38 Build a modern terminus
The modern branch line terminus may lack the romance of the steam era, but there’s still much to model, argues CHRIS LEIGH.
There’s still much to model on a modern branch line terminus, argues Chris Leigh.
My dislike for the destruction of railway buildings in the aftermath of Beeching is pretty well known, as is my love of the traditional GWR ‘BLT’, or branch line terminus. From Staines West to Stourbridge, and Cirencester to St Ives, there’s scarcely a GWR terminus, rural or urban, that I didn’t love. Most were simply bulldozed after the lines which they served were closed, but the real tragedy was that even those lines which escaped closure generally had their commodious all-weather stations demolished and replaced by nothing more than a minimal shelter. A few lines escaped Beeching’s ‘axe’, and those that did were generally in the West of England, serving coastal villages which were popular holiday destinations. Two examples, St Ives and Looe, were both reprieved on the grounds that road access was poor and that the villages themselves had narrow streets which wouldn’t be able to cope with the extra road traffic, or were unsuitable for buses. Beeching wanted to close everything beyond Plymouth, but Cornwall would not countenance being a county devoid of railways (having been one of the first to have them). Once the main line to Penzance was safe, it paved the way to saving the branches to Newquay and Falmouth, as well as those to Looe and St Ives.
BARE ESSENTIALS
Forced to retain routes which it had hoped to ditch, BR set about a process which it called ‘rationalisation’. In essence, this removed every feature which was not absolutely essential, from passing loops and signalling equipment to complete station buildings. Branch lines became little more than long sidings. At Looe and St Ives, new platforms replaced the original termini, and the lines themselves were shortened so that complete station sites could be released for redevelopment (Looe) or car parking. At St Ives, the repositioned platform was just long enough for a couple of coaches, and soon had to be lengthened to accommodate the four-car DMU formations which were necessary in the high season. This was particularly crucial once the park-and-ride system was introduced, where visitors parked at Lelant Saltings, close to the main
line junction at St Erth, and took the spectacular 4½ mile ride along the Atlantic coast to St Ives. Such is the peak-time pressure on this service that it warrants a four-car train running at half-hourly intervals. At St Ives, a car park replaced the substantial stone station and, initially, only the most basic form of shelter was provided on the new platform. In more recent years First Great Western replaced this with an equally unattractive modern equivalent.
‘PROPER STATION’
Even a devotee like me would have been hard-pressed to justify retention of the Liskeard & Looe Railway’s ramshackle wooden building at Looe, but it was unique and had a rustic charm in the style of a Colonel Stephens station. Its replacement is so far up the line that it is actually at the first quarter-mile post, and a sizeable trek from the seafront. It does, however, boast a ‘proper’ station building unlike most of the others. Truncated bits of the original GWR buildings survive at Newquay and Falmouth, but passengers only have access to a bare platform with a shelter.
TIME HEALS
Given time, our opinions tend to mellow. I’ll never like the modern branch termini in the way that I liked the originals, but I’ve lived with unstaffed ‘bus stop’ halts far longer than I enjoyed the original buildings. I have learned to appreciate the fact that at least the trains still run. My ‘Polwyddelan’ layout is primarily an indulgence in scenic modelling, blending elements of St Ives and Clovelly into a layout built on two 4ft by 2ft 6in baseboards. The railway track plan is minimalist, but I wanted something more than just my original concept, which was the ‘long siding’ arrangement with a Realtrack Class 143 shuttling in and out. I wanted to use multiple units to avoid the need for a run-round loop and I needed to save space, so I quickly realised that any sort of ‘steam era’ station building was out of the question. So, I had to bite the bullet and build a modern station. However, just as I’d interpreted my village to be a bit surreal and ‘chocolate boxy’, so I decided to do the same for my modern station. If you read the ‘back story’ in Model Rail 226, you’ll have seen that the Polwyddelan branch is now privately owned by the estate, which owns the village. However, the branch did not escape closure by Beeching and its station was demolished. The impact of this on the numbers of visitors to the village, which has poor road connections, was such that the estate bought the railway and sponsored a preservation group to run it. The group was quickly overwhelmed by the frequency of service required in peak times, so the main line operator - First Group/gwr was contracted to run the peak service, with the preservation society running the off-peak trains. This story provides an excuse to run the trains that I want to run. It’s my railway and I’ll run what I like - a far cry from the usual levels of authentic operation that I promote in Model Rail. I trust that this preamble explains how I can run a GWR Class 150/2 alongside a ‘preserved’ Class 205 ‘Thumper’ and a blue and grey Class 108. In addition, the estate produces china clay, which is moved out in ‘clay hood’ wagons worked by a Class 25. It’s a Bachmann sound-fitted model which I really like, so I had to have an excuse to run it occasionally. Finally, to round off this fairy tale, the estate’s very wealthy owner occasionally commutes to London with his entourage in Mk 3 sleepers, which are attached to the Up ‘Night Riviera’, providing an excuse to run a couple of those prettily finished Hornby Mk 3s and a Bachmann Class 57.
