One year later... an update

I really should have posted something here before now. I wouldn't wish my loyal followers (all two of them) to think I've been inactive, but I keep telling myself "I'll write something about that when it's finished." The problem is that nothing on St Petrock is finished. Instead, I've been gradually 'working up' the detail on the whole layout, concentrating my effort in different places with little appeal to logic.  The advantage of this approach, I tell myself, is that I don't risk getting bored – one day buildings, another day rolling stock, and another scenery....

So here's an update on a year at St Petrock.

Station Buildings Area

Not much has changed here, the most important thing being that all track is now ballasted, using Woodlands Scenics fine brown ballast. I mixed in some grey chippings to make it look like the ballast that used to come from Meldon Quarry, but may have overdone it a bit.  Oh well... too late to change it now.

Goods Yard

The yard now sports a crane (Wills) on a base inspired by one that used to be at Padstow, except that mine has a brick base.  Actually, the 'base' is the cut-down lid from an aerosol can.

The rather plain brown 'ground' definitely needs some scenic treatment. It will get it one day.

Water Tower

LSWR water towers were usually covered on top with corrugated iron sheets.  An exception was the one at Bude, which clearly lost it covering at some point.  Perhaps a Cornish gale blew it away and the company wouldn't risk replacing it.

I love quirky details like this, not least as I get the chance to model the water in the tank. My model is actually based on the tank that was at Axminster (which never lost its top), but without the original's rather splendid chimney. The coal stage is also inspired by the ones at Axminster and Bude.

I presume that the water pipe running up the side of the tower would have been installed when the station was connected to the mains water supply, after which the pumping engine would be redundant.

Coal Yard

 I'd intended to give this firm the name Taylor & Lowe, a Newquay merchant that actually had their own railway connection, but when modelling this scene I kept mistakenly referring to it as Giles & Powell. They used to deliver coal to my childhood home, and when I got married they delivered to mine too. So Giles & Powell it had to be.



Many model railways feature track-side coal staithes, which get filled directly from the wagons. I strongly suspected that this was a modellers' myth, having failed to find any photographic evidence for the practice. Consequently, coal from my wagons is mainly loaded into sacks, directly from the wagons, as is happening in this old photo, taken in Nantwich.

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However, some coal – indeed, quite a lot of it – also found its way into staithes, and this photo seems to support the usual railway modellers' way of filling them. These staithes definitely back onto a siding and appear to have been filled, at least in part, from the railway side.

Messrs Giles & Powell have a few staithes, well-loaded with coal of various grades, but in line with my earlier 'myth' theory, they don't back onto the track. They are just visible on the right of my photo. For now I'm going to claim that they're filled in the same way as those in any other coal yard that didn't have a rail connection, though that would require a lot of shovelling to move the coal a short distance. More research is needed here.

Factory

This rather empty scene, taken across the approach tracks to St Petrock station, features the light engineering works of Tregonning & Hill. Their building started life as a pair of Model Railway Scenery.com North Light Factory walls. I turned them into a complete building by adding side walls and a roof.  I also gave it glazed windows, the originals being simply printed. If you look inside, you'll see what T&H produce — point motors!  Well I need somewhere to hide one and this seemed a good solution.

Garage

More memories from my 40 years in Newquay. Bill Julian and my dad were good friends, so dad often had his cars serviced by Bill. When my turn came, I bought a couple of cars from Bill and took them back there for the jobs I couldn't tackle.

Bill Julian's garage – first in The Whim and later on Henver Road – looked nothing like this one, but the  Scalescenes card kit does make up into a nice mode. Again, lots of work to do here to make the ground look right.

Level Crossing & Gas Works

The crossing keeper's house is another Scalescenes card kit – this time a cut-down model of their lock keeper's cottage. I've been working on the back garden today, hence the dark patches where the glue is still drying.

Beyond the level crossing, the gas works is beginning to take shape. Hopefully, I'll write more about that at a later date.

The photo also features the recently installed lineside fencing, courtesy of Slaters.  The 'wires' need to be painted grey, or whatever looks most like weathered wire.