twelve years ago, being bored and living in a house with a large loft, I decided to get back into model railways. I chose 'N' gauge, built a moderate sized terminus station and then ran into various problems. It was a bad period for commercial British 'N'. Hornby-Minitrix was dead: Graham Farish had ceased production while their new owners moved production to China. The locomotives available were second-hand, crude in appearance and mechanically temperamental. Farish diesels were a nightmare of split drive gears and burnt-out motors: Minitrix steam locos proved that even the Germans make mistakes sometimes. About the only loco I had that could be relied upon was an old Peco 'Jubilee' and that wasn't exactly a branch line engine.
So I started again in 2mm finescale, and quickly found the limits of my own modelling ability. Building a steam loco chassis in such a small scale, even an inside-cylinder 0-6-0, required a level of patience and precision that I could not manage. Then I got married: all my 'N' gauge and 2mm FS bits were slung into boxes and stored away.
Until last week, when I thought I would start clearing out the old barn that I keep all my junk in. The junk includes two and a half Land Rovers, a VW Golf, an old American Dodge, a partly built kit car, about twenty boxes of books, some hopeless furniture and, right at the back, several boxes of model railway equipment. I started digging around in the boxes, and was soon finding things that I had forgotten ever buying. I thought about putting the whole lot on eBay, and then I found something else I had forgotten about. An experimental baseboard, 4' x 1', constructed of plywood. Despite eight years in damp storage it had not warped. I also turned up the fiddle yard from my old 'N' gauge layout, various unbuilt and half-built buildings, scenic materials, a box full of point motors and switches, some rather nice wagons on 2mm FS wheels, a badly-painted Union Mills 'J39' and a couple of boxes of broken loco mechanisms and bodies. Layouts have been started with a lot less.
So here is the plan: build a fairly minimalist terminus station in a space 4' x 1' (plus fiddle yard) and see if, for the first time in my life, I can get it (a) running reliably (b) scenically finished and (c) looking good enough that I would not be embarrassed to show it off in public. In achieving (a) I have a couple of things to help me. Firstly the quality of commercial 'N' is a lot better than it was a few years ago. Secondly this is by far the smallest layout I have ever built, so I should be able to pay very careful attention to getting the trackwork absolutely flat, which is three-quarters of the battle in such a small scale. Thirdly (and yet to be tested) we now have DCC control. One of the problems with 'N' gauge has always been trying to transmit tiny voltages and currents through tiny wheels with very little weight to keep them in firm contact with the track. I am hoping that DCC, with a constant 16 volt supply to the track, makes for more reliable slow running. We will see.
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