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Miscellanea

Paper Model 2

Following on from Paper Model 1, here is a second go around: Paper Model 2 Paper Model 2

The scale is the same, with one square being 50mm.

I’ve re-assesed the size of the concrete oil bunker, using this photo. if I assume the grid visible is 8’x4′ panels, then it appears to be about twice the height of a railway wagon. So the new model is only 500mm tall, which should be much more manageable.

I’ve also dropped the backscene panel on one side, so that the model is viewable from two edges.

Food for thought – it will still be considerably larger than Phoenix Yard, so I need to think about whether it should be possible to split it up for storage. The fact that the pointwork is in the centre of the plan will make this awkward at best.

You can see that on this model I printed off a trackplan from the Templot plan I have. The wagons seem a tight squeeze, so I will need to check the sidings have enough space in them for the 5/3/3 inglenook I want this plan to be.

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Miscellanea

Paper model one

In planning my next model railway, I want to improve on a few things from Phoenix Yard. One surprise I had in building that from just a trackplan was how much of the model I had to subsequently improvise. So this time I’m going to try to build a scale model first.

This is my first cut at a 1/10th scale model of my 1/76 model:

A paper model of a model railway
A paper model of a model railway

The gridded paper has a grid that will be 50mm on the ‘full-size’ model. The near vertical pieces are intended to be chalk cliffs, and the lozenge/bunker object in the corner is intended to be the concrete oil storage facility – inspired by Micheldever.

This has already been a useful exercise. I had to reject the configuration ‘in my minds eye’ as it simply couldn’t be constructed. This design then emerged, from my attempts to scale off the photos of Micheldever I found online.

There is a clear problem with this model if you measure it off – the vertical dimension will be 90cm, and easily a meter once I’ve allowed for under track space for bracing, etc.

Hard to pick out is a small tent shape in front of the oil bunker – that is a scale representation of a TTA tank wagon.

If I want a more compact and manageable model, I clearly need to rethink my design.

Categories
Miscellanea

Micheldever Oil Terminal

I’m in the slow process of planning a successor to Phoenix Yard.

Having enjoyed the operation of the inglenook format, I want to stick to that. However, I do want to draw some scenic inspiration from the real railway.

Thinking about locations that had a simple lineside set of sidings, I remembered Micheldever Oil Terminal:


View 51.187521, -1.258965 in a larger map

I travelled past quite frequently in the 1990’s, and it seemed to be sporadically active. More recently it seems to be used for occasional storage of surplus stock.

The facility seems to be a large concrete bunker built into a chalky hillside. There is a handy photo at Geograph, which I’m using to understand the relationship of the concrete bunker to the surrounding chalk hillside.