Archive 4: Canal Street Wharf 006.5…

Canal Street Wharf, today's 'Archive' focus is the simplest of trainsets, a circle of 006.5 track from a Busch H0f starter set on a piece of MDF...

I believe I've shared this photo before, but in colour. It shows the Alan Keef being used for maintenance work in the 1980s.

This project was born out of a desire to do something with a few kits I had knocking around spare from other projects, combined with inspiration from Tim Ellis in seeing what he was doing with small layouts in tiny places. I also had wanted to combine this with a 'faux history' and created the fictitious 'Borcester Water Works' and associated tramway. Small parallels to the Brede system, and loosely based on a works on the Gloucester Canal, the tramway was designed to be relatively timeless, but in the end, the abandoned  / stored caravan has set the period to be the 1950s onwards. The canal side wharf has quite a drop to the water level - but this isn't a traditional canal - this is a river canal for much larger ships and barges, as a result, I've tried to depict this in the reinforced materials used along it's edge. The wharf also has an office inspired by that at the Wantage Tramway's lower yard...

Nell, inspired by the late Roy Link was built in his memory.

This small layout has been exhibited in 2019 alongside East Works, prior to all the pandemic. It sits in a small box under my workbench and it probably the most used of the 006.5 layouts for it's simplicity and accessibility. A pleasure to drive trains on, and enjoy, showing just how flexible this small gauge can be in 1:76 scale. More soon...