The next steps (part 2 inspiration sets in)

How do we get from this: That I see set in the Minnesota Northwoods in On30

To something in England in 16mm scale?

It's all about inspiration. In issue 134 of Narrow Gauge and Industrial Railway Modelling Review there was an article by Sydney A. Leleux about emptying side tipping wagons. As you may know I'm a firm believer in working features on micro layouts, and tippers fit that bill perfectly. 

There was a picture on p.278 of the loading of a lorry at George Garside's Double Arches quarry. The rail line sits on a raised, wood surfaced tipping dock, surrounded by bare trees. It must be a winter scene. A tarpaulin is draped over a fence. There’s a corrugated iron shelter around the tipping chute on the wooden loading dock. A large brick building has a small lean to shed attached to it.

Chris’s concept sprang to mind. Why it did so, I don’t know. Like I said, the idea had gone on the back burner until the time was right. The time must be right. I don’t argue with my creative mind. A wooden dock. I had imagined a wooden dock in Chris Mears scheme. There’s a wooden dock in this image. That must be it. Like I say, I don’t argue with my creative mind.

I searched out other images of Garside’s and other plants. There are so many inspirational pictures of 2’ gauge railways around Leighton Buzzard, where Garside’s was located. But nothing as inspirational as the picture in The Review. 

Ideas come thick and fast. A two level scheme… With a front low level siding in a yard and the tipping dock at the rear perhaps?.. Difficult to work between the two levels in the offstage sidings… Cassettes, or a fiddle stick or a sector plate… Keep tracks on the same level… 

I found a picture of  a “Loco Shed” at Double arches. A wonderful concrete block and asbestos roofed structure, full of character… Perhaps this could be my scenic break at the right hand side... Perhaps that might be a bit big in the confines of the micro… A smaller workshop then?.. A line runs through the workshop… There are bins at the foot of the tipper… Look at this picture… Big bins… Wait a minute… Is that different grades of sand/gravel in the bins?.. Certainly different colours of material… That could work… Tipping two different grades of materials into different bins…Make the bins removable for ease of emptying…  

I felt that it could turn my scribbling and scratchings on paper into some kind of coherent sketch.

First coherent concept sketch

Ooh. We’re getting somewhere. I love sketches like these. So free and unencumbered by niceties like track geometry, clearances and suchlike. I feel the need for some mocking up. 

But that’s a story for another post.