A Cornish inglenook...

I’m not a fan of shunting puzzles, I prefer models to draw me into the scene, put me track side and imagine I’m watching the trains rather than operating them...

However, I’ve been working on a commission for a customer recently who hopes to build a plan we’re developing, a Scottish urban 1970s branch on the banks of the Clyde. He wanted the sidings to allow him to use the Inglenook rules... now I’ve been aware of Inglenook as a shunting puzzle ever since reading of the concept in Railway Modeller, in fact I remember the LNER J72 used on ‘Inglenook revisited’ in 1992, but I wasn’t familiar with its intricacies... reading and absorbing that information to help my customer, something clicked at the back if my mind...

I’ve pondered a layout based on Ponts Mill in Cornwall for some time. It’s small nature, squeezed in the valley between the river and the Newquay branch, just up the line from the infamous roundhouse at St Blazey, it seems an obvious choice for the space starved modellers, and for me, there is just something special about China Clay trains, it was probably photos of my favourite Western region diesel hydraulics, the Westerns in faded BR rail blue with a long string of blue hoods in books I borrowed from the library as a child, but yes, I do have a thing for clay...

A screen shot of some lovely John Vaughan photos on the Kernow website: https://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/pg/163/PRA-China-Clay-Wagon

The scheme is as pure as I could manage, envisaged to use Peco code 75 bull-head, it will just fit with their current large radius points, hopefully something smaller will arrive soon making this plan much more achievable. There is no staging, there are no fiddle yards off-scene, our actor doesn’t scurry off behind backscenes, there is no clever sector plate. Pure and simple, a home office layout, ideally suited to a corner location over a desk. That is how I’d envisage it, viewed at eye level or just under, presented as an enclosed Cameo... simple wire in tube points, one engine ‘in steam’ no fancy electronics, signals or anything. Personally I’d be tempted to operate it fairly randomly, rather than as a true Inglenook, with wagons in the mill loading areas being swapped with wagons on the stub of the old branch line in the foreground. I’d love a DCC sound fitted engine, and perhaps ambient sounds of running water from the river, gentle bird song and some occasional industrial banging or clashing about... even a DMU above on the Newquay branch passing by... in my little worlds it is always bright and sunny so a lush green foliage encroaching on the track, yet a business deep in a Cornwall still plying its trade. 

Kernow models offered the distinctive PRA wagon, here I labelled mine for the fictitious PICC.

Stock wise you could run with 1960/70s mode with vacuum fitted 12t vans and sheeted opens, or model a later period with air braked stock such as Kernow’s PRA. Either way, the ubiquitous blue Class 08 would serve your needs... or in an alternate universe perhaps you’d envisage this as an industrial spur and replace the 08 with a Sentinel or old steam engine? In which case you might sneak an engine shed in on one of the sidings... personally I think that might spoil the balance.

This is a funny one for me, I’ve a few layouts I’d like to build, and they are all different. We’ve got Ruabon Brook, Corkickle Brake, Claremont Paper and now Ponts Mill. The thing I like about Pont-y-dulais is it’s a pretty neutral setting and I can run what I like... I think that’s something I want to incorporate in whatever gets built next... the other thing for me is, this layout really requires a triangular site, and that isn’t a space I have readily available at present. However, I hope by keeping to the purity of the Inglenook, yet weaving in a real prototype, however compressed, I might have inspired someone else to have a go! In the meantime I’ve got a Bachmann 08 being rebuilt and repainted in BR blue and an itch to get some more clay wagons... more soon...