Somewhere on a summer’s day…

I’ve mentioned several times in the last few weeks a new layout idea called Combe Norton. Fuelled by rewatching the Titfield Thunderbolt one too many times this project has, at it’s heart, a very basic emotional drive…

Foxcote Manor in 2016, where I took my children to experience the same GWR country railway experience that I so fondly remembered as a child from visits with my family and with Tim.

To recreate something lost, in my own past as well as reality. Growing up with a railway modelling Dad and Grandpa, both who had strong interests in the GWR, as well as a best friend in primary school, Tim, whose father was also a GWR man it will come as no surprise that my first electric model train was a Hornby GWR 8750 Pannier, I grew up with a GWR branchline in our garage and enjoyed running GWR (and our modern image Lima models) on Tim’s mainline layout. On our doorstep we visited the Llangollen Railway and further afield the Severn Valley and West Somerset. The charm of these recreations was not lost on my impressionable mind. 

A branch station on my childhood GWR branch line layout build by my Dad in the garage. The engine shed was being assembled by my little brother with Dad’s help. The signal box and station were scratchbuilt ny my Grandpa in thin styrene. I believe the 121 was converted by me from a Lima 117.

Indeed, my own ‘first layout’ was a GWR branchline station, inspired by a faux extension of the Culm Valley branch to Stapley and was build on a light weight 4’x1’ board. I still have the station building, which had a home on Creech Bottom. This utilised setrack points for price and to get a compact layout in a short space. The layout could just about accommodate the Collet goods, but was most at home with the Dapol 14xx I still own, pictured here with Dad’s 03, although I don’t remember why!

Stapley in OO. The layout never progressed beyond this stage. Track has laid, and painted. Partially ballasted amd the station platform and groundwork had been started,

This however was never finished and soon after guitar girls and studying took over, until I helped Dad with the Canadian layout a few years later. As well as this string of GWR inspired models I inherited a collection of GWR books, and when Mum sold the family home I inherited a lot of Dad and Grandpa’s models, including a wonderful scratchbuilt conical water tower!

Waiting room at Carrog, although small, the size of this structure will be about the same as that on a Combe Norton, certainly the feel of a GWR brick built structure with small canopy.

I see a peculiar charm in that sad period at the end of steam where the inevitable hadn’t happened and branchlines clung on to that last ‘Indian summer’. My own models that could find a home on such a layout are from this late 1950s period, indeed, finding a home for these is a big part of this scheme as well as the blend of nostalgia from the Titfield and those strong child hood memories of models and preserved steam.

Now the GWR branchline has been done from every conceivable angle over many man years, what can I possibly bring to the subject other than my own model making? We all know the clichéd arrangement of shake the box kits and over bridges hiding scenic exits! Now then, what about taking some of those clichés and rearranging them in a carefully choreographed caricature of a ficticious GWR branch? Combining the quintessential pine trees with the Wills ground frame and a scratchbuilt brick GWR station and a home, no matter how ridiculous, for my Grandpa’s conical water tower? By constraining the size in my usual manner I think I can stage manage the rest of the goods yard and run round loop off stage, leaving just a platform and pair of points ‘in view’.

Shades of Fairford and Tetbury, but also Frongoch nearby, Peco bull head track and a summery warm tone as used on my 009 Purbeck layouts. Although shown above with my usual vertical constrained ‘window’ if built as an exhibition layout this could perhaps include a taller viewing window. Either way some form of easier coupling than 3 links will be needed as operation would require branch goods to be shunted in the loop, moving the brake van to the rear of the train and switching out loads and empties on the coal merchants spur at the front of the layout. I think this scheme goes to show that a balance of otherwise incongruous elements can result in a pleasing composition when carefully considered and balanced. I’m happy with the overall effect, and would enjoy building and playing with such a layout. Certainly I don’t have room for anything larger, but as I found with Bear Creek recently, it’s difficult to work on something new when Kinross and Pont-y-dulais hold such strong connections for me, and it would need to replace one of these in this guise, unless build as a purely exhibitable project. I guess the obvious first step is to work on the station building and enjoy taking it from there… Oh and the name? Thanks to Paul Marshall-Potter for that one. I’m sure this won’t the best last you hear of Combe Norton. Until next time more soon…