St Budock - OO Gauge
We have decided to start on a new small layout which will incorporpate our current St Budock diorama. St Budock station is to be set on the western edge of Falmouth roughly where Budock church is. The story starts with the ill fated 'Falmouth, Penzance & South Cornwall Railway', which began contruction of a line from the Cornwall Railway at Tregenver Junction (just north of Penmere station) in Falmouth, heading west to Penzance, where it would have rejoined the West Cornwall Railway at Marazion. Unfortunately, the company ran out of money due to the expense of building a viaduct to bridge the Swan Valley. The short section of line which existed was operated as local branchline to and from Falmouth. Passenger traffic was always light, although early morning and late afternoon trains were popular with docks workers. Goods traffic was mainly connected to farming related materials and general merchandise, including coal.
St Budock has been used as a diorama to display rolling stock for photographic purposes and now we have decided to develop it into a proper layout in its own right. The options considered are shown below. We have decided on the upper layout, with the goods yard beyond the station. This will provide some operational interest and mean trains are on view longer. A protoype for this type of track layout existed at Fairford in Gloucestershire. A similar arrangement could be found at Hemyock in Devon, where the line exteneded beyond the station to serve the creamery and at Looe where the railway served the fish wharves.
The first job is to construct the baseboards for the goods yard and the fiddle yard. These will have the same dimensions, enabling them to be transported as a box. The boards will then be joined to the station board and provided with legs. Then we can crack on with the track laying and wiring.
We will update this page with information and pictures as this project progresses.
St Budock has been used as a diorama to display rolling stock for photographic purposes and now we have decided to develop it into a proper layout in its own right. The options considered are shown below. We have decided on the upper layout, with the goods yard beyond the station. This will provide some operational interest and mean trains are on view longer. A protoype for this type of track layout existed at Fairford in Gloucestershire. A similar arrangement could be found at Hemyock in Devon, where the line exteneded beyond the station to serve the creamery and at Looe where the railway served the fish wharves.
The first job is to construct the baseboards for the goods yard and the fiddle yard. These will have the same dimensions, enabling them to be transported as a box. The boards will then be joined to the station board and provided with legs. Then we can crack on with the track laying and wiring.
We will update this page with information and pictures as this project progresses.
In conjunction with a spring flower show in the town, we displayed part of St Budock in the the Town Hall. The purpose was to depict the Great Western Railway's daffodil specials.
The two new boards have now been built and the track purchased, so work on new layout can commence. The fiddle yard board has been built to allow the use of a cassette system.
It's been a little while since we've updated this layout page, but work has progressed on St Budock away from our club room. The new baseboards have been completed, including fitting Red Dog alignment dowels and a fixing bolt to each board. A set of legs and braces has also been constructed which means the layout is now free standing. Some new pictures have been added below.
The cork track bed has been stuck down in the goods yard area, so track laying will start soon. The basic layout will be very similar to the picture at the top of the page. Being a compact branch terminus, loco hauled passenger trains will be limited to two coaches, although a three car DMU will fit in the platform. Goods trains would consist of a few wagons, vans and a brake van. The headshunt and run round loop mean motive power will be tank engines and smaller 2-6-0s for steam and class 22s, 25s, and 08s for diesels. No class 66s or 70s here!
A couple of views showing the goods yard. We decided to use Y point at the yard entrance as it provides for a more pleasing look to the run round loop. It also means that only locomotives and wagons will use the shorter radius curves. The loop can accommodate two suburban coaches or a B-set which is adequate for the traffic on this line. Track feeds have been drawn onto the plan and means that a locomotive can be isolated in the yard while another runs round a passenger train, although this would be unlikely at such a location. However, when a layout is at an exhbition it's important to keep the trains running.
We have now laid out the track as we think the goods yard will look. The track was cut and positioned with drawing pins to check alignment. Some minor adjustments were made to the original plan, so the loop is now slightly longer.
The track in the goods yard has been pemanently laid and wiring up the layout is underway. We hope to have St Budock on show at our open day on Saturday 28th September 2019. The image below shows some of the wiring which has been installed this week.
We have now reinstated the building and station furniture as we work towards the layout's first public appearance at our forth coming open day on 28th September 2019.
Further work has taken place in the goods yard with the wiring now complete. The road bed has been laid and some scenic work started. The buildings for the yard area have also been completed. There will be a goods shed, weighbridge and coal office with staithes.
With our autumn open day fast approaching, we have started to put some formers for the scenery in place on the goods yard board. These are strips of cardboard from a cornflakes box, I won't mention names here, but the boxes are all much the same!
Prior to the Covid-19 crisis, work on St Budock had been progressing quite well. The layout's scenic boards have been set up to allow work to continue on the goods yard. The following pictures show the progress so far.
A few new photos showing the progress on the goods yard area, which now has the loading dock in place. Construction was achieved by using card combined with the excellent Wills plastic building sheets, a stone sheet and granite setts in this case. The next stage will be to add the yard crane and paint some countryside on the backscene, although it we were doing the current day scene it would be factories or houses.
Scenic work has been progressing well with St Budock's goods yard despite the Covid pandemic! The photos below show the progress on the backscene and the trees.