4mm Far North Line

Ben Alder

Western Thunderer
My current layout is based on two Highland stations- Thurso and Helmsdale- and hostages to fortune have been set by using these names for the models. OO gauge has been used, with C&L track and Peco points- point building not being an aspect of the hobby that has ever really appealed to me. However, cosmetic chairs were fitted to these, which improved the overall appearance no end. The layout was built, at a breakneck rate for me, over the course of 2012, although it has been in gestation for some forty years now, and represents the changing emphasis towards railway modelling for me- adolescent dreams of a Highland based set up, followed by years of freelance layouts, using the increasingly better R-T-R offerings, and eventually a return to building white metal kits and buildings to create a prototype reality.

The actual build was recorded as it went over on RMweb , which helped as a spur, so I won't go into any great details here, but instead show some images of the finished layout- finished as in built, but still lots of detailing to be done. These have all been shown on RMweb already, so bear with me if they are familiar.

The terminus is a compressed copy of Thurso, with all its sidings modelled somewhat compactly, and the only main change from reality is the turning around of the turntable and shed 180 degrees to fit into the space in the room. I also took the liberty of making a two road shed, to cater for some of the proposed branches from the town. A few overall shots to give an idea of the place now.

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Two views looking towards the buffers.

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And showing the other end with a beefed up shed. I also modelled the long gone signal cabin, basing it on the one at Hoy on the branch, photos of the Thurso one being very elusive.

Finally, a passenger departure from the station.

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Ben Alder

Western Thunderer
The other station is Helmsdale, now a pale shadow of its former self. In steam days it had some seventy men working there, including about forty at the loco shed, which had a small allocation of bankers and shunting engines, also two locos for the Dornoch branch- latterly two 16xx panniers. Restaurant cars and TPO's were also shunted here, and some trains started and terminated here, so there is plenty to keep the modeller occupied. Due a lack of space and the shape of the layout, I have modelled the approach, but only part of the platforms, with them vanishing behind a scenic break, but the loco and goods sheds with sidings are all there. The loco shed layout is slightly different to the prototype in order to fit in , but are what was there.

A couple of general views of the station.
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And a look at the loco facilities
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The two signal cabins.

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And a shot of one of the shed's inhabitants.

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Ben Alder

Western Thunderer
Cheers,
I wanted a sense of openness at Helmsdale, and decided the platforms could be condensed to get this effect- just ignore the horrendous curve beyond the cabin....the photo was taken last year and since then I have boxed in the point rodding at the box, which hides the gap, although I do intend to have a look at this sometime. Part of the problem is that nearly all the buildings are removeable in order to reach the hidden run and loops behind the backscene, and to avoid damage when digital cameras are plonked down on tracks, and is one of the compromises I settled on in squeezing in two stations into a 12x10 attic. There is no fiddle yard as such, but a set of loops that can hold about six trains, which is enough for my typical operating sessions- any further stock is added or removed as needed at a small bench beside the track at a break in the backscene.
 

Ben Alder

Western Thunderer
The engines that work the layout are a pragmatic mix of usually vintage white metal body and R-T-R chassis. I have built chassis in the past, but cannot match the smooth running qualities of current proprietary stock, so have decided I can live with a mm or two out if it means another HR or CR loco for the line- it has dawned on me that I am not going to live long enough for any real boxed alternatives to appear..

One of the mainstays of the last years of steam was a late class of CR 4-4-0, well liked by the local engine men, and here is one of them- Nucast body on T9 chassis. I have another couple in the pile still to do.

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Goods traffic is handled in part by a brace of HR 0-6-0's- DJH bodies and Bachmann pannier underpinnings, slightly undersized diameter drivers, but lovely runners, seen here shunting.

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While on shed at Helmsdale is one of the two wanderers. One is motorised as per the kit, and am undecided as to either replace it with a gearbox or wait, as a factory one can't be far away, I would have thought...The other one had K type drivers, so was done as a dummy, to sit around the shed between branch duties.

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Ben Alder

Western Thunderer
Welcome Ben :thumbs:

Very nice looking layout.

Not all of us on here, are on rmweb.

Steve :cool:


Thanks, quite happy to post away, if there is interest- I'm doing nothing much else just now, and ready to spread the word on the joys of HR modelling .....

There are some diesels around- a couple of 26's and a 24/1, who put in an occasional appearance, but I haven't photographed them much. I'll see what I can do...
 

