PICC - Finest China Clays…

PICC, a division of Planet Industrials, boast 'Finest China Clays' and produce their products from a small number of mines located in both Cornwall and on Purbeck. Despite their specialist nature, as with other divisions, PICC relied upon the BR Speedlink network to distribute it's products...

Later absorbed into Imerys, both facilities are still rail served producing clays for the finer end of the market. The photos shown here show a rare daylight working on the Cornish branch to Pants Mill, St Blazey stalwart 08839 is seen with one of the PRA wagons leased to PICC - not all of these featured the 'PICC' sticker, but many did - the style was altered slightly on the repainted wagons (when they received black underframes, mind they didn't stay black for long).

Catching a glimpse of a train on this branch was rare as the mill was shunted first thing in the morning, when the sun in the valley often left the line in shade. Quite why the service was late today was not noted by our photographer...

Of course, this is Pont-y-dulais masquerading as the South West - although the 08, the PRAs and a few other items I collected may one day see a layout based on Ponts Mill or Crugwallins to run on - in the meantime, P-y-d proves once again to be a remarkably blank canvas. If you have an idea for a micro layout and would like help in designing and / or building it, let me know, get in touch using the contact form, Facebook or the forums. In the meantime, more soon...