Early in 2012, British Railway Modelling and RMweb launched a challenge that became probably the most ambitious magazine project layout the hobby has ever seen.
BLACK COUNTRY BLUES
Staffordshire Finescale Group
Black Country Blues was the most ambitious of project layouts, large in scope, high in detail with bags of research and reference material. This bookazine tells the story from the start through to completing its first exhibition before going on to win numerous awards at shows around the country.
FACT FILE
Layout Name: Black Country Blues
Scale/Gauge: EM
Size: Scenic area of 23’ x 3’ with 7’ fiddle yards to each end.
Era/Region: Mid 1970s West Midlands
Layout Type: Exhibition end-to-end.
For those who may not be familiar with the Black Country, it’s not a defined political entity but a region of largely industrial urban areas that sit above a particular coal seam, which gave rise to the proliferation of heavy industry with the coming of the canals and railways stretching, roughly, from Wolverhampton in the NW to West Bromwich in the SE and Walsall in the NE to Stourbridge in the SW.
The Challenge
Early in 2012 British Railway Modelling and RMweb launched a challenge, which was to see what is probably the most ambitious magazine project layout the hobby has seen. Several entries were received and the editorial team selected the proposition put forward by the Staffordshire Finescale Group, a group of modelling friends with a good pedigree of producing well-regarded exhibition layouts such as New Haden Colliery, Treneglos, Diesels in the Duchy and Foundry Lane. Part of the challenge was to create the layout with a materials budget of £1500 and a significant factor that it should be completed by the National Festival of Railway Modelling at Peterborough, only eighteen months after the start of the challenge while showing progress at Doncaster and Alexandra Palace inbetween. The standard of the proposal presentation was excellent, including plans and visualisations, thanks to John Wardle whose artistic and railway history skills came to the fore.
It was evident that each of the team had specialties which were applied to the construction of the layout:
- Damian Ross - baseboards, supports, presentation elements and electrical work
- Geoff Cook - track construction and electrical operations
- Chris Tooth - landscaping and scenic work
- John Wardle - structural modelling
- Andy Banks - structural and canal modelling
- Nigel Brazier - canal modelling
- Mark Forrest - locomotives and rolling stock provision
The core team grew thanks to the RMweb Community, I (Andy York) got roped in to do some scenic work and create the backscene, while several other RMweb Members made significant contributions from as far afield as North Yorkshire, Cornwall and Switzerland with buildings and vehicles, which give the layout a Black Country ‘feel’.
Construction of the layout took place in at least six houses across three counties, with more than two boards in the same place at the same time rarely happening. Frequent meetings in pub car parks to exchange boards between team members became the norm, with RMweb topics used as a repository for information and updates. Three times during construction, village halls were hired to put it all together to carry out work; the Staffordshire Finescale Group certainly is not a conventional club and doesn’t function from a club room. The first time a train ran the full length of the layout was its debut at the Festival of British Railway Modelling at Doncaster in February 2013, still as a work in progress but with enough for visitors to be able to understand the concept.
Why Black Country Blues?
The industrial decline of the West Midlands was no more evident than a journey between Wolverhampton High Level and Birmingham New Street in the 1970s, an unappealing world of polluted canals, anonymous industry, open tracts of wasteland, scrapyards and scarcely used exchange sidings. Glimpses of the former South Staffordshire line, triangular junctions at Soho and Bloomfield hinted at railway activity in the land to the east of the Stour Valley line toward the former Grand Junction Railway route through Bescot to Bushbury. It is that area that the secondary freight-only route, which forms the scene on BCB in the early years of TOPS, long hair and flares. Many of the structures included within the scene, all based on prototypical locations, used locally-manufactured hard-as-nails Staffordshire Blue bricks.
Research at locations around the Midlands produced the evidence in measurement and photographs for the construction of key features by several of the team, a five-arch viaduct in a distinct Grand Junction style as found to the north of Curzon Street and outside the Black Country at Penkridge, a skewed bridge over the canal north of Wolverhampton High level, Heathtown Tunnel and a later concrete bridge from near Walsall. Parallel running alongside the canal is similar to that found near Dudley Port and all of the locks and gates are true to life for features on the Birmingham Canal Network. Nondescript light industry buildings from the area were chosen along with canal workers’ cottages and a specific canalside pub that is not the sort of place you would want a Sunday afternoon pint. Few large layouts of this area seem to have been constructed over the years and it was the chance to capture the neglected, forgotten, and uninspiring that drew the team toward the project.
Operations
Although the location is fictitious and an amalgam of various features, a selection of representative workings have been used, sourced from period photographs and working timetables. Raw materials and fuel for nearby Spring Vale steelworks passes by, empties return and output as train loads or trip workings to Bescot. As a secondary line, it was a useful diversionary route or to take a train via circuitous route towards a destination to avoid running around at busy locations such as Bescot producing a variety of trains and engineers workings.