Ben Alder

Western Thunderer
A couple more of the inhabitants. firstly, 55053, the last Highland engine, getting a full overhaul in 1956 for its Dornoch duties, and promptly disgracing itself by shedding a driver not long afterwards. This was the catalyst for the transfer of 1646 and 1649 northwards after a search for suitable replacements. The loco was bought on eBay, having been scratchbuilt in brass to Em gauge, and has proved a nightmare to do anything with.The frames were full 18.2 width and so effectively soldered and screwed that I could not manage to seperate them,the motor was noisy and sixties awful, and the body was packed with lead that seems to have been epoxied to the thin brass body so firmly that I am finding impossible to seperate without kinking the sheet metal. As a result, for the moment, I stripped and painted the body and built a cosmetic chassis while I decide its future- better sitting doing nothing on the layout than in a box in a cupboard...I have an unbuilt Jidenco kit of the same engine awaiting me taking some brave pills, so something may emerge from the two sometime.

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The CR 0-6-0 goods engine that migrated north in numbers after the war-812 class, as preserved on the Strathspey Railway. One built so far, but a couple more are in the pile- a long gone DJH kit, not one of their best, but running well enough with a Bachmann C chassis.

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And a glimpse at a project that took on a life of its own- Ben Fest at Thurso...

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Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
I like your pragmatic approach to working chassis. It overcomes the stumbling block some modellers face of making a working motorised chassis.

Do you encounter problems with the RTR motor/gearbox layouts when fitting them to your locos?
 

Ben Alder

Western Thunderer
I like your pragmatic approach to working chassis. It overcomes the stumbling block some modellers face of making a working motorised chassis.

Do you encounter problems with the RTR motor/gearbox layouts when fitting them to your locos?

It certainly helped me reduce the W/M pile of kits, some of which had been sitting thirty years. There is usually a bit of hacking away needed on the bodies, but most of these earlier kits were built like battleships, with plenty of leeway for thinning down. The worst ones were the 0-6-0's, especially the small HR ones .I couldn't get a Jinty chassis in,and even the Pannier defeated me until I came across a RMweb thread where someone tuned the motor on its side for whatever engine he was working on.This just managed to get it squeezed in, at the expense of widening the firebox sides, and thinning them to almost brass thickness. However, it doesn't show up to the eye, which is my litmus test for these matters- digital images are great viewing, but totally unforgiving in finding any fault or failing.
 

Ben Alder

Western Thunderer
Some more of the fleet now. Firstly, the other Barney, as the HR 0-6-0's were called; why has been forgotten. this one has a CR stovepipe chimney that was often fitted at random when under overhaul at Glasgow.

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Two tank engines next- firstly the CR 439 class that once again spread through the Highlands. This one is actually numbered as the Kyle shunter and is a hangover from my previous layout, but they were stationed at Thurso and Helmsdale, where one worked the Dornoch line after the previous tanks accident.

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This is a hybrid cobbled together from a new M7, a Crownline conversion kit and fabricated parts working from an old RM drawing, and has inaccuracies, mainly involving the trailing bogie's position, and the whole job was very destructive of the Hornby chassis, but it runs beautifully- once I worked out the optimum springing, and was one of the deciding factors in opting for commercial chassis for future kit builds.

The other one is 40150, a Stanier 2-6-2T which started off at Dumfries and ended up at Thurso over a number of years and sheds, apparently disliked everywhere it went, but was the last but one working engine in the North, spending about a year as the Thurso engine after the "main" line was dieselised. The final steamer was one of the two 16xx's which stayed as the Dingwall pilot well into 1962.

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Of course, the engines associated with the Highland lines are the Black Fives, and I have a stud of them, which have been taking a back seat recently as I turned my attentions to earlier types. Here is one floating about at Helmsdale- it is the Hornby new version, with a good deal of attention paid to it, mainly focussed around the Brassmasters detail pack and some other cosmetic alterations.

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More to follow...
 

Ben Alder

Western Thunderer
The timeline on this layout is firmly set in a parallel universe- by 1952 all but two of the Highland survivors had gone, leaving only Ben Alder and 55053 on the books on the prototype, but I gradually adopted a what if scenario for my builds. It started off innocently enough with the two 0-6-0's, which got BR nos., but had been transferred away from the Highland at the end of the war, but which remained in this 4mm period piece. The rot really set in with the Small Ben build, starting off with Ben Alder, renumbered but with no crest and still in service till 1953. This has been hashed out from a T9 with fittings from a Sutherland Castings kit and has a elemental error in the drivers- being some 3mm too big. When the T9 appeared I had looked at it and dismissed it as not close enough, but seeing another conversion on RMweb made me reexamine it, and eventually I built one,and providing you don't stand a real Ben alongside it, it passes on a working layout for me.

