Modelling lives
Tales from the world of professional model-makers.
Paul Gosden explains how his love of modelling led to professional commissions.
Freightliner came to the rescue and sent me a new photograph taken from a drone
Paul Gosden loves modelling the modern railway and his interests have recently led to commissions from Freightliner.
Ispend a lot of my time photographing freight trains and this interest in the contemporary railway scene led me to build ‘Chadwick Junction’ (MR212). Once this layout was complete, I took a short break from modelling while I waited for a fresh burst of inspiration to strike. Google Earth is a great resource for railway modellers and, after viewing various freight terminals and depots from the online ‘eye in the sky’. Freightliner’s Midland Road depot in Leeds grabbed my attention, so much so that I soon resolved to build a new layout based on this location. Thinking that I had nothing to lose, I contacted Freightliner’s head office explaining my intentions and was fortunate to receive an invitation to the depot for an extensive, personal tour. This was a real privilege, as very few visitors are permitted to visit Freightliner’s depots. After being kitted out in regulation clothing and undergoing a safety briefing, I was escorted around the site and allowed to take plenty of photographs and note the key dimensions of the main buildings. Over the following year, my new layout began to take shape, featuring many aspects of Midland Road. Unsurprisingly, I had to restrict the length of the 400ft-long depot building to fit within the available space, but it was completed in early 2018 and I decided to christen it ‘Ledleigh Depot’. With another layout completed and with an urge to do something a little different, I opted to build a portable diorama. Freightliner’s recently opened Crewe Basford Hall depot seemed like an attractive proposition, so I dropped my Freightliner contacts a line to raise the possibility of another site visit. To my delight, they graciously agreed and an escorted visit was arranged to the Cheshire depot. This time I wanted to build a more exact replica of the real depot so more detailed photographs were taken, especially as I envisioned building the depot with a removable roof that would reveal a fully detailed interior. Being a newly built structure, copies of the site plans were made available by Freightliner and this made the scaling down of the dimensions to ‘OO’ much easier. I must emphasise how lucky, and grateful, I was to be so well accommodated by the busy Freightliner staff who gave up their time to show me around the facilities and answer all my questions. My rendition of Basford Hall fitted onto a 5ft by 3ft baseboard, with all depot and office buildings being built from double-thickness mounting board with embossed plastic planking. The shell of the building was constructed first, before adding the internal girders using Plastruct styrene section. Having my photographs close to hand on my ipad helped massively while constructing the interior. I also scaled down my photographs of storage cabinets, vending machines and other internal fixtures and mounted them onto mounting board for greater realism. While the roof structure was made to fit as tight as possible to the walls, it could be lifted away to reveal the detailed interior which was illuminated with LED strip lighting powered by 9V batteries. Partway through the build, Freightliner got in touch to ask if I could bring my diorama to Crewe for the launch of their new corporate identity. Directors from Genesee & Wyoming (Freightliner’s parent company) would be attending, along with the newly repainted Class 66 66413. Aided by copies of the artwork for Freightliner’s new logos and signage, the completed diorama moved back to Crewe and is now on permanent display in the Basford Hall boardroom. The folks at Freightliner then commissioned me to build a similar diorama for display at Midland Road depot, which provided a new challenge. I’d need to replicate the entire depot structure, so ‘N’ gauge was the only option and everything would have to be built from scratch. My first attempt at the depot failed as the long girders proved too flimsy, leading to a sagging roof. In the end I built it in sections and then joined it all together. This structure has a fixed roof but the depot and all subsidiary units are illuminated. I soon discovered that Google Earth didn’t have an up-to-date aerial view but, once again, Freightliner came to the rescue and sent me a new photograph taken from a drone. This was perfect as I could now see everything I needed to complete the model. It won’t be long before I’ll be travelling up the M1 to install this model in the Midland Road board room. I would like to thank all of the staff at Freightliner for their help and hospitality over the past year.
MODELLER’S CV
Paul Gosden served his engineering apprenticeship at London Transport, working at a variety of bus works around the capital. His latest layout, ‘Ledleigh Depot’, will appear in Model Rail soon.