St. Breward Junction - ex LSWR in the Camel Valley

Nick Rogers

Western Thunderer
St. Breward Junction

Subject – British Rail Southern Region, Cornwall, circa 1960

St. Breward Junction is a small rural junction built by the Bodmin & Wadebridge and Delabole Railway, finically backed by the L&SWR and completed in the 1880s. However, due to financial circumstances, the line did not reach its proposed terminus at Delabole and the town’s rich mines, indeed the line only advanced a further 2 & 1/3 miles upstream from Wenford Bridge, reaching the small village of Row. Parts of the existing line between Dunmere Junction and Wenford Bridge where improved, tight curves were removed courtesy of a few sticks of dynamite, enabling a passenger service to operate on the branch.

The Junction at St. Breward is located a country mile, or so, North of Wenford Bridge Goods Yard, with rather simple facilities. There is no station or halt, an LSWR Type 4 signal box, gated level crossing, ground frame to control the goods loop and siding, a short siding (formally acting as a wharf) and the two branch-lines diverging away from each other complete the scene. One line heads to Bodmin Moor to serve a small pan china clay works located near Temple and the other continuing to meander its way further up the Camel Valley towards the village of Row. It is a sleepy line, the railway shadows the Camel River and twist its way through the trees, fields and hedges of the Cornish countryside.

Most days, the signalman has plenty of time to attend his small allotment located near the box, his weeding only interrupted by the sound of O2 tanks, with their P-Sets, trundling leisurely back and forth between Row and Wadebridge, conveying a handful of established passengers, with the odd hiker here and there. Occasionally, one of Mr Maunsell’s magnificent Moguls barks its way up the line, at the head of a Bullied composite brake coach, but this is indeed a sporadic site and sound!

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O2 heads towards Row.

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Level crossing - I need to cut a hole here!

Wadebridge shed’s stalwarts, the elegant Beattie Well Tanks, head short goods and clay workings up and down the branch, their short wheel base being ideal for the tight curves of the Temple branch – both the B&W&DR and the L&SWR deemed it an unnecessary waste of resources to use further valuable dynamite on the tight curves of the line. The resulting affect is that the Beattie Well Tanks continue to work the branch, despite entering their eighth decade of service.

However, their monopoly may soon be under treat. Rumors abound that a new trio of Swindon dock tanks will usurp their 70-year reign. The Wadebridge men, however, pay little heed to these whispers!

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Scale – 4mm to the foot

Standards (Infrastructure) – Finescale 00 trackwork (SF-Standards around the Vee), built using Exactoscale chairs, sleepers and Hi-Nickle silver rail. Turnouts and traps operated by slow motion motors and linked to a simple control panel.

The signals will be built from Model Signal Engineering etched parts, operated by Smart Switch motors and linked to the control panel.

Level crossing, MSE LSWR kit, controlled by simple motors remotely.

DCC operation for locomotives, the system being Gaugemaster Prodigy.

Standards (Stock) – Detailed and titivated RTR locomotives and rolling stock, complimented with kit built items such as a Comet Bullied brake composite coach and an assortment of freight vehicles.

Core fleet comprised of a brace of O2 Tanks, pair of Well Tanks and a N-Class Mogul. Swindon interlopers and infiltrators in the form of pannier tanks 1368 and 4666 will also supplement the core fleet. Mumbling at Wadebridge station also suggests a possible Class 22 North British Diesel locomotive heading southwards.

Passenger stock – P-Set using suitable Hornby Maunsell stock and a signal Bullied brake composite.

Screw and 3-link couplings will be fitted to the stock.

Size – 6ft by 1ft, with two 3ft by 1ft fiddle yards.

St. Breward.jpg

Basic track plan for St. Breward Junction.

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O2 tank arrives at St. Breward Junction from Row.


Design Ideas – Cameo format, using a set of adapted Tim Horn laser cut boards with a curved front (sadly I don’t have the best woodworking skills or set up to build overall complicated boards!). Simple wooden trestles to support the layout, approximately 24 inches in height, designed to sit on a pair of tables. Drapes to conceal the leg support system.

Fish Tank.JPG

This shows 9ft, but my plan is to remove the middle board and compress the scene, which should give it a more compact feel.

Internal lighting rig, fitted with daylight photography bulbs (possibly suitable LEDs) to portray a sunny late August, early September afternoon.

