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Wheal Elizabeth was the runner up in the Scalefour Society’s Diesel and Electric Layout Challenge. The layout is inspired by the china clay dries at Wenfordbridge and Carbis Wharf, the last coal fired dry, which closed in 1986. The track layout was unchanged from the 1950s through to closure, so the layout concept is one which chronicles the various types of rolling stock typically seen on clay trains from the end of steam through to the mid-1980s. The track plan includes a public wharf (siding), which allows some variety of rolling stock.

This was the first layout I have constructed in P4, previous efforts being in EM. I am using the layout as a test bench for various techniques and, as such, I have made track using the ply and rivet method, C&L components and hybrid ply sleepers and plastic chairs. Turnouts are operated by Tortoise motors, and the layout is operated via conventional Gaugemaster hand held controllers. Baseboards are 6mm ply frames supporting 12mm MDF. I have used two fluorescent tubes, supplied for fish tanks, to illuminate the layout.

Locos are a mixture of kits and re-wheeled RTR. Rolling stock includes Colin Ashby and Ratio 4-wheeled wooden wagons and various Parkside minerals and vans. You may even see some air-braked stock. As well as the odd steam engine, you may encounter Class 03/08 shunters, Classes 22, 25 and 37 on trip workings and Westerns, Classes 45, 47 and 50 on running-in turns from St Blazey. All engines modelled will have been photographed on a clay train somewhere. Some of the stock has been supplied by my co-operator Geoff Sheppard.