Friday Update: One Five Twenty...

This week has flown by, from the settled blue skies and warm days from last week to overcast and damp, but with brighter evenings, things have flown past here with home school and the day to day...

Walks in the evening with the dog bag views like this, which make you feel more alive, and help to keep me sane. I've also been able to put together our new greenhouse and do some minor landscaping in this area by the kitchen window (viewed from the bench by the Dyfrdwy Tramway).

Not much time for commission modelling this week, although I've been busy with custom transfer design for a variety of customers and both industrial and mainline companies - thank you to all for your business. Otherwise, it's been day dreaming between lessons and coming up with mad-cap schemes...

The first of these was Planet Industrial Chemicals, an industrial sprawling layout with tight curves and small but modern image rolling stock...

I even cobbled together a faux history for the layout...

Before the outbreak of World War I, much of Britain’s zinc had originated in Australia, but had been smelted in Germany. The Ministry of Munitions under its then Minister Winston Churchill nationalised many small smelting works under the new National Smelting Company (NSC). The NSC was hence publicly commissioned to build a new zinc smelting works and sulphuric acid plant at Severnbank, Wyemouth Docks.

After World War I, demand for zinc and sulphuric acid fell greatly and after running into commercial difficulties the factory at Severnbank was taken over by a group of British industrialists with interests in metals and chemicals, who succeeded in reviving its business under the name Commonwealth Smelting Company. In 1926 the firm was merged with Industrial Chemicals Ltd., forming Commonwealth Industrial Chemicals (CIC) and expanded its zinc production throughout the 1930s.  Alongside its main metallurgical interests, it developed various chemicals to use the excess sulphuric acid it produced.

During the Second World War the site at Severnbank suffered substantial damage during the blitz. In the period immediately after the war many of the smaller plants were closed down, concentrating production on Wyemouth. 

CIC, having failed to develop new business looked to divest it’s chemical refineries and smelting operations. In 1962 Planet Industrials took control of the business forming PiChem investing heavily in Severnbank which saw something of a resurgence in fine chemical production. However, with zinc smelting cheaper elsewhere in the world, the site ceased production in the 1990s, but remained open as a stock-holding and distribution centre until 2003.

In 2012 Sita started redevelopment of the site. In the summer of 2013 workers found a large unexploded shell, which was disposed of by the 33 Engineers and Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment. In late 2013 MoD clearance was given, allowing the site to be redeveloped as a 485,000 square feet (45,100 m2) supermarket distribution centre for Alda, and a recycling plant for Sita.

Physical modelling was restricted to sizing up transfers for some rolling stock projects, you might recognise the top one from last weeks Friday update!

I have managed work on the North British shunter this week, along with an internal user van for the various micro layouts. You can also see the 009 Irish Kerr Stuart that is in works at the moment, being painted alongside other projects.

Transfer design has been good fun, it is time consuming though, not just matching fonts, adjusting or re-drawing letters to exactly match sign written writing, or coming up with my own logos, you'll spot all sorts on here for both customers, myself, and future projects...

I hope you've all had a good week. Please do get in touch if I can help with your own projects in any way. Have a good weekend, more soon...