The Caradon Branch

Something of a marathon session today to work on the wiring of the 'Moorswater' end of the line. All of the isolated sections now have fitted and wired power clamps, and these have been wired back to the switches in the hut on the 'down' side of the station throat. And they all work satisfactorily - phew.
 
The two buffer stop lights and two home signal lights have been wired back to the LGB switch bank in the C and W works on the 'up' side, power has been applied and once again, all is well. The lighting units were fixed into the signals last night, after these had been converted from s/h (or maybe even t/h, who knows?) LGB manual continental style upper quadrant semaphores into passable Stevens and Company lattice lower quadrant types. My omission here is that the latticework should be painted white but impatience overcame me.
 
There is a spare way on the LGB switch bank for two platform lights, which will be installed once the platform surfacing is completed. If all goes according to plan, this will be sand fixed with a layer of PVA, and coated with B and Q Masonry paint that's been tinted with a little black to darken it.
 

 
The test train above is heading into 'Moorswater' through the newly-installed scratchbuilt crossing gates.
 
All the best
 
Alec K
 

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NIce scene Alex

Excellent work there Alex. The crossing and buildings look great. You are building something to be proud of.

With John and Casey J. Snr as passed masters in the creation of railway atmosphere, that is high praise indeed - and thank you, both of you, for the encouragement. When 'Moorswater' and 'Sandplace' platforms are surfaced, lighting, shelters and fencing will be installed. I recognise that I need to consider more prototypical ground finishes - principally ballast - in the station areas. I'm opting not to do this on the narrower decking trackbed between the stations at the moment.
 
Thank you once again, and best wishes,
 
Alec K

Stations have been taking shape steadily over the past few days, with surfacing completed at both 'Moorswater' and 'Sandplace'. The idea to coat the sealed and primed plywood platform tops with PVA adhesive and poured, painted sand proved to be a bad one.
 
When setting, the PVA accumulated in thicker streams on the level surface, and what began as an evenly-sanded platform became a distinctly streaky one. Fortunately, I had decided to work on one station at a time, so when all was completely dry, it was time for the paint scraper, vacuum cleaner and a recoating of primer at 'Moorswater'.
 
'Moorswater' and 'Sandplace' now have wet-and-dry coarse grade cloth surfaces with a very thick bond of PVA this time! Both platforms have withstood two heavy downpours with no ill-effects, so I am hopeful of their long-term survival.
 
The platforms had been predrilled for lighting, and two LGB lamp standards and a Modelpower clock have been installed and wired through to the switch building. The clock isn't prototypical in its setting but the lamp standards are pretty darn close.
 

 
The platform shelter has also been fixed into position, along with GRS fencing at what will be the goods wharf end. The real Moorswater did indeed have white paling fences but did not have two platform faces. The shelter is a North Staffordshire design, slected because the LGB track geometry and the width of my decking here precluded a scale model of the actual Moorswater station building. That's a shame, because the real thing was a mixture of weatherboarding and rough stonework and really characterful - but too wide for the platform I could fit between the tracks. The platform is however a scale 75' long and is therefore true to the prototype.
 

 
The two converted LQ signals and the two buffer stops were also fitted with LGB lighting units, and wired in yesterday. Next priorities at 'Moorswater' are to paint the plasticard edging slabs, complete a set of steps down to the 'goods wharf', and instal the wharf itself. Then, it's down the line to 'Sandplace' to work there...
 
All the best,
 
Alec

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It's been a beautiful day here, so much of it- and yesterday morning, for that matter - has been taken up with installing buildings, constructing and painting platform steps and fencing, and using the tinted masonry paint mix to put a first coat on the platform edging slabs at both stations. However, I have really enjoyed running a few trains as well, so here's a characteristically poor picture of a short passenger train hauled by Lady Pamela rolling into 'Sandplace' this afternoon:
 

 
...and a Henschel at the head of a train waiting to depart from 'Moorswater':
 

 
As lighting wiring is now installed at 'Sandplace' as well as 'Moorswater', and if the weather holds, I'll be running a few twilight trains  this evening. I'm borrowing my daughter's digital camera on Tuesday so that I can wind up this thread with, hopefully, a few decent pictures of the Caradon Branch.
 
Thanks for bearing with me.
 
Alec

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As my daughter's camera arrived without instruction manual - it's not a particularly intuitive version of a digital device - or the correct USB cable, I've not managed to save or download any of the (very) experimental shots of the Caradon Branch I've attempted to take so far. We're meeting up on Sunday for a tutorial.
 
