Wheal Ponder, a Cornish Cameo.

[Andrew Young]

Having been an occasional lurker on Western Thunder for some time, thought it about time I raised my head above the parapet and produced some of my work, now that I’ve made sufficient progress to warrant an appearance!

My modelling can be very much described as sporadic, with great bursts and then great bouts of procrastination. This has led to two layouts stalling, the second being a ‘grand plan’ attic filler. This coinciding with having a young family has resulted in a change of direction and some more regular progress in tackling a small cameo layout with clear boundaries. Maybe that chap Rice talked sense after all. The initial inspiration to create something quick and small was in part inspired by my daughter (she’s 4 1/2 currently) really enjoying and engaging in a small micro layout at Burton in 2022 with thoughts quickly turning to doing something similar myself as a quick start (well quick-ish) project. Previous layouts have stumbled through poor wood working and track laying skills on my part. This project uses a laser cut baseboard kit and ready to plonk track to negate these issues and get something running quicker (see previous comments about sporadic / glacial progress, once I have something running to play trains with I intend trying my hand at track laying again.

The last couple of months has seen my modelling mojo consistently at its best for some time with good prospects for the next few months too. The losing of two friends of mine well before their time in the first half of the year has increased a sense of ‘get on with it’ within my psyche.

‘Wheal Ponder’ is my 7mm narrow gauge china clay layout inspired very much by the late Iain Rice’s ‘Trerice’ layout. When ‘Trerice’
was published in MRJ it was one of those layouts which makes you sit up and take notice, my copy is both well thumbed and sits by my modelling desk currently for inspiration. The scenic area is 4ft by 2ft with a 2ft 6in long fiddle yard using cassettes.



I’ve been a part of group layouts before but never built one on my own until now despite converting to 7mm narrow gauge modelling as a teenager thirty years ago having been converted as a disciple to the Gospel of Gravett with his ‘Llandydref’ layout first seen in my Dad’s Modeller.

The layout runs and I’ve made some serious progress on the buildings. There are still some more to build before I go into a voyage of the unknown to me into the rest of the scenic modelling. Have just finished the main clay dry buildings which feels like a major milestone for this layout.



Whilst the layout is intended to be a home for my trio of Fletcher Jennings tanks.



There’s no shortage of locos to run… (my main modelling effort before being buildings and locos for our group layout).



Rather than repeat here a large amount of what has been written before, I have a blog where most of my ramblings are published. I started the blog due to being a member of three different modelling forums (with the main narrow gauge modelling one requiring photos to be hosted on a third party website) plus there are two 7mm narrow gauge modelling groups on Facepest which I’m a member of so it made sense to keep things in one place and share from there. It also meant that I can go off on a tangent and it still to be appropriate to post.

The initial musings about the layout are here:
Method In The Madness

And here:
Wheal Ponder - A Cornish Cameo.

With the latest progress posted here (with a fair amount of drivel in between):
The Clay Dry

Hope this proves of interest and will post more when progress is made.

Andrew

 

[Osgood]

The Fletcher Jennings side tanks are a pretty yet purposeful design - are these the 3D prints from NG Trains?

 

[NHY 581]

Very nice weathered finish on the Fletcher Jennings collection.

Rob

 

[Dave]

The Kerr Stuart Skylark looks very good. Is it a Wrightlines kit?

 

[Jordan]

Very nice weathered finish on the Fletcher Jennings collection.

Rob

Agreed!!

 

[Osgood]

Hope you don’t mind me sharing this cropped image sourced from your coach article in the links above - just lovely!

 

[Andrew Young]

The Fletcher Jennings side tanks are a pretty yet purposeful design - are these the 3D prints from NG Trains?

Thank you. Two of them are and one of them isn’t.

Having been dissatisfied with the Peco Talyllyn (it had been stretched and squashed to suit an rtr chassis) I was looking for a better Fletcher Jennings loco
That was a little different. I’d managed to obtain a nice booklet on the Betchworth Quarry railways which included a decent drawing of Townsend Hook and noticed that the wheelbase and diameter were the same as Talyllyn for which there was the Branchlines chassis kit for, modified with the removal of the trailing wheels.

Chris Ward / CWRailway produced a Townsend Hook body in 009 and I commissioned a 7mm scale version. ‘Sir Jasper’ my one of these (there are three others out in the wild) with all the details added out of my bits box running on a shortened Branchlines Talyllyn chassis.



The intention was for the body print to become part of the CWR range, but the business changed hands, all went quiet and I had a 3D print file but no means of doing anything with it.

