Whitehall Halt in 3ft…

The Hemyock branch is one that has inspired and enthused me since I discovered it in Paul Karau’s superb Great Western Branchline Termini books, passed to me from my grandpa in my early teens…

The structures and style of what was essentially a Great Westernised light railway informed my first solo effort layout in my later teens, Stapley, and it was looking at photos of that for my Combe Norton scheme that made me pick up the Michael Messenger book on the Culm Valley from the book shelf. As I thumbed it’s familiar pages I paused on a photo of Whitehall Halt and remembered I’d often pondered if this would make a lovely little cameo scene?

Digging around on Google Earth showed the station site, to scale would fit in 3ft, and the structures were still standing, in fact the platform is mostly intact despite its wooden construction. Searching on eBay through up a few photos that inspired a composition you see here…

There is nothing truly ground breaking here, but I hope my sketch that shows how a restricted cameo scene can be manipulated to allow some depth compression. If tackled well, this would be barely detectable but still allow you to get lost watching the branch train cross over he level crossing before perhaps pausing for a passenger. Even once passenger service was withdrawn the crew stopped and dropped off papers for the locals, leaving them in the waiting shelter! 14xx ran the branch until the end of steam, initially replaced by Swindon built Class 03, later 22 and 25s, even a 31 I believe, served the creamery at Hemyock.

An interesting restriction noted in Michael’s book is he fact that locos were forbidden from entering the siding, presumably the curvature or proximity to the mill race made this precarious. This would mean you would need to shunt the train by using wagons to reach in to any left at the mill siding. Really though, this is an opportunity to recreate a scene in miniature, one that is gone, but can be recalled by visiting the sire today, or through our hand in modelling. Until next time, more soon…