Germination.

To refresh. I have seen these two things. Yet at the moment they are nothing more than unrelated holiday snaps.

Disparate scenes with no link

You are probably thinking to yourself. “I know what it is! I know his next project!” But I don’t. I am enjoying trips on the Ffestiniog Railway on holiday, and fighting the urge to buy a Kato/Peco “Prince” in 009 from the Harbour Station shop. Then when I get home, I’m preparing Bontoft’s for exhibition. I’m not thinking about the next project. 

Having got Bontoft’s ready in plenty of time, my idle hands needed something to do and so I tried making tools in 7/8ths inch scale. The work I’ve done with Bontoft’s made me ridiculously confident in my abilities. The tools were described earlier in the blog. You can refresh your memory here.

Tool time

Still, there’s no link forming between these tools and the other two images. 

Yet. 

Fast forward a week and I’ve now completed the Randolph show and I’m brimming with enthusiasm and confidence. I’ve got to do something. 

I have to create. I laid out some O gauge track on a board based on an old Neil Rushby boxfile layout from years back. I rued not buying Prince in 009 a few weeks earlier. I stared at a blank baseboard. I looked at nearly every piece of rolling stock I have hoping that something would leap out at me. I have to build something. That I can’t get a spark of inspiration to build something is so frustrating. It’s “writers block”. But for model railways.

Thanks Neil Rushby

Eventually my brain stopped working. I had to sit down and relax. I turned to YouTube and one of my favourite TV shows of all time. Time Team.

If you’re not familiar with the show. A group of Archaeologists have three days to conduct an exploratory dig on a site somewhere. The show ran for 20 years. For 20 years families would spend Sunday evenings watching a group of people digging in a field. Items of national importance have been found. History books have been rewritten, and some unforgettable television moments have been broadcast. It’s a show I can lose myself in.

On this particular day, I re-watched the episode from the Blaenafon in South Wales. Their task was to find the World’s first Railway Viaduct built in 1790. It carried a horse worked line that moved coal to the first Blast Furnaces. Twenty-five years later, the viaduct had disappeared. The show is a remarkable exploration of what the Industrial Revolution did to the landscape.

As a part of the show, they set up a small blast furnace inside one of the original buildings to recreate the iron making process. It was a small furnace, only a few feet high, not more than two feet in diameter yet they produced enough iron to make a railway wagon wheel.

The penny dropped.

This small portable furnace had produced enough iron to make a wagon wheel. I remembered the furnace at the museum. It was, what 12 feet tall? It too was only a few feet in diameter. How much iron would that produce? There were patterns of all sizes around the foundry walls. Window frames, gear wheels, even signs. 

Within seconds an entire concept flowed out of my brain.

“AminimumgaugerailwayservingasmallfoundryMakingthingslikewindowframesgearwheelssignsandwagonwheelsTherailwaywoulddelivermaterialslikesandcoalandironoreCouldbetransportingfinisheditemsbetweenthefoundryandtheblacksmithsTrainswouldbeshortoneortwosmallwagonsHowaboutoneofthoseHeywoodfoundrywagonsliketheoneinthemuseumatTywynIalreadyhaveaflatwagonbuiltCurlyspokewheelsDammitifyouwantedtobecleveryoucouldputredLEDsinthemodelfurnacetorepresenttheglowfromtheironmaking.”

It’s a good starting point…