Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

Re: Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

After having gone overboard planting trees in the corner around Stokesay Castle (see photos), I decided to install a little Treddol slate station as below to take advantage of the space underneath the castle. This will get the name Stokesay Halt, the idea being that passengers on the lower loop can alight and walk over to the rack railway to reach their destination. If the station looks as though it´s in the middle of a building site, then there´s a good reason. It´s a still a real building site and missing the slate platform, entrance, steps, and greenery.

But after putting the station into place, there was no going back with a job that I had been putting off, that is building dry stone walling in real slate to match the station. The kind people at Treddol had cut me four ice cream containers full of bit of slate of approx. the right width - that was back in the middle of last year ...

I had thought about building slate walls but had always wondered about keeping them from collapsing on my pre-installed landscape, which is anything but flat. Sp I first built a foundation of modelling clay to provide a base into which to push the first layer of slate. The I did a little practice around the station, before I set out to build around 90cm (or 3 foot in old money) worth of walling round to the point where the rack railway will cross both tracks. It´s not perfect, but this is as far as I got before running out of slate. There´s a temporary vegetation strip hiding the modelling clay from the camera, and no trees have been planted yet, which will be needed to match the other side of the track. So things are not finished, and I may install a little platelayers´ hut, but at the moment, this is as far as I get with the material available.

002 by kandnwlr, on Flickr

004 by kandnwlr, on Flickr

009 by kandnwlr, on Flickr

007 by kandnwlr, on Flickr

012 by kandnwlr, on Flickr

015 by kandnwlr, on Flickr
 
Re: Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

That looks good to me!
Is it a 'dry' stone wall, or have you added a little 'support' here and there?
PhilP.
 
Re: Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

You have no idea how much PVA glue dry stone walling requires ..... :-\
 
Re: Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

KandNWLR said:
You have no idea how much PVA glue dry stone walling requires ..... :-\
Click to expand...
:D :D :D

You ought to try getting the ballast 'up' on the 'Harz' layout!!
:o ;) :D :D
 
Re: Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

PhilP said:
:D :D :D

You ought to try getting the ballast 'up' on the 'Harz' layout!!
:o ;) :D :D
Click to expand...

Don´t get me started on ballast. That´s the next job on the rack railway ::)
 
Re: Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

Well, you can tell it was a hot day - the dry stone waller went down the pub at lunchtime and ended up using all the tiddly bits at one end.....
Mind you, it looks like one good shove would have it over, and therefore is an excellent represenation of a welsh slate drystone wall. I like it :)
 
Re: Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

Dtsteam said:
Well, you can tell it was a hot day - the dry stone waller went down the pub at lunchtime and ended up using all the tiddly bits at one end.....
Mind you, it looks like one good shove would have it over, and therefore is an excellent represenation of a welsh slate drystone wall. I like it :)
Click to expand...

You´re right about the the bit on the right just after the station. I shouldn´t have tried to use up all the thin bits (looks a bit dodgy and a little too Col. Stephens-like) ... but as opposed to the real dry stone waller, I get to use PVA glue, so it´s a good deal stronger than some of the stuff I´ve got on the layout, which are in danger if there´s a strong draught. But of course, a pub might be quite useful down there next to the station ......
 
Re: Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

Here´s the way to do 1:1 dry stone walling.

Make sure you get a firm base on modelling clay to stop said wall from falling over on builder. Second, use French PVA glue to make sure wall doesn´t fall on builder when wind blows. Lastly, have sufficient bits of slate on hand in old ice cream container (rock ´n´ raspberry ripple) to finish job :-\

002 by kandnwlr, on Flickr
 
Re: Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

KandNWLR said:
You´re right about the the bit on the right just after the station. I shouldn´t have tried to use up all the thin bits (looks a bit dodgy and a little too Col. Stephens-like) ... but as opposed to the real dry stone waller, I get to use PVA glue, so it´s a good deal stronger than some of the stuff I´ve got on the layout, which are in danger if there´s a strong draught. But of course, a pub might be quite useful down there next to the station ......
Click to expand...

Sorry, I wasn't meaning to be picky - a lot of cosmetic walls in the Lake District end up like that, now that stone is so valuable. A friend of mine builds fieldstone walls in OO scale for his Settle & Carlisle layout, just not very quickly ! Having said that, like yours, they really add some atmosphere..
 
Re: Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

when you get bord.. can you nip over to lazy grange bay.. i have a need of your walling skills.. 8)
 
Re: Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

Wow! The French have PVA specifically for fixing whistles!!!
;) :D :D ;D ;D ;D
 
Re: Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

PhilP said:
Wow! The French have PVA specifically for fixing whistles!!!
;) :D :D ;D ;D ;D
Click to expand...

(Penny) whistles. Who knew? :D
 
Re: Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

mike said:
when you get bord.. can you nip over to lazy grange bay.. i have a need of your walling skills.. 8)
Click to expand...

It´s strangely therapeutic 8) Not that we railway people need that kind of thing :-\ ::)
 
Re: Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

Best spoken with a rural accent,

I am a dry stone waller.
All day I dry stone wall,
Of all appalin' callin's
Dry stone wallin's
Worst of all.

(Pam Eyres)
 
Re: Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

I just got this pic from Geoff Munday of Lightline fame and thought I would share.

Let´s imagine that the French Decauville company opened a branch office in North Wales to take advantage of the rapidly expanding slate business transporting from the quarry to the harbour, with the appropriate locos. More pics when they arrive at the K&NWLR.

And then there´s the question of whether the Welsh weather would have required an enclosed cab ..... :-\

Anyway, here´s a pic from Geoff@Lightline´s tracks in Yorks. after lining out, together with a little idea that is developing in my idle mind.

K&NWLR: Decauvilles with lining by kandnwlr, on Flickr


K&NWLR: Decauville 3 ton closed cab design by kandnwlr, on Flickr
 
Re: Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

Pretty as a picture , both of them ;D
 
Re: Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

I would really like to have a double header with a closed cab 3 tonner. I´m not sure that I can resist the temptation :-\
 
Re: Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

KandNWLR said:
I would really like to have a double header with a closed cab 3 tonner. I´m not sure that I can resist the temptation :-\
Click to expand...

Where did the 3t come from ? Could you perchance get another to enclose.......
Decauville ménage à trois :o :o :o
 
Re: Kent & North Wales Light Railway: New Boy

Dtsteam said:
Where did the 3t come from ? Could you perchance get another to enclose.......
Decauville ménage à trois :o :o :o
Click to expand...


The maker of the 3t Decauville is a guy in Germany called HD Clemens. You´ll find him and his site at HDC-Dampf, but sadly no pic of the 3t. He offered it to me for a reasonable price as it had been heavily used. It needed quite a lot of TLC and a number of additional pieces of equipment, but it runs well now, even if the wheelbase is a little short for some points.

http://www.hdc-dampf.de/
 
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