The wharf and a very small ore bin has been completed at 'Moorswater' and both stations have been populated so they look a little more alive. By way of apology for futher delay, I've attached a picture, taken last year on trusty old 35mm film, of my IP Engineering tank wagon converted to a lookalike CIE weedkiller train tanker. Any more drizzle and I could well put it to use...
 

 
Regards
 
Alec K
 

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Still no instruction manual for the Praktica yet but the USB cable arrived this morning. I was hoping to post a final batch of 'decent' photos of the Caradon Branch but I'm still in learning mode with the camera. Two passable views are attached, then, from my experiments so far.

The picture above is close to what is my personal aim for the railway. It's almost a recreation of the 1890 view from the real Moorswater, although it lacks the GWR viaduct towering above it....project for the next decade, maybe! The 6t open and the goods brake van are scratchbuilt from the GWR General Arrangement drawings of 1909, and seeing them together for the first time in this setting, away from any LGB rolling stock, has convinced me that I should try to construct Looe, a Peckett tank hired, unsuccessfully, to replace the ageing motive power on the real line.

A wider view that would have been much improved if I could have found a way of over-riding the flashgun on the camera! Bear with me while I continue to learn.
 
All the best,
 
Alec K

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Oh that's very atmospheric indeed - nice work!

Mrs NHN was born in Cornwall, and lived in Looe as a little girl, so we have a vested interest in your thread!

Didn;t know about 'Looe' the Peckett though, interesting.

Brilliant rolling stock - extremely atmospheric. But now you'll start wanting the coaches to match in the same style  

Many thanks, NHN and C and S! When I master the camera and it records scenes as I think it should (!) I'll move down to 'Sandplace' and see what I can do there.
 
Neil, I have misled you a little, and apologies for that. The Liskeard and Caradon did indeed hire an 0-6-0 Peckett between 1885-1886 to operate between Looe and Rillaton, but this was named Phoenix and ended up working at Nailstone Colliery in Leicester. I was confusing this engine with a Robert Stephenson 0-6-0 called Looe which was bought by the Liskeard and Looe Railway in 1901 to operate the Liskeard-Coombe-Moorswater-Looe traffic. Unfortunately Looe either persistently derailed or ran out of steam up the bank to Liskeard so was sold the following year! Sorry for the confusion.

This is a well-known picture of Looe, receiving the attention of the platelayers at Coombe as they rerail her for the umpteenth time.

For Neil and Mrs NHN (and any other Cornish colleagues), the above picture shows a 3-car DMU arriving at Looe early in Spring 1972.
 
C & S - you are, as they say, 'right on the money'! Or you've read my mind. I'd love to build one of the 4-wheeled ex-Mersey Railway coaches that were so worn out when the GWR took over in 1909 that they valued them at a nominal £20 each and promptly scrapped them or sent them to make up miners' trains in the Rhondda Valley for a couple of years. But it's Looe or Kilmar that ought to be running down my garden. But that GRS 0-6-0 chassis wheelbase is just not right....
 
Many thanks to both of you, once again.
 
Kind regards
 
Alec K
 
 

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That was funny, as I scrolled down and saw the photo I thought 'that's not a Peckett'  (I'm an industrial loco fan!) then read your explanation!!!

Is that the 'old' Looe station, or the cut back one?

Sadly, Neil, it's the cut back version with bus shelter. The better staff/passenger accomodation followed later.
 
Regards,
 
Alec K

A deluge is expected here later today and tomorrow, so, having discovered how to over-ride the flash on the digital camera, I have captured a few train-less scenes at 'Sandplace' before I protect the platform surface with a sheet of plastic! I really want to show the lighting here too, but that will have to wait, along with the Pasty Special.....
 
The picture below is taken in the 'up' direction from the loop junction at 'Sandplace'. In the distance beyond the GF box is my version of one of the prime freights on the real L and CR, granite, being a representation of a Freeman and Co yard. I scratchbuilt the derrick crane from a picture of the last survivor on the Kilmar Railway.

The next view, from above the fixed distant, is of 'Sandplace'. The waiting shelter is pure Liskeard and Looe Railway and a direct copy. The rest is all imagination!

Lastly, here is the Freeman and Company 'yard', with bits of granite from Kit Hill and King Tor Quarries, and a bit of real L and CR ballast for old times' sake. This scene needs a very, very great deal more work putting into it- stone masons' benches, rough shelter, and so on.

Now, off to sheet over the model version!
All the best,
 
Alec K

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The rain arrived in torrents overnight, and has, temporarily I think, ceased.
 
