Rheilffordd Talyllyn

It's about time I posted some photos of the Talyllyn Railway. It scored 71% on Colin Lea's heritage railway scoring system. We travelled on the scenic Cambrian Coast line from Pwllheli to Twywn which was a bargain at £6. Travelling there by train also meant that we got a 20% discount on the Talyllyn!

The Talyllyn railway seemed familiar despite having never been there before. This was partly due the the Talyllyn being a popular prototype to model (for example Quarry Sidings and Rheilffordd Cilcewydd on NGRM Online) and partly due to reading Rev. W. Awdry's books, in particular The Little Old Engine which has an illustration of Dolgoch Viaduct which stuck in my head.

For more information on the Talyllyn take a look at their website or it's article on Wikipedia which is a featured article.

Here's the thumbnails of my photos:

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Challenge

Here's a quick challenge. What is the building and what is it's connection with narrow gauge railways?

No prizes for the first correct guess I'm afraid!

WHR (Porthmadog)

On our recent holiday in North Wales we visited the WHR(P) which scored 52% on Colin Lea's heritage railway scoring system. The leaflet had said that it would be a diesel operated day but we were pleasantly surprised to discover Gelert in steam. We had a nice (if a little short) ride up to Pen-y-Mount and back, stopping of at Gelert's Farm to explore the sheds and ride on the miniature railway and spot a family of swans. I'd have liked to have seen on of the massive Lyd2 diesels in action or see Russell but he is being restored for 2009 so I expect that this visit wont be my last. There's some more of my photos on flickr.

Pen-y-Mount station got me thinking that it would make a good basis for a model to show off a collection of WHR(P) and WHR(C) stock. I doubt I'll build a model of it as I have too many other ideas and I'm unlikely to have the time to build an accurate model of anywhere so far from home. However it did make me realise something that a lot of the layouts I consider building have in common - junctions.

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World Wide Web

I've had a post in my drafts for quite a while about some things I've found on the internet and some new things which have recently been created. First something fun: a photo of what the WHR might have looked like in the late 70s form the Fictitious Liveries site. Hopefully they will do some more narrow gauge locos.

Tom Dauben has started a new blog for his next project which is called Port na Cailliche. It's going to be set in Scotland on the coast of the West Highlands and should be excellent judging from Dunbracken which is his current layout.

Frank Neubaur's 0 Gauge Homepage which has some excellent Garratts.

I've also been playing about with some google and yahoo web tools. I've created a google custom search which searches shops which searches manufactures and shops which sell narrow gauge models. Hopefully it should appear below, if not here's a link.



I use google reader to keep up to date (ish) with the narrow gauge blogosphere but blogger doesn't put comments in the rss feeds (Wordpress does though). I started playing with yahoo pipes in an attempt to get an aggregated rss feed of the comments on multiple blogs (in an attempt to get something like the Facebook News Feed). It does work but it's not that fast and I've only tried it with 3 blogs so far. I've just subscribing to the rss feed in Google reader and it seems to be working and the speed doesn't seem to be an issue.

I've also signed up to the Narrow Gauge Modelling Online forum which was set up in April. If you've not checked it out yet then take a look. There's some great modelling.

Basingstoke Canal Railway

Links:
The Basingstoke Canal Railway: Modern use of the Narrow Gauge by Nick Lewis

The Basingstoke Canal: The Basingstoke Canal Railway

Flickr: Tags: Basingstoke Canal


Dr Neil Clifton (CC-SA) from geograph

During the restoration on Basingstoke Canal a narrow gauge railway was used between 1975 and 1982. The railway was employed as road access to the canal was poor. It used small industrial locomotives and tippers and was initially used to remove silt. As the restoration of the canal progressed the track was lifted and moved and used for transporting bricks, sand and other building materials for renovation of locks. It was then moved again and used for transporting clay to re-puddle the water channel. At one point the railway ran along side the main line from London to Southampton.

A canal railway would make an interesting prototype for a model using Nigel Lawton skips and locomotives in OO9 or kbscale kits in O16.5 or O14. As far as I know none of the Basingstoke locomotives are available in either scale so an accurate model would require scratch building. However I'd be more inclined to use it as inspiration for a freelance canal railway with kit built locomotives. Another option would be to include an OO9 canal railway on a standard gauge layout as there are many places where main line railways lines run past canals.

Narrow Gauge Intermodal Operations

If narrow gauge lines in the UK had survived as freight carriers it seems likely that they would have either adopted intermodal operations or made wider use of piggybacking standard gauge wagons. Intermodal operations are going to be easier to model so I've been thinking about what advantages they have over piggy backing. One advantage (which will also be an advantage in model form) is that require a smaller loading gauge. I would expect them to be cheaper too as piggybacking wagons would be more complex than intermodal wagons.

The earliest use intermodal on narrow gauge which I've found is on the White Pass & Yukon. In 1955 they started using 8'x8'x7' containers and modified narrow gauge flat cars to carry them (3 per car). They switched to 25' containers in 1965.

Modern Intermodal containers are 8' wide x 8' 6" high and come in various lengths. In the UK 20', 40' and 45' are used. A 20' container in 4mm scale that is 80mm x 32mm x 34mm. The Lyd2 approximately 29mm wide and 43mm high in 4mm scale so I reckon intermodal operations with 20' containers should fit into a loading gauge similar to the modern WHR.

A number of modern narrow gauge railways do use intermodal containers. All these lines have two things in common. Firstly they are the standard gauge for the area they serve and secondly they are all medium gauge railways such as 3' or metre gauge lines. I've not found a single 2' gauge line which handles intermodal traffic. The question is whether this is because carrying intermodal containers becomes impractical at that gauge or whether it is because there are no 2' gauge lines where was a demand.

After doing a bit of my own research I realised that looking at Andy's intermodal category which was partly responsible for me thinking about morden narrow gauge in the first place. His postings confirmed my thoughts on the advantages of intermodal over piggybacking. They also provided a good video of piggybacking in operation on a Polish NG railway.

A mock up

On the pizza layout I've added some more bits of cardboard to for the base of the hill and built a mock up of the cottage. It's not got a roof but it gives a better idea of what the finished layout will look like and has helped me think about how the cottage should look. I'm still thinking about how to model flint. I don't think the Wills cobblestone walling sheet it going to work after comparing the size and density of the pattern to some real flint walls.

Wills sheets:



A flint wall:



So I need a new plan. Does anyone have any suggestions?