Mogul

A few more bits and pieces added to create an interesting scene, for instance a roadway over the track to hide the entrance to the two road fiddle yard. The little Porter 0-4-2 steam engine is seen with a train of side tipper wagons and two white metal kits of Fordson tractors are in the asbestos workshop at the rear of the layout. The Opel rail truck is seen with a couple of wagons The whole scene is starting to come together at this stage although there is still much to be done. Peter M

At this point I started to do a bit more scenic work and adding buildings and small details to the model. I found another lorry kit, a Canadian Ford which I found most attractive but how to power it. The Athearn chassis I already had in stock was too big and made the model much too high. After much searching I found a crude Bachmann inter urban car with passengers painted on the windows, but it did have a small can motor. After a certain amount of fiddling and cutting I got the body to fit the chassis and it performed quite well.

At this point I started to collect odds and ends for detailing the layout also some 1/32 scale figures. I found finding suitable figures in this scale very difficult so ended up using 1/35 scale military figures modified to look like civilians. It doesn’t matter as people come in various sizes anyway. In this photo we see the Porter 0-4-2 steam loco made to look more English. Some small wagons, side tippers and one ex HO American flat car. In the workshop you can see a horse drawn field kitchen. The oil drums and tools are from military kits. I'm starting to collect clutter which is something that seems to be found on all farm yards. Note a small coal stage for the steam loco in the lower right corner of the last picture. Peter M

I wanted some suitable wagons and some more motive power so I bought A couple of Bachmann On30 quarter inch scale locos, a diesel and a steam loco. Both had to be modified quite a lot to make them suitable for my needs. Because the layout was so small short wagons were best and I bought several kits designed for G scale but were perfect for my wants and just like the ones pictured in my book. I bought three On30 scale side tippers side tippers and three wooden side tippers as well. P

At the time I was building the model I worked part time at a motor racing circuit and they were installing a new timing system. This meant loads of the old telephone wire was available. With this I made a tree of the twisted wire which I covered kitchen towels soaked in white glue. When this had dried I covered it with Milliput putty which when hard I scraped the bark shapes onto the trunk. I then painted the trunk with a grey green mix of acrylics and when dry a thin black wash to bring out the details. The foliage was a whole packet of Woodland scenics material. Peter M

The Opel Blitz truck was used to check clearances with the buildings and general scenery. The large gray barn is a much modified Britain’s kit, as is the engine shed which was unpainted at this point. The green house is scratch built in plasticard. The little hut and loading dock were made of balsa. The bank on the right hand side was made of card formers with strips of card then covered with kitchen towel soaked in pva glue. The top surface is polyfiller painted with an emulsion wash. The ground cover is flock and light coloured sand and is built up a layer at a time. The layout looked like this. Peter M

I have always liked tractors since I was a small boy growing up in the early 1950’s. So when I entered a competition to design a small layout in less than four square feet I built Two Sister’s Farm. I already had in stock three white metal tractor kits in 1/32 scale so that decided the scale. I had read a book by Stewart E Squires about the narrow gauge potato railways in Lincolnshire and that seemed a perfect subject combining tractors and a model railway. In fact there were over fifty narrow gauge railways in the fens, mostly powered by horses but two larger ones used internal combustion engines. The one I picked to loosely base my model on was called Nocton Estate Railway and was the largest and lasted the longest, from the 30’s to the early 60’s. It was some 7000 acres in size growing potatoes for making into crisps and wheat and sugar beet. I wanted something different to the usual narrow gauge railway and had seen lorries converted to run on rails in New Zealand using Bedford O types. Nobody made a kit of a Bedford O type in 1/32 scale so bought a kit of a 1/35 Opel truck from the second world war. This was as near as I could get to 1/32. After much cutting and filing I managed to get the truck body to fit over an Athearn switcher chassis and tested it on my test track. Peter M

The layout depicts a fictitious two foot narrow gauge light railway serving a large agricultural estate in the Lincolnshire fens in the late fifties. It is very loosely based on a similar railway that actually existed from the 1920’s until the late 1960’s and was some 22 miles long in total. It was originally powered by horses but in later years steam, petrol and diesel locomotives were also used. The light railway being used to bring the crops (mainly potatoes, both early and main-crop) but also wheat and sugar beet from the fields to either a standard gauge rail head interchange or to be loaded onto lorries for transport to market. The model features the small terminus at Two Sister’s Farm, the largest of several farms that make up the estate. There is a small engine shed with minimal facilities for coaling watering and servicing the small but varied fleet of locomotives and rail trucks. There is also a small workshop where tractors and implements for the whole estate are serviced and repaired. The main product grown on the estate is potatoes, for a crisp manufacturer in one instance, but the need for crop rotation and the varying soils mean that a variety of other crops are also grown. In addition to arable farming cattle pigs and sheep are also reared to give diversity. There is a small area of woodland which provides the estate with all its timber needs and allows the breeding of game birds for the occasional shooting party. Wagons are pushed in to the small yard from the outlying fields and trains are then made up for sending to the standard gauge connection nearby. Rail trucks are used to take out fuel, seeds and fertilizer to the fields. Peter M

On September 5th 2007 a description of my layout Two Sister’s Farm was posted by Tellarian on this forum. It was generally well received by the viewers of the thread. Over the intervening years many of the photographs posted at the time no longer exist due to the photo hosts ceasing trading etc. Therefore my last post under the name of bROADOAK was on June 11th 2016. Since it was built the layout has been exhibited over 50 times from Winchester in the south to Crewe in the north. Due to health problems I no longer exhibit the model but still operate it at home from time to time in my conservatory. In July 2016 the model featured in Model Rail magazine and was illustrated by photographs taken by probably the best model railway photographer in the country called Chris Nevard. He has kindly given me permission to share with you the pictures he took for the magazine. I thought some newcomers to the forum might like to see some new photographs of the farm. If there is interest I will post more. A general view of the layout set up on an ironing board. Peter M

[url=https://imgur.com/L3jMeos][img]http://i.imgur.com/L3jMeosl.jpg[/img][/url] Peter M

Nowadays I use Imgur for my photographs and have done so for some time and found them reliable and for me at any rate easy to use. Peter M