Cassette operation in the fiddle yard, to enable reasonable hands free operation.

Anyway, that's about all for now.

Kind regards,

Nick.
 

Bill Campbell

Western Thunderer
Hi Nick

If you are considering led strips, have a look at this blog:

LED strip lighting "for the average Joe" | Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine | Having fun with model trains | Instant access to model railway resources without barriers

I used the information to help decide on led strips for my own layout. This is what I purchased:

ALED LIGHT Non- Waterproof LED Rope Light 16.4ft 5m 2835 600 SMD Warm White LED Strip Light,Durable LED Strip + 12V 5A Power Adapter,Decorative Lights for Holiday,Show Exhibition: Amazon.co.uk: Lighting

I divided the strip into 3 sections and made up jumper cables between. The strips are mounted in plastic trunking as shown below:

IMG_0601.JPG


The led strip is the only lighting in the picture.

Regards.
 

Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
Love the concept and backstory. Very reminiscent of Boscarne junction and very much in my area of modelling interest.
 

simond

Western Thunderer
Nick,

If you have space, I would certainly recommend that you keep the middle board.

It's only my opinion, but I think that the "compact feel" is almost entirely absent from even the most cramped real stations. Even small stations are much, much longer than trains, and if you have the opportunity to make your model thus, I'm sure it will look better for it.

Best
Simon
 

Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
If I'm reading posts correctly this is being built for the cameo competition and there's a size limit on the scenic section of iirc c2m. I think it's been stated that the extra board makes the scenic section 9'long which is roughly 2.7m. I guess that the extra board would be OK to add beyond the competition though.
 

2996 Victor

Western Thunderer
Did this layout ever progress? The idea seemed excellent and it would be a shame if nothing came of it!

Regards,
Mark
 

Nick Rogers

Western Thunderer
Did this layout ever progress? The idea seemed excellent and it would be a shame if nothing came of it!

Regards,
Mark

Hello Mark,

I'm very sorry. I didn't realise there had been a reply recently!

In a word: no! When I planned the layout, I was trying hard to reclaim a bit of a life again, having been a senior leader in a multi-academy trust comprising several primary schools. So the workload steadily increased, and all modelling went totally on the back-burned.

Eventually, I burnt out. The final straw was in 2021. During the second national lockdown, my gallbladder nearly burst. My parents took me to the hospital, and I spent 10 days there. I was in a real pickle; several stones were trapped in the cystic duct, and another had gone into the liver. I had jaundice and a raging infection in the wall of the stomach, and a broader infection in my colon. When I spoke to work from the hospital bed, I was greeted with, 'So, has the planning been done for next term? This is really inconvenient for us.'

Needless to say, that was the straw! I'd already decided while I was off to leave teaching, but I quit after my phased return was not honoured when I returned to work in early September 2021, having never had any serious time off in the past 12 years. I joined GWR as a conductor in March of last year - the best decision I've ever made, even if I did pass out 2 weeks before the first wave of industrial action! Really being ill was the best thing that could happen to me as I realised that teaching had totally consumed my life.

Anyway, back to the model! At present, a few issues hold me back from the scheme. The first is that the core members of the locomotive fleet don't perform as well as I had hoped they would! The O2s aren't too bad, but the Well Tanks are, to put it kindly, unreliable. The second issue is that I currently lack space for a 9ft model. Forget the fiddle yards. The last, and probably most important component, is that two of the three boards were nicked for a small GWR scheme, which ultimately had to be dumped when a water pipe burst where I was storing them.

So has anything come from it? Not yet. Might something come? Still trying to figure it out!

I particularly like the former LSWR lines in North Devon and Cornwall and the GWR lines in South Devon (Horrabridge station on the GWR Launceston Branch being my ultimate goal). But, realistically, to make a finescale scheme, I cannot do both, and I need to decide what to get on with, stick with it, and do something productive! The running quality of the Kernow stock pushes me quite firmly back to the GWR (at least I know I can fit after-market chassis to Bachmann models).

While that is all going on, I'm also having a bit of a 'gauge crisis' about how my modelling should progress in my newfound freedom (as Captain Kernow and Sheep Bloke know only too well)!

For the first time ever, I have 'free time', something I haven't had in the past 13-plus years. I'm a member of the team aiding Rod Cameron and John Farmer's P4 Ouse Valley Empire and have produced a significant amount of BR-era P4 freight stock for the project. At present, I don't want to make a P4 layout myself - it is too fiddly and time-consuming. Also, I don't think I want to model the BR era; I favour the romantic thirties as hinted to above.