Roll on a few months and two things happened. Dapol brought out their oo scale B4 loco which has the correct wheelbase and diameter for Townsend Hook in 7mm narrow gauge. It had the added benefit of the correct single slide bar arrangement for the Betchworth locos rather than the double slide bars of Talyllyn loco. Secondly, Paul Martin of EDM Models (ngtrains website) who I’ve known for a very very long time told me he was thinking of buying a 3D printer. Being the bad influence and purveyor of draft ideas that I am, I suggested the FJ loco body as a suitable way of testing his machine and the rest is history. Sometimes I’m amazed that Paul still answers my messages!!

Paul took the design, reworking it to fit the Dapol B4 chassis and redesigning a few bits to improve production and make things like adding weight into the tanks easier. Paul also designed a full set of detail castings to make this a complete kit. The result exceeding all my expectations having started off with thoughts of using 3D printing to aid scratch building. Also this is an accurate kit that is relatively easy to put together for the person wanting to move on from the Smokey Joe conversion that blights the O-16.5 world. The sort of kit that Wrightlines had available when I was getting started.

The green loco, since adorned with ‘Annabel’ nameplates is a standard EDM kit built as intended.



The third loco ‘Quarry Maid’ used one of Paul’s test prints and some test castings. Made to look suitably different by filling in the cab front and changing the chimney with a few other detail differences. All the right parts, in a different order.



It wasn’t all plain sailing. This one ended up self did-assembling when I dropped it and it ended up in more pieces than it started!



A fair few narrow gauge railways had more than one Loco of the same class which evolved over time to have detail differences, something I’ve tried to do with these three locos.



Andrew

 

[Andrew Young]

Very nice weathered finish on the Fletcher Jennings collection.

Rob

Thank you Rob and @Jordan All done by dry brushing on top of a fully painted, lined and dulcoted model. I try and replicate the method on my other models to ensure they sit well together.

 

[Andrew Young]

Hope you don’t mind me sharing this cropped image sourced from your coach article in the links above - just lovely!
View attachment 195945

Don’t mind at all. Have added a few more photos of the trio now.

 

[Andrew Young]

The Kerr Stuart Skylark looks very good. Is it a Wrightlines kit?

Thanks, yes it’s the Wrightlines kit. Built to resemble Princess of the Campbeltown & Machrihanish. I have a bit of a thing for 2’3”-ish narrow gauge lines.

Andrew

 

[Osgood]

Interesting back story on the 3D print development.
That booklet on Townsend Hook and the Betchworth quarry locomotives (NG twins TH and William Finlay, also their elder brother the standard gauge Captain Baxter - although I think the design suits a squat NG engine better) was my introduction to Fletcher Jennings products and also key to expanding my interests to encompass narrower gauge industrial lines.

Now - since you are revealed as the originator of the design, would you would consider it a straightforward task to reconfigure the underside of the print to allow installation on an underframe replicating the original 3ft (and a little bit) gauge?
From your CKD view of Quarry Maid it looks like each wheel station would have to be excavated and front splashers moved - but would that be enough?
For example, what about width of smokebox base - does that still match the original frame spacing?

It seems to me the B4 wheels, cylinders and motion are such a good match it might even make sense to install the intended Dapol chassis using extended axles, and install new cosmetic frame plates just behind the wheels.

I wonder if the Dapol wheel spoke profile could even be tweaked to a T section without too much trouble…..
In fact I can see you have different pattern wheels on one of the three - the disc type on Sir Jasper (as used on the std gauge Captn B) looking particularly good.

 

[Andrew Young]

Interesting back story on the 3D print development.
That booklet on Townsend Hook and the Betchworth quarry locomotives (NG twins TH and William Finlay, also their elder brother the standard gauge Captain Baxter - although I think the design suits a squat NG engine better) was my introduction to Fletcher Jennings products and also key to expanding my interests to encompass narrower gauge industrial lines.

Now - since you are revealed as the originator of the design, would you would consider it a straightforward task to reconfigure the underside of the print to allow installation on an underframe replicating the original 3ft (and a little bit) gauge?
From your CKD view of Quarry Maid it looks like each wheel station would have to be excavated and front splashers moved - but would that be enough?
For example, what about width of smokebox base - does that still match the original frame spacing?

It seems to me the B4 wheels, cylinders and motion are such a good match it might even make sense to install the intended Dapol chassis using extended axles, and install new cosmetic frame plates just behind the wheels.

I wonder if the Dapol wheel spoke profile could even be tweaked to a T section without too much trouble…..
In fact I can see you have different pattern wheels on one of the three - the disc type on Sir Jasper (as used on the std gauge Captn B) looking particularly good.