ULTERIOR MOTIVE
There is also an ulterior motive (or two) to all this. I needed to make operation of the trains more interesting for my own benefit. Plus, I wanted to test my skills with DCC control and, perhaps, to demonstrate simple manoeuvres with DCC if the opportunity arose at exhibitions. For instance, the Class 25 could bring in china clay empties, uncouple, and the wagons would then be collected by the estate’s shunter. Similarly, the Mk 3 sleepers could be brought in as empty stock by a Class 08, before being collected by the Class 57. Such operations would involve two locomotives and some simple coupling and uncoupling, for which I intended to stick with the tensionlock couplers. (However, the frustrations I’ve experienced more recently with tension-locks, and the ease with which my Canadian ‘HO’ stock with Kaydee couplers operates on the same layout might lead me to
switch to these on the handful of items that will need to couple or uncouple on the layout.)
TRACK AND FIELD
There’s nothing special about the track or the track plan. I have used Peco Code 75 flat bottom rail because that is what I use on my ‘HO’ Canadian layout and it makes sense to standardise. That way I can always keep a few spare lengths of track and the odd turnout in stock in case something fails, or gets damaged and has to be replaced. The track plan which I eventually adopted was the simplest of my three proposals and it was essentially a matter of ‘Hobson’s Choice’. None of the others would fit the available space. There is also nothing special about the way that the track is laid or ballasted, other than to draw attention to my use of Woodland Scenics Track-bed. This was essential for sound-deadening on a plywood baseboard top, but it gives the track a deep-ballasted main line look. In the station area particularly, it was necessary to disguise this in order to make it look like a mature branch line. The Track-bed also has the effect of raising the track by several millimetres, which means that kit-built platforms will be too low unless something is done to compensate for that. I was intending to use my established platform-building method, a lattice of card strips faced with Wills SMP200 stone sheets, so I could simply increase the vertical dimension of the strips by 5mm to compensate for the thickness of the roadbed. I wanted my platform to look like it was the last surviving part of the original station, but resurfaced with more modern block paving. This would be easy to accomplish with Wills SMP204 granite setts. I have a neck ailment which prevents me from working underneath layouts, so I tend to do as much wiring as possible from above the board. For this reason I use self-adhesive copper tape for my DCC bus. The tape is
applied to the top of the baseboard, adjacent to the track, and is easily accessible for the attachment of soldered wires, not just for track power but for lighting as well. When I cover the tape with scenery, I leave access points approximately every 6in and these are covered with ‘vegetation’, in case I need to access them in future.
INTEREST RATE
I prefer to model real locations. It eliminates the need for imagination. I simply model what I see. ‘Polwyddelan’ station is proving difficult. I’m writing this as I build it, and I’m finding that my enthusiasm for this layout and my interest in completing it are on a bit of a rollercoaster. Here are the problems: What I would like to build won’t fit. What fits doesn’t really inspire me. I have a small yard area beyond the station but I’m not sure what to do with the space. Simple tension-lock uncouplers don’t work. More complex uncouplers will be difficult to install at this stage.
As I’m committed to completing the layout and this series of articles, I had to find a way to make the station more interesting. A £5 accessory gave me the answer. I bought one of Train-tech’s bufferstop lights. It’s an inverted ‘Y’ fitted with two red LEDS. It clips between the rails and provides two vertically mounted red lights which mimic the modern lights installed at the stop blocks of branch lines, like the one I was modelling. I was so impressed that I bought a second one for the siding and I then realised that I could make the station area more interesting with lights. I went on to install the two Heljan lamp posts from the Tackley Halt kit and a couple of street lamps by Trainsave (Gaugemaster), left over from an earlier project. Completing the picture are the Kernow Class 205 ‘Thumper’ and Bachmann Class 25, both of which have lights and sound, plus a Hornby Class 153 with a Train-tech light unit installed. The latter is battery-powered, movementactivated and features the doorclosing bleeper sound.