John Sutton’s Southwell Central
A main-line layout based on somewhere like Quorn & Woodhouse would have been a better setting for my collection of GCR, GNR and LNER locos and the coaches and wagons they haul, but I only have room for nostalgia for my Nottingham childhood to take the form of a branch terminus. As there were no branches off the GCR London Extension, I imagined a Southwell line joining the Great Central and the Great Northern at Bulwell, north of Nottingham, Southwell services reaching Nottingham Victoria by way of the GC main line or the GN ‘Back Line’, while a junction with the Midland north of its (real) station at Southwell would enable the Rolleston Junction to Southwell push-pull train to extend its journey to Southwell Central, goods to be consigned to Newark or Lincoln and holiday excursions to go all over the place by sundry circuitous routes.
Having a particular geographical and historical setting for a layout makes you exercise some self-discipline, so I have made from scratch engines which might have run to Southwell Central, had it existed, such as J6 and J11 0-6-0s, an L1 2-6-4T, an A5 4-6-2T and (from a Craftsman kit) a Midland 1P 0-4-4T. With them up and running, I turned my attention to childhood favourites such as the Director, the B1, Robinson 2-8-0s and, for the Newark goods, a Midland 2F 0-6-0. In reality only a couple of Colwick-based loco types would have visited Southwell, but I like building engines and am trying to make as many as possible of the ones I liked as a boy.
These engines have very traditional rigid chassis, but a combination of a Branchlines gearbox and Mashima motor, carefully-adjusted wiper pick-ups and a lot of weight ensure that they all run slowly and smoothly. Mike Sharman gave the hobby one of its greatest ideas when he came up with the floating-bogie tender, which transfers the tender’s weight to the rear of the locomotive, improving adhesion and pick-up. He intended it for Victorian single drivers in 4mm scale, but it is a boon for all 3mm tender engines. Even little motors take up quite a lot of room in a 3mm engine, and as they weigh the best part of nothing at all it is almost impossible to distribute enough weight effectively in a 4-4-0 or a small 0-6-0 unless you borrow the tender’s, counterbalancing it with a fat slug of lead in the boiler. I tried wagons with compensated w-irons, but decided rigid ones worked just as well and were quicker to make. I use the time saved to improve Parkside wagon kits with Worsley Works etched brake levers, which cast shadows nicely. I am sold on compensated bogie vehicles, however: MJT coach compensation units ensure that carriages glide in stately fashion.
The layout started off as a shelf, 20in wide at its widest, along the wall of my railway room. As my collection of locos and rolling stock expanded it seemed the obvious thing to extend the goods yard more or less at right angles across the end of the room to make the layout a 12ft 6in x 8ft L shape. Like the rest of the layout the extension is screwed to 18in Spur heavy-duty shelf brackets. I have never found half-relief buildings convincing (they look like models…), so have tried to make sure there is room for a backdrop of full-thickness ones nearly all round the layout.
As Jas Millham remarked years ago of the almost semi-circular sidings on his Holden Market 3mm layout and the tightly-curved S-gauge Yaxbury, when you’re sitting inside the curve, you’re not aware how sharp it is, or of the track gauge. I was pleased to discover that locos built with 3ft curves in mind were happy to run round tighter ones in the new yard.
For good or ill, I have worked to fairly consistent standards, so buildings, locos and stock built twenty or more years ago don’t look out of place, and things worth keeping have been kept. Today’s Parkside wagon kits are much better than the ones I made myself years ago and B&B couplings are better than anything else I’ve tried. There are more and better motors and gearboxes to choose from now, so building a loco is easier than it used to be, even if not much quicker. I shall be happy if anyone has looked at the photos and – just for a millisecond – been reminded of the way things looked on the Eastern Region in those days which are now so far off and long ago.