You’re welcome. I was first introduced to the Talyllyn aged two or three and have volunteered on the footplate there for the last 32 years has been my introduction to FJ locos.

Sir Jasper used the Branchlines Talyllyn chassis hence the different wheels, they’re the ones that came with the Branchlines chassis kit.

Personally, if I were building one to a wider gauge I’d use the Branchlines chassis kit with wider spacers. Think you’d need to do some work to the splashers to accommodate this but otherwise it should be fine. The smoke box is as per the drawing.

Hope that helps,
Andrew

 

[Andrew Young]

Good evening. Having been a lurker on here for some time, thought it about time I added something.

Despite being involved with club and group layout projects over the years, I’d started a few layouts of my own but never completed one. Always stalling when getting to the difficult bits.

In June 2022, my grand plan layout had stalled when at the 7mm NGA Annual AGM and Exhibition my then three year old daughter was captivated by a small layout with a scenic area of just 4ft by 2ft. Encouraged by my wife, I embarked on building a cameo layout of a similar size. The result is ‘Wheal Ponder’ a 7mm scale narrow gauge Cornish line serving a china clay works with an offshoot to a brick works and granite quarry. Set in the 1930s, it’s a home to the several locos I’ve built over the years, mainly my trio of Fletcher Jennings 0-4-0 tank engines.

The track plan is a copy of Iain Rice’s ‘Trerice’ layout. The layout was finished sufficiently to appear at the 7mmNGA AGM & Exhibition in Burton June this year.

Shall share a few photos and details of the layout if people wish.


Overall view of the layout. I usually sit on a stool in front of the layout to operate at home. With a brew, I’ll happily shunt a couple of trains over an hour or so and then go do something else. There’s no arch across the front due to the need to make the viewing height suitable for me (6’ 3”) and much shorter visitors to the attic, namely my daughter.


‘Sir Jasper’ on a granite train. The first of my FJ tanks, all built using 3D printed bodies and all different, this was the prototype and uses a modified Branchlines Talyllyn chassis kit.


‘Annabel’ one of the later pair running on the excellent Dapol B4 chassis shunts the clay dry. The wagons are Chivers kits, when I first saw Trerice in MRJ, I thought that a narrow gauge version using these wagons would be ideal.


‘Quarry Maid’ runs round its passenger train. The line has origins as a horse worked tramway and the Iconic Rail Corris carriage kits fit in nicely. These were the catalyst for including a passenger service.

Andrew

 

[Andrew Young]

Thank you to @adrian for tidying up my mess.

The first half of this year was spent almost fully immersed in scenic work on the layout. But a couple of items of rolling stock were added.

As mentioned above, the carriages are Iconic Rail kits. Superb little kits, just like putting an Airfix kit together! The full panel lining transfers are a superb finishing touch. Decided to paint them green to be different to Corris.



Note the pair of donkeys. There’s a selection of animals and birds on the layout. There’s more animals than people.



For shunting the brick wagons (Port Wynnstay resin kits) on and off scene, I resurrected the Wrightlines Ruston kit that was my first NG7 loco built 30 years ago as a teenager. Suitably titivated, it does the job admirably.



Have an invite to a show, Narrow Gauge Now in Mansfield in October. Currently working on a few wagons to strengthen the fleet for then. I’m also itching to build another loco or two as it’s been a while.

Andrew

 

[Andrew Young]

To hide the entrances to the fiddle yard, I chose to add trees, a cottage and a garden to draw the viewers eye away from the hole in the sky.

In the past I’d been very blinkered to just looking at railway modelling, but more recently my eye has been drawn to other modelling disciplines, notably dolls house and miniature modelling from whom there are a wealth of parts available for the railway modeller. My temptation one day is to build a 1/43.5 scale village with a railway running through it.

The cottage, greenhouse and shed are all from Petite Properties where I’ve happily mixed 1/43.5 and 1/48 scale products together. The cottage has had Slaters embossed styrene used to cover it and guttering from ModelU to add detail.



The chicken coup is from Langley and the pigsty is a set of Corris brake van body resin castings home produced by a mate, turned inside out and covered in wriggly tin.



The wellies, flower pots, watering can and cat all come from the Petite Properties 3D printing range.



The squirrel and chickens are from white metal from Langley. It’s noticeable how these are overscale compared to newer 3D printed models.



The gardener is having a brew and a nap. The garden tools are from Mudmagnet models.



Andrew

 

[Andrew Young]

After gallivanting around during August, mainly in Wales, life is returning to its usual rhythms and routines.