A regular train bringing a locomotive or two from further afield is the 100T oil tanks for Albion Terminal from either Lindsey or Milford Haven, always in Gulf livery but barely discernible. Occasional diversions include St. Blazey to Stoke ‘clayliner’, which can yield a Western for the lucky spotter.
The exchange sidings serve a small steelworks off-scene, taking in fuel and steel billets and outputting rolled girders plates, the route to the steelworks may seem tortuous but this was the only land available as the works came after the construction of the main line adjacent to the canal thus needing to climb to cross the line and up to the steelworks. The workings to the steelworks are normally found in the hands of a Judith Edge Yorkshire Engine DE2 kit (with thanks to Arthur Ormrod) or an adapted Hornby 4WDM Sentinel. Wagons are propelled up the bank to reduce the risk of runaways and dispense with a brake and guard, with return workings the locomotive is always at the lower end of the steep incline to reduce the risk of runaway traffic into the sidings.
Most locomotives are adapted ready-to-run items due to the short timescale of the project’s build but there is a large selection of kit-built and adapted wagons with time spent recreating appropriate loads, particularly for the finished steel products.
Operation at shows often stimulates interest from viewers, each fiddle yard operator will put up a BR Blue sign with the locomotive’s number shown and the fiddle yard operator at the other end will input that number into the DCC system and drive the train towards his own fiddle yard; a simple but effective method of communication. Permanent way
Built to EM gauge with handbuilt pointwork to suit thanks to Geoff Cook, the main line includes very gradual curves and a subtle and suitable 1 in 100 gradient up from the tunnel to the viaduct. The construction of the trackwork, which started with production of the trackplan using Templot, followed by the construction and laying of the turnouts, and plain track built from individual components mainly from Exactoscale. Geoff has also built ex-LNWR and LMS signals and all operations are appropriately signalled including the ground signals. Geoff is also the group’s electrical guru, delivering a finished working layout that was literally plugged together and plugged in at its first show at Doncaster. If there has been a weak point in the layout it has been the Cobalt point motors, part of an early batch that only performed satisfactorily at nine volts without them chewing themselves up.
Scenic work
Chris Tooth created the topography of the model, sculpted from Celotex foam panels reinforced with scrim bandage and a plaster filler. A foundation of ground-up ground cover was in place for the first show and a later treatment of static grass fibres and scrub growth. The canal is formed from successive applications of resin and varnish over a base paint layer, the canal locks were planned to reduce the visual impact of any board joints on the water surface.
The team undertook to reproduce several key structures from the early railways and adhere to the principles laid down in the Railway Clauses Acts to make a model, which didn’t just look right but included embankments with the correct falls, accurate gradients and demarcation of the railway’s property in conjunction with the civil engineering. The old adage ‘if it is right it will look right’ definitely applied to their well-researched efforts.
Paul Gallon supplied a selection of true-to-era cars, all further details with mirrors, aerials and signs of a hard life, Arthur Ormrod produced some exquisite lorries serving local steel industries.
The photographic backscene recreates the view so many travellers had of the skyline to the west of the Stour Valley route toward the hills of Sedgeley, Dudley and Rowley Regis. The image is a composite of multiple photographs taken from Barr Beacon, some 10 miles away, and blended together. The huge image file was placed in the care of local printers, who printed the 8.5m long backscene on the type of material used for pull-up advertising banners at trade shows. It’s secured in place with magnetic strip on the backscene and supporting strips on the lighting gantry. At the time it was the largest photographic backscene we’ve seen used on the British show circuit.
The layout is brightly lit with daylight fluorescent bulbs, which forms part of the presentation frame in which the layout is seen at shows.
As many of the team have busy work and family lives, it can often be difficult to fit shows in with the layout, added to the fact that most team members have personal projects they are progressing to. Several ‘best in show’ awards, including Expo EM North in 2015, have been gathered and Black Country Blues was voted as the Best Layout of 2015 in the British Model Railway Awards. As time has moved on, the team members have their own individual projects, finding the time to move the project onwards became limited and is now in the custody of Damian Ross who couldn't bear to see the layout go!
ADDITIONAL DETAIL IMAGES
Acknowledgements
Arthur Ormrod, Stu Hilton, Paul Gallon, Jason Thomas, Flavio de la Rosa
Black Country Blues was the most ambitious of project layouts, large in scope, high in detail with bags of research and reference material. This bookazine tells the story from the start through to completing its first exhibition before going on to win numerous awards at shows around the country.
Comments
Login or register to add a comment