Gas Works

Gas works were a common sight until the advent of gas supplies from the North Sea around 1970 and they usually had rail connexions for the delivery of coal and removal of coke.

St Petrock station draws much of its inspiration from Bude, which had a large, relatively modern gas works. However, I preferred the somewhat ramshackle appearance of earlier designs, many of which survived until the end of the town gas era.

One such survival was Truro's and Peter Denny used it as a basis for his model at Buckingham, which I had the great privilege of seeing on many occasions. The large building on my model is, in turn, based on his.

Coal is delivered by rail at A and taken into the retort house B on a side-tipping wagon. Heat from the boiler house K carbonises the coal and the resultant gas is fed through the exhauster house C to the condenser D, where the gas is cooled. Large particulates suspended in the gas are removed in the scrubber F, then ammonia is removed in the washer G. The final stage of refining is the purifier H - three tanks, containing iron oxide. Passing the gas though these removes sulphur – the culprit for the rotten egg smell that always seemed to pervade these old gas works. Finally, the now fully refined gas passes through the meter house I, to be stored in the gas holder J.

After gas is removed from the coal it becomes coke. This is removed from the retort house on a second side-tipping wagon and deposited at L for resale. One might expect this to be removed by rail, but at St Petrock the coal yard of Messrs Giles and Powell is nearby, and it all goes there (or rather, it will do when I provide them with a suitable lorry). E is a tank that collects tar from the retort house, condenser and scrubber. M, sited at the works entrance, is the office.

The wagon is standing on dual-gauge track at the coal delivery point. The narrow-gauge side-tipper at the back would be hand-pushed into the retort house. Coke comes out of the retort house on the line nearest the camera.

For details about the next three items I am indebted to Countryside Models for photos of their exquisite model gas works – far nicer than mine. 

The tall structure behind the tar tank is the condenser.  Quoting from Countryside Models...

"The condenser itself is a piece of equipment which helps date the model.  So far modellers have reproduced either early air-cooled serpentine condensers or the Victorian tubular "Annular Condensers" but these were replaced from the 1930s onwards by more efficient condensers in which electricity was used to pump water through the gas in tubes (like a loco boiler in reverse)."

I really must do something about the empty space behind the condenser and the rather obvious join in the backscene.  My gasworks doesn't yet have a workshop for the maintenance fitters, so this is where it will go.

The scrubber and washer, with the tar tank to the right. I presume that the building beneath the tank contained some means of keeping the tar warm and liquid.

The oxide tanks.  Poo.. what a smell!

The gas holder started life as a Hornby Scaledale model. I believe it was based on one at Fakenham but, to my mind, was much too small.  I therefore sliced it in half, added a tall centre section and built my own steelwork around it, using Evergreen styrene mouldings.

The photo on the right shows the gas works early in its construction, with the unmodified Hornby gas holder. I hope you'll agree that mine is an improvement.

Trackwork is complete

Last week I laid the final piece of trackwork. There may well be minor changes in the future but the basic track plan is now complete. This is how it was originally conceived, back in November 2013...

… and this is how it's turned out in April 2019.

The most obvious change is the new revolving fiddle yard. The original one proved unworkable – just try imagining yourself attempting to turn around a 3ft 6in long cassette, loaded with a loco and four coaches, then lifting it over several other cassettes, and you'll get the idea! By comparison, the new arrangement has been a great success and is a joy to operate.

Under construction. The original, torturous fiddle yard was on the right

Operational. The little sliding bolt aligns the tracks and completes the electrical circuit.

The baseboard that once held the cassette fiddle yard is now home to Bourdon Halt, which is based on Dunmere Halt on the former line to Bodmin North. I had always associated 'pagoda' waiting shelters with the GWR but here's proof that the LSWR had them too.

Dunmere Halt (photo: HC Casserley)

But why "Bourdon Halt"?  Well, several years ago the old pipe organ in St Illogan Parish Church was being demolished and I pocketed one of the organ stops. It was the odd one out as it was a dummy - Illogan's organ never had a 16ft Bourdon pipe. I therefore resolved that its later years would be more useful than its former ones and used it to control the turnout to Bourdon Mill.

And here is Bourdon Mill, the premises of Josiah Penrose & Sons, seed merchants and suppliers of agricultural miscellanea. Since there is no run-round at Bourdon Mill, the siding is only serviced by the morning goods train from Tregarrick North to St Petrock. Anything destined for further afield has to reverse at St Petrock and leave by one of the 'up' goods trains. 

These photos emphasises all too clearly that, though the St Petrock trackwork is complete, there remains much to do on the scenic side. St Petrock is far from being finished... perish the thought!

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.

A canopy for St Petrock station

At long last Mr Walter Tregaskis, St Petrock's long-standing and long-suffering dental surgeon, may keep himself dry as he awaits the 6.24pm departure to Tregarrick North.

He could, of course, relax in St Petrock Station waiting room, but Cornish gales have a habit of blowing fumes from the old fire back down the chimney and patients of his, waiting for the same train, are wont to engage him in long conversation about their many ailments.  Better the fresh air.

Not that it rains that often in St Petrock - or so the local hoteliers and shop keepers will tell you. But even so, no self-respecting station should be devoid of a canopy, should it?  St Petrock folk aren't like the less privileged mortals of St Kew, Port Isaac, Otterham or Egloskerry; dear me no. There's is a proper station. 'Twaddn't till racent like... but 'tis now.

This particular canopy was knocked up in Plasticard, with etched brass valances from I know not where (Peedee Models do some nice ones), ornate ironwork on the pillars from GT Buildings (sadly soon to be discontinued) and a roll of corrugated copper strip that's been in my bitz box since time immemorial. It is based on the canopy that once graced Whitstone & Bridgerule station on the Bude line, having horizontal planking at the ends (see photo).  It's a little different to ones on the North Cornwall 'main' line, which have vertical planking and less ornate valances.  For me, such subtle variations are part of the fascination of railway modelling. If they send you to sleep, I apologise.