Following an early morning shift at work this morning, I was able to pop over to Wheal Ponder this afternoon where I found ‘Boadicea’ and ‘Princess’ in action. As is traditional in some parts on a Saturday, side on photos were taken.



Despite being neglected for a month, a flick of a couple of switches putting power and lighting on, and the layout ran just fine with no attention to track or wheels thanks to the liberal coatings of graphite that have been put on previously.

‘Wheal Ponder’ is proving that less is definitely more as I enjoyed shunting the clay dry, running a train of empty wagons up to the quarry and a turn on the passenger train. Suitably relaxed, the power was switched off and I returned downstairs from the attic.

Running sessions like this, albeit only half an hour or so long, helps reinforce the need in my mind to ensure that my next layout (there’s currently ideas for two or three whirring around in my over active mind) keeps true to this mantra.

Whilst I continue to ponder my next step, there are a few little jobs to attend on ‘Wheal Ponder’. So far I have resisted the urge to add an extra train set with the other cassette I’ve got, the three I currently use maintains my interest and fits well in the fiddle yard. I fear that adding a fourth will just clutter things up too much. Better to keep the same sets and shuffle the loco pack with a couple of spares.

My running sessions have proven that the layout is best suited to the smaller 0-4-0 locos, the bigger ones run fine and are enjoyable to operate at home, but their running is not as faultless as the Fletcher Jennings trio. The Dapol B4 under two of them is a superb runner and the other on a kit built chassis enjoys a chunky flywheel.

However, only one of them is fitted with a proper Bachmann coupler, which thanks to my lumpy bumpy track is essential for shunting the clay dry. The thin wire loops on the others look better in photos but can cause couplings to ride up, generally resulting in their allocation to the passenger and granite trains.

‘Wheal Ponder’ has an exhibition in late October, so could do with another four coupled loco with the proper couplings fitted to provide some reserves of motive power. There’s about half a dozen or so potential choices to fill this void, it will be one of the quicker and easier builds that will be the choice to make given the time available. I’d hoped that the Bachmann Quarry Hunslets would fit the bill, but such is the lead time for Narrow Planet nameplates, it’s unlikely that their alter egos will arrive in time for them to be weathered and personalised ahead of the layout’s next outing.

Operation has shown that I only really need one of the two low sided wagons for the brick traffic and I could do with an extra wagon for granite traffic. So, on the workbench currently is a granite sets load with the glue setting. There’s also a rather colourful wagon waiting in the wings that I shall reveal once the Dulcote has dried, it’s a case of the railway listening to its most important customers… it’s being used as a test bed for painting stock using acrylics as I attempt to move away from smelly enamels and has been a useful test piece.

It’s safe to say that after an unsurprising post-Burton lull, with the added distraction of full size railways, my modelling mojo is re-awakening with the onset of autumn.

Andrew

 

[2996 Victor]

Great photos as always, Andrew! Very satisfying, too, that the layout came to life without any issues.

Not that I'm in any way trying to encourage you, but if you did have a fourth train set, how about rolling dice or something similar to randomly select which three of the four you use for a running session? Just a thought.

Cheers,
Mark

 

[Andrew Young]

Great photos as always, Andrew! Very satisfying, too, that the layout came to life without any issues.

Not that I'm in any way trying to encourage you, but if you did have a fourth train set, how about rolling dice or something similar to randomly select which three of the four you use for a running session? Just a thought.

Cheers,
Mark

Thank you for your kind comments, the photos have come out quite well for being taken on my phone during pauses in shunting.

I like your thinking regarding the train sets. My three cassettes currently comprise 1) passenger set. 2) Clay Dry set. 3) Granite quarry set. I operate them on a whim of whichever I fancy running. There’s also a shorter one that holds the Ruston and brickworks wagon.

To be fair, I can see the other cassette appearing over the winter, once I’ve built the stock for it, just decided it was further down the priority list than another loco.

Having built the pair of Iconic Corris bogie carriages. I’ve got the brake van and a four wheel tram car to build. My intention was to make the extra cassette a mixed train of one of the bogie carriages plus a couple of wagons for the clay dry. Another pair of open wagons is built awaiting painting, suspect they will get finished off and the other two Iconic kits will get built at some point over the winter. If/when they get added, I intend trying out some running sessions at home rather than at a show to work out how best it all fits in.

Cheers,
Andrew

 

[Andrew Young]

There has been an addition to the stock at Wheal Ponder…

https://melynvalleyrailway.blogspot.com/2024/09/blog-post.html?m=1

This arrival has been met with approval by my executive management, but might upset the odd purist!

Andrew

 

[Allen M]

but might upset the odd purist!

But you won't upset me