The Stowe Fen Chronicles

[Chris Mitton]

A couple of contributors to this forum have recently been kind enough, or masochistic enough, to express an interest in my embryonic (very!) LNER layout, Stowe Fen. I can't claim that progress has been, or will be, in the same league as the likes of Armchair Modeller or Knuckles, whose rate of construction I envy, so contributions won't necessarily be very frequent, but here goes......

Stowe Fen is a fictitious branch off the GN&GE Joint line, somewhere vaguely on the Cambridgeshire / Lincolnshire border (I.e. its junction is between March and Spalding). Why Stowe Fen? Well, I was brought up in North London, midway between Hornsey on the ECML and the ex-GE Lea Valley line, and my train-spotting was split largely between those two. I also blame my late uncle, then a fireman at Colchester loco, who lifted my five-year-old self onto the footplate of 61005 “Bongo” at Liverpool Street and set off a life-long LNER addiction! Anyway, when I retired and decided to build a layout, scrapping previous experience in 00 and switching to P4, it had to include elements of both GE and GN; as they had a joint line, that determined the location. That part of the world has the additional advantage of being dead flat, and even the rivers are artificial and therefore straight. A railway engineer would never build a line that wasn't straight and flat unless there was a good reason (there usually was!) - so I reasoned that (not being much interested, experienced or talented at scenic modelling) such a location would fit the available space in my loft and still look plausible. And of course it has the added advantage of any fictional layout - nobody can tell me I'm wrong! It's my trainset....

Stowe Fen's plan is based on Framlingham; the theory is that when the line was built the GER took responsibility for the permanent way and the GNR the structures and signalling (excuse for a couple of lattice-post somersaults sometime in the future). Framlingham got modified a bit; the main changes are that the track layout is mirrored to put the viewing / operating side where I want it, some of the S&C is adapted (without changing the topology) to reflect the GER's apparent desire never to build anything simple if they could possibly complicate it, and the loco shed has moved to a backshunt off the loading bay – this move in the story was to save a facing point lock and two shunt signals. The layout provides for some pretty contorted manoeuvres to obviate tedium!

Here are a couple of (not very good) photos from a couple of years back, when I'd built the baseboards and designed the trackwork with Templot and before actual construction started. These show the whole plan seen from roughly the intended control panel location, looking towards the fiddle yard and platform respectively. The whole station area, up to the end of the headshunt and excluding the fiddle yard traverser, is a tad over six metres long (twenty feet in old money). That's just over a quarter of a mile, which strikes me as about right for a sprawling terminus serving a reasonably prosperous small town where land was cheap.

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.... and here is a closer view of the yard throat (which is now mostly built!).

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I'll post shortly some piccies of my recent efforts in the loco and carriage departments if anyone is still interested....(and if son turns up with camera and associated expertise!). And I'll try and provide progress updates occasionally, provided the Grim Reaper stays away long enough for me to get somewhere near finished - I reckon, with the station and the locos, stock, signalling (including mechanically interlocked frame) and buildings I've got in mind, I've a good ten years work!

Regards
Chris

[Chris Mitton]

Hi all

I've realised it's a while since I posted any promised updates, so here are a couple of pics of progress with my latest effort.

Purely co-incidentally, Flymo last night posted a pic of the tender of his Y14 (LNER J15) just hours after I'd started building mine! Spooky or what? So here is a pic of yesterday's effort:

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This is the engine it will partner: strictly it's a B70 (one of the last batch built) not a Y14, but by the time of Stowe Fen's alleged setting it had become LNER J15 no. 7567 - and by the time it gave me my first-ever footplate ride some fifty-five years ago it had become 65465. It looks a bit wonky because it is - the smokebox is now attached to the boiler but the chimney and firebox aren't, and they're all perched precariously on the footplate solely for the photo. But at least it's starting to look vaguely like a J15! Next week I expect some of Mr Gibbon's hornblocks and a Mashima / High Level geartrain to arrive, so then I can start building the chassis - after that I'll be able to see just how little of the firebox I can get away with cutting out to clear the motor, then I can finish the bodywork.

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This is the tender body with its sister, nearly complete. When I get round to giving it a drawbar, this will trundle along Stowe Fen behind E4 no. 7492, which has featured before on these pages http://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1305#p20848. The big difference between these two is that the J15 is coming together rather faster than the E4 did! I suppose that's the benefit of experience, plus the fact that both are Gibson kits with a lot in common.

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Meanwhile, Postman Pat has just delivered a London Road ex-GNR J3 which will doubtless be another ball game entirely!

Regards
Chris

[DougN]

HI CHris it is all looking very nice. Your comments on how slowly things travell could well apply to every one at times. Personally my Q6 thread wandered off onto other things and will one day wander back to the subject of the title. Time gets away from all of us. there was a time where my out put could be seen as reasonably large but due to life controling the tap on the spare time and also the inclination! things have gone back to a dribble.... I have actually been building some platforms for my OO layout....honest. I am very interested in your constructions, and it can be a good way to judge your own progress by having a blog here! Let alone the pangs of guilt by not having written anything for a while.

So good on you and we all look forward to the next installment!

[Paul Willis]

Purely co-incidentally, Flymo last night posted a pic of the tender of his Y14 (LNER J15) just hours after I'd started building mine! Spooky or what? So here is a pic of yesterday's effort:

And here's one I was working on earlier...

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Although as you will see, I still need to fabricate and fit the coal space floor, end, and bunker front plate:

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Cheers
Flymo

[Chris Mitton]

Hi Paul

As you can see, I left my coal space as supplied in the kit - for two reasons: one, it's so long since I'd read Alan Sibley's comments in the long-ago MRJ that I'd forgotten that mistake! and two, it'll be permanently covered in coal! One of the beauties of our engines is that they cheerfully ignore the law of conservation of energy, by chuffing up and down all day without visibly consuming an ounce of coal.......

Regards
Chris