STOKE CANON A 1950s GWR mainline in N Designed and built by Laurie Wood Objectives Stoke Canon is an n-gauge layout created from memories of my early life growing up in Devon during those last years of steam on the Great Western Region. The aim was to create a model railway to showcase the beauty of the railway, engineered and built in the C19 in those deepest parts of the West Country. Set in rural Devon and Cornwall, the layout features some of the typical landscapes of the region where engineers had to overcome those huge challenges of building a railroad across steep hills and over valleys and rivers. Layout Stoke Canon did once exist as a small station just outside of Exeter on the main line to Paddington. It is from this location that a local branch line once wound its way up through the Exe Valley en route to Dulverton. I vividly recall those 14XX class tank engines chugging along this picturesque stretch of line. The layout of this model railway is fictitious and based largely on typical line configurations and rural scenes of Devon and Cornwall in the late 1950s. Gently sweeping curves of track dominate the layout to help add interest and the only areas of straight track are located in the fiddle yard. I have always held the view that trains look more interesting on curved track, so the whole layout is built around curves, including the station. To emphasise the topography and highlight features such as embankments and cuttings, the double track mainline is built 50mm above baseboard level. This also helps make the trains more visible. The branch line runs at a higher level, taking the railway across deep valleys and over rivers via stone viaducts, another common feature in the West Country. To allow continuous running, a major objective on this railway, the layout is planned around a 'U' shape form with 3 baseboards, each 1500x650mm in size, occupying a total area of 2.8x1.5m. The layout can therefore be viewed from 3 sides. Also important was the ability to run trains of a reasonable length and at a realistically slow speed. Triple points in the fiddle yard allow for longer roads to help accommodate longer length trains. Why n-gauge? The overall size of the layout, its portability and storage were all major considerations at design stage and this is why the decision was taken to use (1:148) n-gauge. Construction The railway uses 3 baseboards with plywood lids for transportation and was originally designed to fit into the back of an Audi A6 estate car. 1 Weight was also an important consideration, so the lightest materials have been used throughout to make it easier to transport and store. The baseboards are built of 5mm ply with a 50x25mm redwood outer frame and 5x50mm ribs to stiffen the construction with holes pre-drilled for the wiring. 70mm dia. aluminium (kitchen style) legs bolt to the baseboards and have adjustable feet - always useful on uneven floors. The boards bolt together with pattern maker's dowels and toggle catches. DCC A DCC system is used throughout with trains operated from an Ecos controller which provides continuous power (14v) to every part of the trackwork. One of the benefits of DCC is that locomotives are effectively driven from the cab using chip technology and there is always a full 14v of power to draw from. This allows locomotives to operate at crawling speed - so much more realistic, particularly on freight trains. The steam locomotives on this layout all have sound fitted which use sugar-cube speakers located in the tenders. They also have firebox flicker added using tiny orange coloured LED lights on the footplate which helps illuminate the crew on each locomotive. The quality of n-scale locomotives has improved enormously over the last few years and with the advent of DCC, there is much to admire in both performance and appearance. Heavy duty bus wires run under the main tracks with out-of-sight power feeds soldered to the underside of rails at 90cms centres. This ensures that all lines have full power. Track work is Peco 55 throughout and all rail joints are carefully soldered for reliable running. All points are powered (except in the fiddle yard) and controlled from the Ecos. The Peco turntable is also fully automated. Motorised semaphore signals from Dapol operate automatically with infra-red sensors located within the track using Block Signalling circuitry. Trackwork The old GWR 6ft rule or distance between tracks has been carefully followed on this layout and all trackwork is banked on bends to create 'super elevation'. This was achieved using thin strips of masking tape built up under one side of the sleepers before ballasting. Trains effectively lean into the bends for added effect and this, along with the shoulders of ballast created by the cork, adds that little extra realism to the railway. All the tighter curves are located out of sight in tunnels where this gap is enlarged slightly to give enough room for passing trains and should a train derail inside a tunnel, it can be easily reached via access ports from the fiddle yard. Trackwork