Desktop Decisions

I mentioned recently that I've been missing my original Apa Valley as a layout to just sit on my desk.  I think it is time to start moving forward with that idea. Since they have been sitting around for a long time without being used I've decided to sacrifice one of the Tim Horn baseboards intended for TAoC. If I ever return to that it will be on boards with built-in facias.

So that is one decision down. Another is that as with Cadeby I'm not going to use a permanent back scene.
The picture provides a bit of a clue that I'm not yet wholly decided on much else. I think the final choice will probably be a mostly static single turnout OO yard, based on the Wisbech and Upwell combined with a simple OO6.5  line playing the role of one of our local potato railways. I could always use OO9 but I feel the urge to do something a bit different, especially since James Hilton has just built another loco for me as a Xmas present from my wife. as it happens Hornby have released a new building based on our local heritage centre, the Chain Bridge Forge. Getting my hands on one proved to be a mammoth task and an object lesson in Hornby getting customer service both very wrong and very right.

Revival & Revison

 With short winter days, a full working week and Xmas preparations the ELR isn't yet getting that attention it deserves. A priority is to get the new small engine shed assembled and a lean-to beside the main shed to keep the goods stock under cover.

Most of the dead trees have been cut back
and the old terminus line slewed over

The old household yard was on the right.
It is hard to tell with the leaves,but
 it is now grassing over nicely.

But before doing that I'm beginning to rethink the track layout. The original layout evolved for were what very valid reasons at the time but a lot has changed. The household service yard is in a different location and the trees that the line had to fit around before were either removed to avoid poisoning the goats or have been killed by the goats stripping the bark. I also still haven't decided if the new vegetable plot, attempt number three, will go back where it was or somewhere else.

On top of that there are operational issues. I was never really happy with having all three points in quick succession all coming off the main running line. It was acceptable when we only had one loco, most of the trained were for goods traffic, and the tight reverse curve enforced low speeds anyway. How much of that will change in the future I'm not sure, but passenger services are going to have to start soon as the grandson realises they are an option. With some of the trees out of the way, I might even look at putting in a continuous run, or at least an option to provide one using temporary track. If I do I will just feel that little bit happier if trains can whizz by whilst work goes on in the service area.

So what does this mean in practice? 

I'm still not exactly sure.  Especially if I still want to access the gate onto Quick Lane, which can be very convenient for bulk deliveries. I have a soft spot for it as one of the original terminuses of the line, and it has been good for photos as well. But even before the goats it went long periods of time without being used, and got in the way of bringing bikes and garden machinery into the garden from the road. In any case, for now it has been slewed out of the way whilst some dead trees are cleared and I build the new shed.

Deciding where the running line should go is probably key. I want to use a more generous radius which, whatever I do, will mean moving a point. I guess once I've done that I can design the rest of the yard in a more leisurely fashion 

What First?

It still seems odd to look out the window in the morning and not to be greeted by a chorus of goats demanding food. The good news is they appear to have settled in well at their new home.

I'm still coming to terms with the reconstruction of the ELR. It really is difficult to know where to begin. I think it will be with the original terminus of the line, next to our back gate. In the last year of operation, this saw very little traffic because we moved the service yard for the house to a new location.

Front and back garden sections of the ELR are finally reunited

There is a railway somewhere under there. 

My initial plan is to realign the track and build the running shed here, to house the coach and at least one of the locos, freeing up the workshop. At a later date, I'll build a lean-to against the workshop to store wagons undercover. I'll still need a siding leading up to the gate to move deliveries of ballast, but that is likely to be a temporary track laid down when needed.


As expected I'm slowly being able to move more things from the office down to the workshop. That is making me think about my next plans for the indoor layouts. Finally having a clear space on my big desk has taken me back to the original gestation of the Apa Valley. What is different this time in the space I have in mind is going to be viewable from at least three sides and is more L shaped.

Option one is an OO6.5 layout to just watch the trains go by. I'm thinking something that runs from an industrial setting, out into the marshes, and then back to a harbour.

Option two is a bastard combination of an Ian Holmes inspired idea for a Kings Lynn based layout crossed both with White Lion Yard in Great Yarmouth and an old idea I had for a pointless EM Inglenook.

As with the OO6.5 layout I've not got a detailed scheme in my head yet, but it would involve an off-scene traverser or sector plate, with the tracks entering the scene in such a way that they appeared quite separate.

Option three is simply that pointless EM gauge Inglenook to finally get the Tanat Valley out of my system and make use of the old station buildings.

Then Bachmann had to come along with their double Fairlie announcement.

For years I've had two kinds of slightly absurd OO9 ideas in the back of my mind. One is an extended rabbit warren based on a couple of CJF plans, or, in a simplified form, the original Jopuef preformed HOe layout. The other is based on an old layout that appeared in MRC back in the sixties of Minffordd. It might well have been  built by Chris Leigh, and might even have been in 5.5mm scale

Both of these schemes would involve a certain suspension of belief. Here is my badly drawn concept for the Minfford layout.