I am very tempted to stick with 00; however, as so many RTR locomotives don't run smoothly enough in my book, they will require replacement chassis. This is where the 'niggle' comes in, and I think, well, if you are going to replace the chassis, you might as well model a more realistic gauge, and the EM Crisis unfolds! :confused:

This is currently the most 'stressful' issue in my life... :D So, once I've sorted out where I'm going, I'll post something on this thread. Who knows, St. Breward might get built after all. Is anyone producing an etched chassis for a Well Tank yet? :))

Best wishes,
Nick.
 

stevehowe

Member
I am very tempted to stick with 00; however, as so many RTR locomotives don't run smoothly enough in my book, they will require replacement chassis. This is where the 'niggle' comes in, and I think, well, if you are going to replace the chassis, you might as well model a more realistic gauge, and the EM Crisis unfolds! :confused:
I have modelled in P4 for around 35 years, but TBH if I were starting again I'd go EM, Pendon is EM and that's good enough for me!

Steve
(awaiting a knock on the door from the S4 Society Heavies......)
 

James Spooner

Western Thunderer
Yes, at the risk of a visitation from some good friends, I would concur. If you are capable of re-chassising (is that even a word?) an 00 loco then an EM one is no different, but is more realistic. I truly admire people who work successfully in P and S4, but know it is beyond my reasonable limitations and so will likely lead to frustration (and, let’s be honest, we’re all in this hobby to have some gentle enjoyment). Therefore, as a humble bodger, I settled on EM and have been very happy working in that scale/gauge combination.

Nigel
 

ullypug

Western Thunderer
Good luck with whatever you decide to do Nick. It would be great to see something get built one day! I built a Westward well tank with Alan Gibson frames in P4 and if I can do it, anyone can. That said as I model in both EM and P4, I can say that EM is more a bit more forgiving.
 

Joe's Garage

Western Thunderer
At the risk of sounding like a heathen I would like to say that there are many very realistic 4 mm layouts that use 16.5 mm as the gauge. It is how the track is presented and laid. I remember Paul Illiffe's layout in a 1997 RM where he reduced the crossing clearances etc on the track to make the gauge error less noticeable.
But of course EM and P4 will look better but it also depends what you are trying to achieve.
I have pondered on building a model of Abbotsbury for over 50 years but still haven't decided what scale yet, let alone the track gauge!
Even in 2mm it would be nearly 10' long.
Good luck with your project and remember this is a hobby.
All the best, I too have spent over 30 years in training and education...post 16...just as stressful.
Julian
 

Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
At the risk of sounding like a heathen I would like to say that there are many very realistic 4 mm layouts that use 16.5 mm as the gauge. It is how the track is presented and laid. I remember Paul Illiffe's layout in a 1997 RM where he reduced the crossing clearances etc on the track to make the gauge error less noticeable.
But of course EM and P4 will look better but it also depends what you are trying to achieve.
I have pondered on building a model of Abbotsbury for over 50 years but still haven't decided what scale yet, let alone the track gauge!
Even in 2mm it would be nearly 10' long.
Good luck with your project and remember this is a hobby.
All the best, I too have spent over 30 years in training and education...post 16...just as stressful.
Julian

Track gauge is only part of the equation IMO. I've seen P4 layouts that ran well but with poor scenics; P4 layouts than ran awfully but looked good and the same for EM and 00. EM and P4 take more skill, but so do getting the overall scene, scenics and presentation right. The best layouts achieve balance in all things.
 

Roger Pound

Western Thunderer
I totally agree..."balance in all things"

Julian
This was exactly the same advice I received from a clinician after recovery from a triple bypass operation. That was over twenty-two years back so it is obviously the finest advice you can get :)!

I also agree about it being your own train set, to which I would add " you can run anything you like".

I'll join you in your hiding place now Julian, with my tin-hat on too ;)!

Roger
 

michael mott

Western Thunderer
Julian and Roger and Chris I also have to agree with the overall sentiment that we are taking part in a vey diverse hobby, both the “train set” and the context in which we choose to work with our “train sets “ it’s my view that this is what makes this hobby so successful and inspiring it caters for the widest needs of expression.

Michael
 
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