Simon Glidewell
Western Thunderer
Many of you will no doubt be familiar with this layout under it's usual name, St. Mary Hoo. However, as the project is now expanding I am going to concentrate on the first new extension - Cliffe Junction, which sits a short way west of SMH. For those that don't know about the layout, it is set on the Hoo Peninsula alongside the Thames estuary and although fictitious, the Hundred of Hoo Railway ran near the real St. Mary Hoo. The railway would have run from Gravesend, via SMH to Allhallows-on-Sea, but was closed east of SMH in the early 1970s. The layout has scale working third rail with locos and stock picking up additional electrical current from the conductor rail. The attached photo shows where the new scenic work and track laying will be taking place; beyond the typical SR concrete road bridge (the CEGB service road) on the bare baseboard area and beyond (this used to be part of the small fiddle yard and the third rail here is not supported on scale isolator pots but small pieces of wood as it was off the existing scenic area; this will all change of course). The new baseboards will fan out to the right and will include a rail served coal wharf for the nearby power station, and redundant WWII military installations, all surrounded by salt marsh and muddy estuary inlets. I will add new photos as I go along, but also some older and probably familiar pictures too.
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