is all laid on a 2mm cork bed over a 5mm ply base and supported on ply legs glued to the baseboards. This creates a very strong and stable base for the railway lines. The sweeping curves were formed using paper templates and a meter long flexible steel rule. 2 Landscape The hills and embankments were built using polystyrene foam, shaped using a hot-wire cutter and finished in lightweight reinforced plaster, as used in hospitals and sanded down to the required contours. All surfaces were then painted a mid brown colour and finished in various mixes of static grass - products made by Woodland Scenics and others. Many different mixes of flock were trialled to replicate high summer in full bloom. Material from Green Scenes was used for the ballast, with rails painted a suitable colour to tone in with the ballast. I hand painted the backcloths using acrylic paint to represent scenes from Dartmoor and Cornwall and the trees were made largely from a combination of Woodland Scenics products and dried stems of plants, mainly Hydrangea. The dense woodland was formed using builders' foam to create what some call a 'meringue forest', shaped and finished in flock materials and sprayed in various shades of green. A gentle dusting of grey spray primer helped tone down some of these colours which also give a better sense of perspective on distant scenes. The pine trees were externally sourced. Narrow sunken lanes with Devon banks and towering hedgerows are a feature of this railway. A mix of wild flowers gives colour to the grassed embankments and hedgerows. All tunnel faces, bridges and platforms were scratch built using plasticard and material sheets from Ratio and all painted, weathered and finished in matt varnish. The viaducts were built from Ratio kits and carefully altered to suit the profiles of the curved trackwork. The tunnels were built of plasticard and sound proofed using mineral fibre quilt to quieten the sound of the locos when they enter tunnels. The river, weir and estuary were all made using clear epoxy resin on a painted riverbed, with a finish of Mod Podge to create the ripples and shimmers on the surface of the water. A small secluded beach is located on one corner of the layout, set below steep cliffs built from solid cork. Figures on the beach were supplied by Noch and the gulls and cormorants 3D printed by the company Modelu. Farm animals and crew on the footplates of the locomotives were also built by Modelu and hand painted and finished in matt varnish. Buildings The platform footbridge, signal box, station buildings, engine shed and steel bridge over the estuary were all scratch built and hand painted in appropriate GWR livery. As an architect I used to build models of buildings I designed. The houses and farm buildings on this layout are modelled from real examples in East Devon where I live. Covid gave me the opportunity to explore the county more fully, where I could select an appropriate building and then sketch and survey it to model for the rural scenes. 3 The town is loosely based on Totnes with its famous East Gate building, a feature of the design. All buildings are built from plasticard with filler applied to surfaces and sanded to resemble plaster, together with various wall and roof products made by Peco and Ratio. Windows are made from acetate sheet with mullions and glazing bars scratched onto the surface. Polyurethane foam was chosen as the most suitable material for thatched roofing. Locomotives & Rolling Stock GWR locomotives on this railway are all Farish/ Bachmann or Dapol models and include: Castles, Hall, Grange, Manor, 38XX, 14XX together and BR 2MT Class. These along with rakes of carriages have all been appropriately weathered to look as they would have looked in service. Other locos are Western and Warship Class diesel hydraulics that took over from steam engines in the early 1960s. I always admired those two types of diesel for their attractive design and awesome sound, powered by those mighty Maybach V12 turbo diesel engines. The sound fitted into each of these locomotives is surprisingly realistic. On the freight trains, box vans along with coal and china clay wagons are mostly kit built and weathered to match the locomotives. The coaches are all Farish/ Bachmann Mk 1 stock with NEM couplings that successfully close the gap between coaches - a feature which significantly improves the look of passenger trains on a model railway. Final Thoughts I once built a small model railway for one of my children and vowed one day in retirement I would build one for myself and make it as detailed and realistic as possible. It turned out to be a real learning curve, experimenting for the first time with so many different types of material. The exhibition layout of Pendon (00 gauge), surely one of the finest model railways in the world, inspired me to embark on this project. Stoke Canon took 7 years to build and I deliberately chose NOT keep a log of the time I spent building it - I would never live it down! Despite the time it's taken, it's been great fun to build.