A visit to East Works...

East Works, my 009 slice of Purbeck, and the second 009 layout on the theme following the original Creech Bottom, sits above my workbench  on the wall. Although at this height I can't operate it, it is possible to turn on the lighting, place a few items and enjoy the atmosphere...

I've been reading Lance Mindheim's "Model Railroads as Art" and it made me think about this, and what is it about my layouts and what they evoke inside of me... I think the Purbeck theme links to childhoods spent in Dorset, and my good friendship with a life long friend Tim, who introduced me to narrow gauge modelling as a child, and re-introduced me to 009 in my late twenties. I've never seen these narrow gauge ball clay lines in action, but I felt modelling them would evoke the feelings of a real railway, a more serious side of narrow gauge and 009 than was portrayed by many with fanciful passenger services in the middle of nowhere...

The other thing it brought to mind was the way we see a layout with our eye, and how it's seen through the lens of a camera. To that mind I'd like to share a few photos of the layout, and hopefully they may, in some small way, go to show what I was trying to achieve with this cameo slice of Dorset. I've presented these as if I had walked around East Works, which is loosely based on Norden, with a camera and taken photos of interesting items. Captions to the photos should do the rest.

Down at the shed, glimpsing through the open door we see something sleeping in the shadows, Stanley the Baldwin hasn't worked for some years.

The works uses a Hudson Hunslet these days, for shuttling wagons around the mill and down to the lorry loader for onward transport.

It's believed that this ballast bunker is formed from the old cab rear sheet from the first steam engine.

The line to the open quarries passes under the old lorry loader, some of the older pits didn't have a rail connection so to move the clay into the mill a loading bank was built at East Works, it's seen better days, you can see the nearest plank has broken and the end looks pretty rotten.

Down the side of the Mill is this old wooden wagon chassis, stripped of the most of it's metal work and wheels, left here to rot in the undergrowth.

This track heads off across the heath towards Goathorn, and is seldom used other than by walkers these days. The road connected the works with a few mines that didn't have a rail connection.

Here is the loading bank as seen from the railway, it doesn't seem very high but if you watch a train go by you will see the top lines up with the tipper wagons now used.

I hope this has been interesting. I find the art of model railways part of the joy of creating a miniature world, and I'm enjoying reading about some ideas and theory from across the pond that compliments my own understanding and goes some way to explain what I try to achieve without putting into words. If you've not seen Lance's work check out his website. In the meantime, I do offer commission builds of layouts so get in touch if you'd like me to work on something with you, distilling what you're trying to achieve and turning it into a miniature world. More soon...