2 - The 00n3 Digression

In 1977 we had a summer holiday on the Isle of Man. We stayed at Port Erin, where the IoM Railway line from Douglas terminated. We had lots of rides on the trains, and visited other railway locations around the island. I was very taken with Castletown Station, and took lots of photos and measurements, with a view to modelling it at some point. A few months later I had the chance to buy a job lot of unbuilt GEM IoM kits - two locos - Mannin and a BP loco, three bogie coaches, four 4-wheel coaches, and a couple of goods vans. I concocted a track plan and drew the buildings, but had neither the time nor room to start a layout.

Then in 1978 the RAF threw one of those fast-balls they are so good at - I was posted, with almost no notice, to a staff post in a headquarters in North London. This was not what I wanted, and I convinced myself it wouldn't be for long. We agreed that I would live at the HQ during the week, and come home at weekends - in the end it was nearly four years before I was able to live at home full-time again.

I decided to use the time away from home to construct the kits and a layout to run them on, and I was able to negotiate myself some extra room in the accommodation I lived in to work on the layout.

The result was two baseboards 3 feet by 18 inches, joined end to end with hinges so that they could be folded up for easy transport, with a small fiddle yard at each end. Construction was the usual 3" x 1" timbers and Sundela top.

The track-plan was quite straight-forward, and even prototypical. The line entered stage left under a road bridge, a siding to the goods shed split off to the left and divided into two sidings, while the main line split into a passing loop for most of the length of the layout, before exiting stage right through a tunnel of trees. The track was GEM 12mm gauge flexi-track and points, and the points were worked by PECO motors under the layout.

A view of the layout from the left end. It had a nice, spacious feel, with easy-flowing curves instead of the tight radii of the 009 layouts.

The view from the other end. The intention was to glue foliage to the back-scene to give a more 3D effect, but I never got round to it.

This photo shows one of the GEM goods vans behind the station building - these were very camera-shy - and the pair of GEM kits

for the Donegal railcars which came to the IoMR in 1961.

The buildings were made from card covered in brick-papers. The roofs were made from plaster castings from a firm whose name I forget. They were easily cut to size with a razor saw, and paint soaked into the plaster to give a good texture and finish. I was very impressed with the product, but never used it again. I had some rough measurements of the buildings, paced out on my visit, and used these, together with counting bricks, to make scale drawings before starting construction. They did seem to capture the feeling of the station.

On the scenic side, the ground was built up to rail level with card, and then painted with textured ceiling paint. If the real ground had been that rough, it would have been difficult to walk over. The raised bank at the bridge end was made from a card contours covered with plaster bandage. Lots of green scatter was used,with lichen foliage for the trees. The forest at the other end was built on a chicken-wire base, covered in lichen and with some twigs representing trunks.

The two locos, 'Mannin' and 'Maitland' - the kits came complete with nameplates. I fitted all the stock with Kadee couplers, the only time I used them.

'Maitland' and 'Mannin', showing the apple green livery I finished them in. Lining in black and white was done with Methfix transfers. The photo also

demonstrates that my ability to take colour photos was even worse than black and white

The entire coaching stock of the layout. The three bogie coach kits at the left-hand end of the trains were made as intended, while the four 4-wheeler kits were

made into two bogie coaches, at the right-hand end, in much the same way that the IoMR did with the prototypes. These ran on second-hand Triang TT

bogies.

The coaching stock was painted with red lower panels and cream upper.

I bought two of the GEM Donegal railcar kits, one motorised and the other, shown here,as a trailer. Red livery with cream stripe.

Scratch-built wagons, three of the 2-plank and two of the 3-plank versions. I made these from plasticard, running on second-hand Triang TT wagon chassis.

All the goods stock was light grey with black metalwork.

-o0o-

Just over a year after I took up my post at the HQ it became clear that I was going to be there for a good while longer, so I signed up to do a degree with the Open University. The modelling was put aside while I studied, and in the end I sold off the stock on the 009 Society second-hand stall. A lucky modeller, who was looking for IoM stock, fell on them with shrieks of joy, and bought the lot. The layout was scrapped - by that time I was looking at bigger things model-wise anyway.

Page created 16 May 2011 Last edited 28 December 2020