Anyway, this was done, and about a year later I decided to do another one- Ben Wyvis- which had a stovepipe chimney, and also lasted into the fifties. I had accumulated a stockpile of T9's from eBay earlier, at what now were bargain basement prices, and also one or two seperate bodies, so became a bit extravagant with regard to using these. When sorting out the second engine I was using a BR lined body, which gradually gave me the notion to do a lined Ben- after all the ex Caley 4-4-0's got such treatment- so eventually a third one was finished, which took Ben Alder's identity, with the original becoming Ben Alisky. Tidying up the bench after this task resulted in a pile of spare parts, which proved enough for yet another body - Ben Clebrig - bringing the total to four, which was fine as these engines were allocated in numbers to various sheds, and were a common sight around the north. I thought that was that, but previously I had started another one ,to be finished in LMS red as a sort of preserved type. however this never came to pass, so Ben Dearg became the fifth one to grace the layout. These latter ones were named according to whatever was left on Modelmaster sheets, the latter ones being patched together as I ran short of names.

They are finished in a selection of early BR livery varieties , none of which they actually carried, but boiler and tender fittings are copied from photos, so could pass as what would have happened if they had lingered longer, which they were capable of doing- having been extensively rebuilt in 1928 by the LMS. It was that company's concentration on CR classes for longevity that was the cause of their eventual withdrawal. The logical course for me would to have backdated the layout to the forties, allowing me to run these legitimately, but this would have meant a lot of stock building to cater for the very different types in traffic then, so it was easier to say that the HR classes got a life extension....

I'll look at these five later, but here is one of them enjoying its last years ...

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Ben Alder

Western Thunderer
The final selection of motive power now. I felt sorry for this item on ebay, and bought it for a song- a mistake- should have started from a kit, as it eventually was completly dismantled and rebuilt.

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This is it from its good side :( - the valve gear had shredded itself on the other, and I eventually realised that it had never gone round a bend. I substituted a six wheel tender and a Buhler gearbox, along with a lot of work, but it still shorts on station curves, although to be fair, they were not laid or tested on a loco with such a wheelbase. It got another what if livery, and ATM, is mostly cosmetic until I give it more attention, although it runs well enough on the hidden line and into one half of Helmsdale.

As it is now.

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Another bought in was a Jidenco Clan, built and running with a Portescap, and with a few tweaks on my part, is now part of the fleet, although still not as smooth as the Bachmann and Hornby mechanisms. This engine was the last of the class, but looks rather nice in lined black. As received it was in LMS red, but was heavily applied in enamel, and it didn't appeal, so primer and Games Workshop Chaos Black came to the rescue. I don't usually go for ready mades, but the thought of building one of these brings me out in a sweat.....kit of one waiting for its day in the pile), so this for me was a bit of a godsend.

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Lastly, a HR Loch class- long lived , successful and again some rebuilt by the LMS, this was a long gone DJH kit with enough failings to write a book about. It is,I think, fairly scarce, as I have only been aware of one or two others on the scene , and has been in the cupboard for nearly twenty years, and acquired from an estate of someone who never got round to it. I built it as a reboilered version and it has a CR 812 boiler from another DJH kit, and bits and pieces from four other sources, all on a T9 chassis, but goes well and manages the three or four coaches max that the layout uses. There are compromises, mainly in the cylinder placing, but unavoidable using the hornby mechanism, and nothing that some careful composition can disguise. ;)

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That's more or less all the home area engines looked at now. I've found one pic of a diesel... and I'm scouring various files for Bens- some of these in a day or two, or I might see what the light is like this weekend.
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
That Castle is the best silk purse out of a pig's ear I've ever seen!

For me this is an absolutely stunning layout. It's the sort of atmosphere I thought I'd achieve with 7mm - I never got anywhere near it in 4 mil.

Brian
 

marsa69

Western Thunderer
Fantastic sense of open space, there!! :thumbs:

Not a steam man myself being firmly in the Blue Brigade camp but I must echo Jordans comment about the sense of space and openess. Not an easy feat to achieve but one that you've managed in spades (or should that be in acres? ;)) And like Steve (40126) I too would like to see more of your diesels :thumbs:

Mark
 

Ben Alder

Western Thunderer
Thanks very much- it was really a case of copying what was there- prototype modelling I find far easier than freelance, and more interesting for me as well. The track layout at Helmsdale, for instance, is not something I would probably have come up with myself, but it makes recreating actual movements feasible, an important part of "real" modelling, I think.

Some Bens now- firstly Ben Alder doing something at Helmsdale in low light.

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Ben Alisky at the coal stage- this engine latterly didn't have coal rails, and ended its days as the Helmsdale pilot, so must have been on light duties only.

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Ben Clebrig at Thurso, with a CR boiler with flooded injectors, similar to those originally fitted when built. Another Thurso regular engine.

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Another view, with a HR crane in the background and one of Dave F's lovely bufferstop castings giving a sense of place.

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And Ben Wyvis in sunlight on shed at Thurso.

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And lastly, by popular demand :) ,a BRCW lurking at Helmsdale - I haven't got far with weathering on diesels, a different art form from distressing steamers, but justify this by claiming they were new and clean.... One thing I must do is tone down the white cab surround- its far too bright- I distinctly remember it being far more creamy.

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