LAYOUT: Wellington Street
It’s a seamless blend of fact and fiction. MIKE BRAGG describes his carefully formulated layout that captures the industrial essence of the Black Country.
Mike Bragg describes his carefully formulated layout that captures the industrial essence of the Black Country.
The Black Country was once described as “red by night and black by day”. Furnaces lit the night sky and smoke hid the sun during the daylight hours. My portable layout ‘Wellington Street’ depicts part of the Earl of Dudley’s railway, which played a key role in the development of the Black Country. The first line was built across the Dudley Estate in 1829 to link Shutt End Colliery to the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal, and it would grow to become a 40-mile rail network. The layout is a snapshot of the Earl of Dudley’s Railway but, while not area specific, it incorporates a number of key features from all over the system. The name comes from Wellington Road, which was at the eastern extremity, although this stretch was out of use after the Second World War. However, a short section from the Wallows to Old Park Engineering remained open until the 1960s. By mixing fact with a generous helping of fiction, Old Park Engineering has become ‘Doolittle & Waite’. The Wellington Road Land Sale Wharf (where coal was sold) has moved to Cradley Heath, where the line crossed Forge Lane (‘Wellington Street’ on the layout) to connect with the GWR via Cradley goods yard. Also featured are the remains of the railway bridge that once carried the GWR line from Old Hill to Dudley, known as the Bumble Hole line. The layout consists of four boards built from three Grainge & Hodder (www.graingeandhodder.co.uk) laser-cut kits. I built two standard units and then cut a 45° kit in half and added the halves to the ends. The boards are supported on a folding unit, which incorporates both front and end panels to avoid the necessity of curtains.
The track plan is relatively simple, and just the sort of thing you’d expect from a quiet backwater goods yard. Inspiration for this type of layout comes from my modelling heroes John Ahern and P.D. Hancock.
KEEP IT SIMPLE
I’ve got nothing against DCC, but I felt that it would have been overkill for such a simple layout, so ‘Wellington Street’ is analogue controlled. I’ve used a Gaugemaster hand-held unit, as well as an ancient panel-mounted ECM Compspeed controller. Points are controlled by Blue Point units. I built most of the buildings from 2mm Liteply with embossed plastic overlays. I particularly enjoy this part of the hobby, and have endeavoured to build a layout with buildings you don’t normally see on other layouts. They’re based on real structures from the area, such as Jaspers Shop (from Mushroom Green) and the Iron Duke pub. The real
pub was called ‘The Iron Duke’, whereas mine is just ‘Iron Duke’ because I was short of a letter ‘e’ - and ‘The Iron Duck’ just didn’t seem right. As is the case with most modellers, I have far too much stock for such a small layout. The wagons are a mixture of opens, vans and a solitary oil tank to cover the type of goods conveyed on the railway - coal from the earl’s mines, plus brick and marl, and iron and chemicals from the various industries in the area. My locomotive fleet consists of an EX-LSWR ‘B4’ 0‑4‑0T, which, despite its origins, is suitable for the area as four worked in the local steelworks. You’ll also see a ‘J71’ 0‑6‑0T, which isn’t suitable at all but it was a gift from a friend, plus an EX-GWR ‘57XX’, a Peckett 0‑4‑0ST and a Fowler 0‑4‑0DM. True to the adage that a layout is never finished, I could add extra boards to extend ‘Wellington Street’ with a representation of Cradley goods yard or a connection to the Wallows, with its canal and locomotives sheds. Or I could just sell the layout, like its predecessors, and build a new one!