Note that the hidden loop is placed at the front, and the operating interest would really be focussed on the yard.

An Ending and a New Start

 This week has been a  sad one at Elder Cottage. 

Our five beautiful goats have gone to better place. No, no that one, this one.

It has become clear this Summer both that our age meant we were struggling with their care, and that they have become very destructive. This culminated in a single week when they:

Demolished their housing
Killed a mature tree by stripping the bark off of it
Tore planks out of the "station" shed
Escaped down the lane.

The back garden seems very sad and quiet without them.

It also looks like a battlefield.

It does allow me to reconstruct the ELR. And I already feel like I have more time on my hands for my own hobbies, but it is going to be a long slog just to get the railway back to how it was.

Canals and Railways

One of the most common model railway cliches, for understandable reasons, is the interchange between a railway and a canal, or between two gauges of railway. Of course, there are many prototypical examples of these kinds of interchange. One of the more interesting, and well known is at Bude.

It is quite a complex story. The Bude Canal opened in 1823. Connected to the sea by a lock, it provided access to two safe basins for small trading ships, but it also provided a way of taking sand from the beaches into the countryside for use in improving the soil. Whilst the sea lock might appear conventional, other changes in level were addressed by inclined planes. And to use the inclined planes the tub boats were equipped with their own wheels to run in U shaped rails.

There was also a 4ft gauge plateway, running from the beach to the wharves, to deliver the sand into the tub boats. In 1923 this was replaced by a 2ft gauge tramway that remained horsedrawn until it closed in 1942.

When the LSWR reached Bude in 1898 they built the terminus on the outskirts of the town, but a single-track branch was laid that reached the wharves. 

One thing I haven't been able to work out, either from maps or old photos, is whether there was an interchange between the standard gauge and the tramway(s)

UPDATE I think this photo from Britain from Above shows there were definite steps in place to PREVENT a direct interchange. 

Today the canal is only navigable for a relatively short section - I went paddleboarding on it, remains of the 2ft gauge can still be seen on the slope down to the beach, but plans are in progress to cover them over to prevent further corrosion and reduce the tripping risk. Storms not so long ago revealed that the track is still in place under the sand on the beach itself. The site of the LSWR station is now a housing estate, but you can still follow the route of the branch to the canal. The Castle Museum also have a fair few relics of the station 

The infamous Bude Tunnel.
The most popular tourist attraction in Bude according to Trip Advisor

Somewhere around here is the buried track on the beach

The tramway ran over this bridge

The old lifeboat station, somewhat inconveniently sited on the canal!
The footpath is the route of the LSWR 

Looking the other way, with a delightfully corrugated building on the other side of the basin

Lynton & Barnstaple

Odd childhood memories stick with you. One of mine is walking down to Selly Oak Library with my mother and brother to pick up new books, and finding an album on the Lynton & Barnstaple.

At that time I really only knew about the Welsh narrow gauge. Here was a revelation. Seemingly massive locos running through what seemed an exotic landscape, with hints of the wild west.

Alas, it was long gone, and Devon was a long way away when your family never went on holidays and only took Sunday afternoons off.

Fast forward another 10 or so years and I did make it to Lynton, but we were on a tight schedule on a day trip from Southampton that also included the West Somerset.

So somehow it has taken until last week for me to finally make it to Woody Bay, and as we now know it really was only sleeping...

Confession time. I made the mistake of relying on my old Sony compact superzoom camera. It is really time I binned it. The superzoom can get shots I would struggle to by any other means but the images it produces are incredibly soft and blurry, even at the less extreme end of the zoom. Most of these photos have only been saved by the use of Topaz Sharpen AI. 

Additions and Changes

The last couple of months have been quite busy, and very odd. It has felt very flat, but there is much to look back on that is good.

Work has been relaxing for the first time in twelve years, with a noticeable drop in my blood pressure readings. The end of lockdown means we've been able to spend a lot more time with family as well.

Thanks to Little Orange Hen the ELR's solitary coach has had a major makeover after the damage done by the goats.  

The skip chassis has also been reunited with the skip for the first time in ages, and, after much digging out of track has even made a trip to the current end of the line.

Like many photos from the early days of preservation schemes, this gives a false image of progress since this alignment is still likely to be abandoned

Other additions have been on the livestock front. We now have two geese. 

Blue and Bell.
Pomeranian Saddlebacks

It doesn't end there. We've taken in six more feral kittens from local rescue organisations. Normally Summer additions to the feral population don't stick around, but this bunch seem friendlier than usual. One has even been purring, which is a first.

Feral Feeding Frenzy.
The kittens aren't in this shot

Then there was the shock of waking up one Sunday morning to discover Simon the cockerel wasn't as past it as well all thought when Barb paraded out of the compost bins with her nine chicks.

They are now in the awkward teenager stage, but happily all nine are doing well

PS. Writing this I'd forgotten I'd left a previous post in draft. It is a long story related to the geese and chickens and my beloved changing her mind multiple times, but I've had to lift the 7/8ths test track.