The Stort Valley Railway

Well, it's the start of a new year and all that, and it's time for New Year Resolutions.

Topmost amongst my modelling resolutions must be to finish more projects that are currently littering up my desk as Work In Progress. I've made a good start on that, and hope to have more out of the way in the next couple of weeks.

So with all that done, I'll move on to my entrant for the Scalefour Society's Standard Gauge Workbench...


Link to Standard Gauge Workbench

In our current house, I don't have the space indoors for a reasonably sized layout. Ulpha Light is erected in the garage, pending restoration, so that space is taken as well. So an SGW layout that I can take out, work on, and then pack away seems the perfect idea. Ultimately though, what I'd like to produce is a series of "episodes" that describe the countryside through a series of scenes. And being in my local area, and of GER interest, I'll be producing some lesser known elements of the London to Cambridge mainline, the branches and sidings off it.

The concept will be a series of linked scenes. If you've been fortunate enough to view the "Nettlebridge Valley Railway" at an exhibition, you may have an idea of what I mean. Regrettably there are very few photos of this on the web.

So the scenes that are hazy plans in my mind include:

- the terminus of the Sawbridgeworth Town branch, after it ran just over a mile after leaving the Cambridge mainline.

- the little-documented siding and canal wharf that existed until the 1960s at Parndon Mill, south of Harlow.

And finally, and the entry to the SGW, is Crouch's Brewery, which was established in the small hamlet of Churchgate Street, where it successfully produced a range of ales until a mysterious fire caused it to close shortly after the end of the First World War.

A track plan has been chosen (read "cribbed from somewhere else"...) and the Templot has been beaten into submission.

I've promised the show organiser that I will be showing something related to the SGW at Scalefour North in April, so I'd better stop typing and crack on with those unfinished projects if I'm ever going to meet that deadline!

Cheers
Flymo