PAGES OF NEW MODELS
Nostalgia was the driving force behind Alexander Warren’s semi-fictional depiction of a run-down station in south Cambridgeshire.
Hatton’s ‘P’ 0-6-0T Hornby Class 800 Bachmann Baldwin 4-6-0PT Heljan ‘O’ gauge Class 20 Oxford Rail Mk 3s Kernow MRC ‘Turbot’ Hatton’s ICI hoppers IN-DEPTH – INDEPENDENT – UNBIASED
Aside from highly detailed and accurate representations of real locations, the most popular scenes to model are ones from childhood memories. The thought of ‘recapturing youth’ appeals to many modellers, but for some the lure is an enabler, allowing them to accurately run the locomotives they remember seeing as they watched the trains go by. ‘Diddington’ is a hybrid layout featuring representations of significant childhood memories for Alexander Warren, but the creation of Grafham Water in 1965 has given him the freedom to model the area how he pleases. “I like the fact that Diddington Brook was flooded because it means I had the freedom to design the layout how I wanted it without being restricted by comparisons to ‘the real thing’. In real life there was no Diddington station, so I was free to create it however I liked. “For me ‘Diddington’ is a nostalgia project, as a lot of the places on the layout are renditions of locations I visited as a child. The turntable is from Huntingdon East, while the crossing bridge is a replica of the one at Godmanchester.
SIMPLE OPTIONS
“I wanted to keep things simple wherever I could and so the baseboards are just sheets of plywood on top of L-shaped girders with crossbeams on the curve to help create the L-shape of the layout. For the way I operate it I don’t need DCC control so I have kept the layout analogue-controlled, and operated from my Gaugemaster controller.” Diddington station would have been in decline in
“‘Diddington’ is a nostalgia project, as a lot of the places on the layout are renditions of locations I visited as a child”
the 1960s, one of the reasons why it would have been part of the flooded area when Grafham Water was created, and this has allowed Alexander to depict a station at the end of its life. “I’ve modelled the 1960s as that was the era of my childhood, but it also gave me the opportunity to portray the station in a run-down state. To create that ambience there is little activity on the layout, and I’ve placed static grass in between the rails on the rarely used tracks. “I started the layout in 1998 but I then left it for about ten years when I got heavily involved in boats. I’m a slow worker anyway and the track took a long time to complete as I handmade the pointwork using copper-clad sleepers, alongside SMP Flexitrack. Unfortunately, I developed some eye problems which slowed me down even further, and prevented me from making the track by hand.” There are three focal points on the ‘Diddington’ layout: the river, the scenic crossing at Godmanchester and the mill, a hybrid of the ones at Godmanchester
and St Ives. Realistic water is hard to model in even the smallest of streams, but Alexander has modelled the Great Ouse, with more than 30 layers of varnish. “I haven’t used any of the specialist products for the river because, to model what I wanted, it would have proved too expensive. Instead, I began with a thin coat of Artex to seal the grain, and then applied a mixture of green and brown paints, getting progressively greener as I approached the centre to give the impression of depth in the murky waters. After that I just applied lots of coats of varnish. The first few layers were diluted 50/50 with white spirit and left to settle before adding the subsequent layers, reducing the shine on the finish each time. One of the things that made the varnish method so appealing to me is that whenever I decide the river needs refurbishing I just rub it down with some wet and dry paper and put a new coat on the top.” The Kettering-cambridge line crossed the River Great Ouse at Godmanchester on a low, wooden trestle bridge. This structure imposed speed and weight restrictions on the line and was demolished when the A14 by-pass was built. “I drew the outline for the timber supports onto paper as a template and then pinned all the pieces in place while the balsa cement set. I wanted to make
“Whenever I decide the river needs refurbishing I just rub it down with some wet and dry paper and put a new layer on the top”
sure that the bridge could be removed for transport, so in the base the bridge is screwed in place rather than glued, enabling me to easily remove it when necessary. “The majority of the mill was built for me by Dave Measey using Exactoscale self-adhesive brickwork sheets, and partial interiors. Initially we couldn’t really decide on which bits of each mill to incorporate, so in the end I decided on using the main body from St Ives and the loading bay from Godmanchester. I also bought a Scalescenes chimney to increase its overall height. Had I left it as it was, the top two floors of the factory would have become very smoky!
HIGH POINT
“People ask me which part of the layout I enjoyed making the most. But I enjoyed making all of it for different reasons. The station throat was a highlight, purely because it features the largest amount of track and pointwork and I found it very therapeutic. I found nothing particularly difficult, although there is one building behind the signal box which is a bit of a headache. No matter how hard I try I cannot make the angle of the roof look correct!” Cameo scenes are a common feature of layouts and are becoming a popular way of attracting added interest, aside from the trains themselves. Alexander has included a few figures that make for interesting viewing but has steered away from overdoing it. “I’m not really one for cameo scenes but I do like the man waiting by the telephone box and the gentleman fishing on the Ouse near the bridge, just beyond the ‘No fishing’ sign.” Alexander continues to improve the layout as his skills improve and new products become available. He is currently working on an extension to the layout called ‘Upwell Drove’ which will connect to ‘Diddington’ in the future.