Turntable Tribulations

MetalSmith Ltd market a very nice range of turntables. Cheap, they are not (£117 for the 60ft kit, plus motor) but the quality is superb.  However, thinking I could save both money and time, I elected to buy a Peco LK-55 turntable.

I'm sure Peco have many, many happy customers, and it's not my intention to knock a perfectly respectable product, but I soon realized that, for me, it was probably the wrong decision.  Firstly, it's 300mm in diameter (equivalent to an unprototypical 75 feet) and secondly it's made of plastic. Okay — I knew all that before I bought it, 75 feet isn't that much bigger than Padstow's 70 footer, and plastic bearings surely shouldn't have been a problem... but read on.

I assembled the basic kit, then set about motorising it, using the recommended Meccano parts. I wanted the turntable to automatically stop when it aligned with the approach tracks, so invented my own solenoid 'lock', using parts of an old H&M point motor.  The photo shows the arrangement.  Amazingly (for me) it worked! Energising the H&M solenoid withdraws the plunger and also depresses the microswitch, which energises the turntable motor. When the next slot comes round, the plunger drops into it, thanks to the spring on the microswitch, which de-energises the motor.

Elated, I installed the completed turntable on St Petrock and set about laying the approach tracks.  Then disaster struck. The main bearing had been emitting some ominous noises, but a drop of oil seemed to cure the problem... until one day the whole lot jammed and sheared the plastic stem clean off the table base!

I toyed with consigning the broken remains to landfill, but couldn't bear the thought of writing off rather a lot of hard work, so I stripped the whole lot down and carefully substituted a metal bearing and spindle.

The bearing is the centre of an old Meccano cog wheel. Great care was taken in opening up the original hole to accommodate the new bearing. If it was off-centre, the whole thing would be ruined. 

This is the new spindle, mounted in another old Meccano cog middle, locked tight with the Meccano grub screw and fixed in place with epoxy resin. The tri-square ensures that it remains vertical as the 'poxy sets.   

Before reassembling, I also lined the turntable wall with brick-embossed Plasticard, to make it look more like the turntables at Padstow and Camden. This, in turn, meant that I had to trim the table length a bit to fit the now slightly smaller well.

(www.britainfromabove.org.uk)

The Peco model is clearly a scaled-up model of a smaller manually operated turntable.  All the 70 footers in my collection of photographs are vacuum operated, so the finishing touch was to extend the table deck and add the vacuum control apparatus.

The irony is that St Petrock didn't really need a 75ft turntable, or even a 70ft one. A 60 footer would have been adequate to turn a T9 or N.  Unbeknown to me, the Southern Railway obviously planned to run Bullied light pacifics into St Petrock, perhaps hauling the Atlantic Coast Express, so now I shall have to get one.  Is Father Christmas reading this?

Finally, just to prove that it really does work, here's a short video...

So... will I replace this turntable when time and finances permit?  Probably not. I'm actually rather pleased with the modifications I've made – particularly the brick lining and the vacuum apparatus – so here it stays.

Daddy's Shop

Here is my first home — mum and dad's shop in Argyle Street, Bognor Regis. That's little me in the pushchair, probably being propelled by my cousin Margaret.

Within a couple of years, mum and dad had sold up and moved to Newquay, and a further 52 years were destined to pass before I returned to Bognor Regis.  By then, the shop had become an Indian Restaurant, and very good it was too.  When I showed them this photo and told them the story, they gave me a free aperitif with my meal.  Lovely folk!

It didn't take me long to decide that St Petrock must include a model of dad's shop, with his name proudly displayed over the front door. I've changed the proportions of the building slightly, to fit the available space but, despite my questionable modelling skills, it is, I hope, easily recognisable. To dispel any lingering ignorance when folk visit the layout, a print of the original photo hangs on the wall above it.

I will eventually get round to bedding down the building properly, to get rid of that 'orrible black line at pavement level. One of next door's chimneys needs attention too, I see. It, by the way, together with the rest of its building, belongs to that august firm of St Petrock solicitors, Messrs Swindle & Cheatem. Personally, I prefer to spend my time in the Cornish Arms, across the road. With beer at one shilling a pint, who wouldn't?

The Fiddle Yard

Prior to building St Petrock, most of my railway layout plans had been centred on through stations, with a fan of partially hidden sidings for off-scene storage of trains. This configuration had the dubious advantage that trains could be round round-and-round the room, though such operation is hardly prototypical.  The only examples I can think of are the 'merry-go-round' coal trains supplying power stations, and London's circle line.

Operationally, a terminus-to-fiddle yard configuration has a lot more potential than a simple through station. "The great thing about a terminus," as the ticket inspector told the old lady, "is that everything stops... or else there's a very big bang."

Early posts on this blog have described the terminus end, as it takes shape. Until this week, though, the track from St Petrock ended beneath a road bridge on the estuary section.  I had toyed with building a cross between a Peter Denny-style rotating storage unit a sliding traverser, but in the end decided to keep things simple and have storage cassettes.  These have been well described in the model railway press and mine are nothing special... but they do work.  A train arriving from St Petrock runs onto a cassette, which is then unplugged from the approach track, rotated by hand, then either set aside so that another cassette can be inserted, or reconnected for the return journey. Simple!

Now, for the first time since commencing St Petrock, I can run trains properly and thoughts are turning to developing a timetable.  However, there's still an enormous amount of modelling to undertake, so for my next post I'll return to the houses on Station Road.