In somewhat of a rush yesterday, I didn't have the time to scan a picture taken in early Spring 1972 of the real Sandplace, whose setting is far more attractive than mine. I wish, somehow or other, I could have modelled the twin overbridges that frame the 'up' end of the platform.

The arch on the extreme left carries the road over the Liskeard and Looe Union Canal; the jack arch and railway arch were added by the Liskeard and Caradon/Liskeard and Looe companies. Apart from the replacement of the sleeper-built waiting shelter with a corrugated iron version in later years by the GWR, the scene  had changed little in over a century.
 
Alec K

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Fantastic Alec- one thought could you do anything to cover the decking a little in the way of ballast or ballast effect?

Thank you, Ian!
 
Yes, I plan to restrict ballasting to the only spaces for the scenic 'cameos' like the station and halt. One of the problems with raised decking, as I have discovered - it was my choice to design the line this way - it is that it is extremely difficult to make the running lines look realistic. Roofing felt doesn't quite achieve the desired effect - for me, anyhow - and disguising the long raised sections as some sort of continuous viaduct would be inadvisable, and more intrusive I feel.
 
As you suggest, road surfaces etc will be reproduced in the scenic area using ply from the local furniture recyclers.
 
Many thanks for your interest- kind regards
 
Alec

I've reworked the granite stonemasons' yard scene and although beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I hope this is a better and less rushed effort. It's certainly based on photographs of the real thing in Devon, Cornwall and Portland.
 
I measured up the space available in the Y of the return loop and cut a paper template to reflect this and to enable me to work inside on my desk. From the scrap box, I put together a shelter for the quarrymen, a sett-maker's banker and his tools. The bankers can be found still on open moorland and around quarries and consist of a crude but solid table constructed of a single huge flat rock and large supporting blocks. Granite setts for streets and kerbing were chiselled out on the bankers.
 
My banker is made from scraps of balsa and old Scalextric straw bales, primed, and then sprayed with grey primer. I then stippled the assembly with white and black enamel paint using a nearly dry stubby brush to try to emulate the appearance of granite. I'll leave you to judge how effective this is but in reality there's nothing like actual granite, small specimens of which are used a s a backdrop in the model. The cut long block on two wood posts was made in the same way. The drill marks left from blasting or tare-and-feather work are just nicks in the wood made with a craft knife.
 
The tools on the banker are just shaped from scrap thin wood, primed, painted and 'metalcoted' to mimic the iron blades.
 
All the components were arranged in various ways on the template, then glued down to a piece of primed and painted three-plywood cut to the same dimensions as the template. Post-and-wire fencing along two sides was made using potted plant supports and the copper earth wire stripped from three-core flat mains cable. The whole assembly was then screwed down to the decking surface in the chosen location outside 'on the line'.
 
Ballasting is an urgent priority at both stations now, as is rusting up that shiny derrick crane chain!

All the best,
 
Alec K
 

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What a brilliant day to run trains; I hope the evening stays fine so that I can switch on the lighting and enjoy that, too.
 
I did say at the outset that I didn't want this thread to run (no pun intended) for an extended spell, so it's a very good time to draw it to a close now. Despite my best attempts, my daughter's Praktica still has a mind of its own, although I do know how to override the flash now, at least. A last batch of pictures, then on this thread. Any future postings will be more issue-based, I hope.

The Playmobil works train - and what a smooth and powerful machine it is - was first round the system after rail cleaning and fishplate tightening. It's seen here under the newly-installed Wheal Edith mine launder, constructed from wood, plasticard, corrugated plastic, two empty Boots spectacle cleaner bottles and bits of mini-greenhouse.

The Ivor Dewdney Pasties boxcar is part of a Westcountry foods train heading back into Moorswater.

Split from the food train are the Rodda's Clotted Cream and the Daws Creamery milk tankers, waiting for the return trip.

The most authentic train I can muster to date is the Liskeard and Caradon mixed, waiting at Freeman and Co's granite yard.
 
On the very lengthy 'to do' list:

• Try to replace at least one loco with as close to a L and CR prototype as I can find. The GRS 0-6-0 chassis and Peckitt-type body would be passable, at an utterly unaffordable price - well, for me, at least.
• Ballast the station areas
• Consider a 10' long 'modern' stretch of line where I can instal the automated lifting barrier and warning lights I scratchbuilt a while ago
• Wire in the LGB relay timer and the colour light signals I have prepared on the stretch above
• Use the newly-acquired LGB Point Supplementary Switch (thank you, Steve) to good effect
• Construct more L and CR rolling stock- and so on!

Many thanks to all who have contributed to or have read this thread from the beginning.
All the best,
 
Alec K

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