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THOUGHTS FROM THE HEMLOCK VALLEY by Paul Fletcher
Photos by Author
Fifty years ago I used marbles to represent the cows my Britain’s farmer was bringing back for milking, the flowing movement being more realistic to me than moving each painted plastic cow individually. However I still built fences for the plastic cows to look over.……and I didn’t have to explain it to anybody.
The representation of reality in miniature depends very much on what’s going on inside one’s head.
A few years later I was enthused by both Philip Hancock’s ‘Craig & Mertonford Railway’ and Peter Denny’s ‘Buckingham Great Central’. So I joined the Plymouth & District MRC and left my childhood behind by cutting the bases off my Airfix station staff.
In my twenties I found myself inspired by the Bristol Area group of the P4 Society, who produced wonderful models but who largely converted to O Gauge as their collective eyesight waned.
Later I joined the Tamar Valley Group, and tried to boss them around for a bit before settling down to being the Scenic Gaffer.
Looking through the hole in the hedge, a peek into the magical world of garden railways where the fictions of the mind take on a three dimensional reality, with No 7 is lifting off steam while waiting for the guard’s signal. The grey brake and van are Brandbright kits with added detail by the now defunct Bywater Models. The wagon in the foreground is a Chamber’s Model Engineering Welshpool & Llanfair sheep wagon. The staging roads are behind the camera and effectively off scene of the railway when viewed from the scenic side.
In my fifties, learning about garden railways has been a whole new ballgame. I’ve had to learn a lot about plants to get the Garden scenery right - and as soon as I read about a suitable plant my wife would tell me that it wouldn’t grow in our garden, that it needed more sun, or it wasn’t frost hardy.…..it needed shade…..their garden wasn’t on the edge of Dartmoor.…..you tried it before and you killed it..……and so on!
The dear lady hates oil, hates mechanical things that don’t work. So of course when she pinpointed the problem with my live steamer I wouldn’t believe her. Perversely she said that I shouldn’t believe her more often - as the flowers that came with my apology were gorgeous.
Model railways are a ‘man thing’. Garden railways are a ‘sharing with wife thing’ - but it doesn’t half dent your manly pride - especially when you stopped using your marbles fifty years before….
The Weathering Side of Things
In my opinion and in general, cooler or darker colours present a model in a more favourable light. A well looked after steam locomotive that has been cleaned daily with an oily rag will gradually get darker ... I prefer to model that darker colour on a clean engine.
Some models just cry out to be treated to the full rust and dirt treatment however. Nothing looks more model-like than a shiny black Southern ‘Q1’ for instance, even that looks bad on bare boards. It all depends on the image carried in one’s head. I have weathered GWR Halls in BR lined Brunswick Green, mixed traffic lined black and downright filthy. I found it hard to pick a favourite.……..but line them all up in a model of Newton Abbot depot and they enhance each other.
The fine backhead detail of the TME VoR locomotive. Being a GWR locomotive the screw reverser is on the right and the regulator is on the quadrant in the centre. All the working controls are as small as can be and may still be operated by human fingers. The steam turret on top of the backhead holds all the other ancillary controls bar the blowdown valve on the bottom of the water gauge and the cylinder drain cock lever on the floor just in board of the reverser. The firehole door takes coal if you so wish or is opened to light the gas or meths burner.
To me the state of the paintwork is as important as the correct number of rivets and, to be honest, a locomotive cannot be weathered well unless the detail is there.
The patina of use gives the locomotive a history on which to feed the imagination, when other people see the product of your personal image, weathering can make it more realistic for them too………
Dick Kerr Petrol Electric locomotive. These plain little engines have bags of character when modelled faithfully to the prototype as this one is. Built for Ministry use during the Great War, some found use afterwards on the Continent as well as this country when converted to diesel fuel. This model normally runs on Rick Harvey’s sugar beet railway, set in Northern France. He had it built professionally in a way that captured the character of the prototype. It was then spray painted and dry brushed to simulate rust showing through the paintwork on the frames. Photographing models in sunlight always helps to show up good detail.
This Bachman two truck shay was originally a wood or coal burner with a spark arresting balloon stack. It was altered to oil firing with a large oil tank in the fuel space to hide the gel cell battery. A stovepipe chimney was fitted at the same time - oil fired locos do not throw sparks. This G-scale locomotive is radio controlled using a MacFive controller, fitted with Kadee G1 knuckle couplers and is based on Central American /Cuban practice. The first Shays were designed by Dr Abraham Shay to replace horses on his various logging enterprises, they had wooden frames and, like the horses, no brakes. Later Shays were more conventional, but they all have a bank of vertical cylinders driving the trucks through horizontal shafts and universal joints on one side only. Consequently the boiler is offset to compensate. This model eventually fell off a typical new world viaduct and was an almost total insurance write off.
This train has just left West Hemlock in charge of TME VoR No 7 on the Applegarth branch passing through the woods inspired by the Wenford Bridge line in Cornwall. Both the ‘opens’ and the sheep wagon are from Chambers Model Engineering, the van from Brandbright (modified by Bywater Models) and the wagon sheeting is model aircraft covering applied with a hair drier. Later No 7 would have the nameplate replaced.
A passenger train rounding the curve at Hemlock West on the Applegarth branch. Please note the ‘ash’ ballast, made from an ad hoc mixture of ‘3mm to dust’ quarry waste and coal ash mixed ‘12 to 1’ or thereabouts, with cement to bind it all together, it was brushed in dry and tamped down, after which it was liberally soaked with water and left to set. This mixture will not crack but is liable to be washed away during heavy winter storms. Isn’t it typical how weeds grow in dumped tipper trucks? These are small flower heads stuck into damp soil. The bogie wagon in the siding is a Chamber’s Model Engineering contractor’s wagon from the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway - notice the discarded lamp iron. The carriages are GRS ‘Lynton & Barnstaple’ style coaches sprayed Ford Lacquer red and lined with waterproof black felt tip on the beading.
This is one of two brake thirds bought to replace the maroon GRS Lynton & Barnstaple style coaches, sold to a nice couple at the Exeter Garden Rail Show. This brake third has just arrived on the Hemlock Valley railway. BR blood & custard livery looked good when new, but could weather down to an uninspiring ‘drab’ over the years, these are staying bright on the HVR. The embankment has been used as a dust bath by house sparrows during the dry weather... but hey, it’s their garden as well as ours.
No 7 lets off steam, while the driver waits for the guard’s green flag before moving off through West Hemlock yard. Roady’s Jeep has been left on the end of the siding as usual next to a pair of abandoned Hudson tippers. Roady will be somewhat tetchy when he finds the fireman’s bucket on his bonnet.