Stock for the West Dorset Light Railway...

Several months ago I shared the premise of the West Dorset Light Railway, a 'Col. Stephens' esque light railway that fellow modeller Harry Dawe and I dreamt up joining the coastal village of West Bay with Crewkerne on the LSWR mainline...

Models and photos by Harry Dawe

In that first post I shared a route map and some of the initial ideas - these quickly generated a modelling momentum that Harry and I both experienced, and in the lockdowns these progressed quickly. We both modelled Terrier's based upon the excellent Hornby re-issue, and I built up a rake of goods stock for my own East Kent as well as the West Dorset - producing custom transfers that Harry was able to use on his own projects. Harry is a young modeller with a lot of potential. His modelling caught my eye on the NGRM forum and I met him a few times at ExpoNG, he even operated East Works for me in 2019. I hope that my encouragement has left him with the feeling that he will return to this wonderful hobby after he finishes his degree at Loughborough. 

Hornby Terrier repainted and weathered by the young modeller, Harry Dawe.

The finish he achieves is of his own hand - what I mean is that if I put a photo of one of Harry's models in 009 alongside his Terrier they would feel instantly at home together, you will see this is you take a look at his inactive blog. The combination of method and materials give a consistent finish and the confidence reminds me of my own over exuberant finishes applied to Lima diesels in my teens! 

My own rake of ESLR and WD wagons

My own activities focused at the time on building stock and I'm sorry to say that I didn't get around to weathering these, they still sit in my stock box without couplings and no weathering. I had planned to combine these with a Hattons coach and Hecate to model Peasmarsh road, alas I don’t have the space for an expanding collection of cameo layouts, a shame my wandering mind will admit.

Harry even starting building his own 'light railway' track using coffee stirrers and code 75 rail stripped from Peco track. Photo and modelling by Harry Dawe.

Whilst I day dreamed of cameos, Harry began to practice hand laid track and made good progress before university intervened. For those of you who asked for more on the WDLR story, I’m afraid that this is your lot for now. That said, I’ll close by sharing a track plan of how I envisaged the line at a West Bay interacting with the GWRs own branch. Those with the space, or inclination could certainly create an interesting layout of cameo views based on this scheme. Imagine the WDLR emerging from behind buildings to cross the river and front gardens to a station behind a GWR station, whose line exists through scrubby trees stage right. Imagine 12 feet scenic area, two end to end branchline to fiddleyard arranged back to back. I think this would be an unusual layout project and one that married the best of light railways with the best railway in the world… of course, the GWR (!).

Whether any of this whets your appetite to take the creation of Harry and mine as a catalyst for your own scheme, I would be excited to hear your thoughts or plans. In the meantime my own light railway stock slumbers in a box for that one day to occur. Until next time more soon… 

Enjoyed this? The last piece in the WDLR puzzle was here: https://paxton-road.blogspot.com/2020/06/21st-century-white-metal-kit-finishing.html

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