Churchwater in 006.5...

The book 'A slate railway to Churchwater' by Brian Clarke has been of a great inspiration to me over the past few years. Two things have nudged me to consider making my own model for 2018...

First of all the Dave Brewer challenge was announced, to build a complete railway in just 50x35 cm. It so happens this is just a touch smaller than Creech Grange, and it's under bed box so my head instantly thought 006.5 again, plus I've space for storing another box... second I've been designing some of my own models for the 6point5 range based on the Vowchurch slate company prototypes, and this seemed to offer a great way of giving them somewhat of a PR boost.

So the concept was born, and I started pondering what this might look like... I wanted to incorporate a few things, cliched perhaps but still... these include a slate slab wall, an adit with weighbridge like Maenofferen, the cutting shed in the centre and a small engine shed... I thought this could give several distinct viewing angles, like on Creech Grange and Kisten Torfwerk. The track will all be Busch and probably a touch skewed so as not to be parallel to the baseboard edge. The layout needs to be finished by October but something this small shouldn't pose too much of a problem...

The new 6point5 locomotive and slate wagon chassis was designed ok Sketchup and printed by Shapeways, and is still waiting on the etches back from Narrow Planet for the cab back, roof, buffer beams etc and the wagon body. Hopefully I can share that properly soon so consider it just a glimpse of what's to come... prices will be similar to the existing range. 

The engine is like the Avonside and designed as a kit of parts that are assembled to allow they all to be smoothed and prepared after printing. The dome is an existing NP part and the chimney is the RT Sand Hutton Hunslet. These things are tiny, but fun to put together and run equisitely. More soon...