Workshop

A gallery of model building

An insight into some of the build and renovation activities that have taken place at the Wilmslow & Lindow Light Railway workshops. Many are scratch built items along with commissions and loco builds for fellow 16mm modellers.

Scratcbuilding a 16mm model of St Patrick’s Church, Cemaes bay, Anglesey

I visit this church whilst on a trip to Anglesey and it seemed the perfect choice for the garden railway. Not too big, not overly complicated in design and most of all a very pretty looking church. I took serval reference photographs and from these drew up a plan, albeit not to scale, but visually a building that looked correct and would fit well into the new village I was constructing at the side of the cutting curve. Foamex board was chosen as the material for construction. I must confess I have been an absolutely convert to this for all of my buildings as it is easy to cut, score, glue and is above all things, waterproof! The stainED glasses windows on the side were printed onto inkjet acetate sheet and then varnished to protect them and to waterproof them. The large stained glassed window I discovered in Chester Cathedral’s gift shop. It’s a miniature copy of the Ros Grimshaw window in their café and the story behind it is worth checking out. Oh, and yes it did takes ages to scribe the stone pattern into the Foamex board!

A new engine shed

It’s been a couple of years that my plywood engine shed was built and in that time it has lived outside in all weathers. However, the time had come to replace it with something a bit more enduring and once again Foamex board was the material of choice. I used the same dimensions as the original only this time adding a small office onto the side in the styel of the Ashover Light Railway engine shed.

Plateway Models Cattle Van

This Plateway model of a generic cattle van comes with everything you need to complete the kit, even the wheels (though you may wish to replace these will metal ones) and is inexpensive too. An easy build that went together extremely well. It probably took me longer to find the scale cow to go on the inside than it did to finish the model. Recommended

Brandbright Coaches in the style of the North Staffordshire Railway

I wanted a couple of NSR styled coaches to go behind my coal fired engine and so after a trip to Cheddleton Railway to photography the restored NSR coached I purchased two of the latest Brandbright kits. These were easy to build, though certainly not a weekend job. The icing on the cake came when I discovered a local printer who could print my NSR logos onto vinyl. Perhaps an unusual material to choose when it comes to creating our decals/transfers etc but I must admit that the end results were absolutely fantatsic.

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Boot Lane Bagnall Saddle Tank

This is a 3D printed kit from Boot Lane Works, an inexpensive 3D printed model. Like most 3D models it does take some work to get the surface smooth and a combination of model filler and plenty of sanding go along way in achieving this. In it’s base for it makes up a reasonable model but I did find it benefits a lot from the addition of white metal cab steps, hand break and piping, all of which will need to be purchased separately. At the moment the battery and radio control are not installed and the engine is yet to be weathered. I’ll get round to this hopefully sometime in 2025

Riverdale coal fired Lady Anne

The coalfired boiler for the new build was ordered at the beginning of January 2020 and was delivered in December 2020, just in time to avoid any problems with importing and extra taxes caused by UK sadly leaving the UK. The rest of the engine is made up of the kit parts for the Roundhouse Lady Anne, including body, running gear, cylinders and chassis.

Leek & Manifold Station Shelter

Scaling up the plans from Robert Gratton’s superb book on the L&MVLR this station shelter is made from Plastikard in various thicknesses. A nice, easy model to scratch build and really looks the part.

Scratch built Leek & Manifold coaches

Made from Plastikard these coaches were scaled up from the drawings in Robert Gratton wonderful book on the L&MVLR. They include full interior details and lighting. The hardest part was constructing the balconies as the wrought iron detailing was too complicated for me to replicate so I replaced this with an aluminium mesh.

Scratch built Hulme End Station

Made from Plastikard andscaled up from the drawings and photographs of the real Hulme End station (now a tourist information office). The buildimg includes full interior details and lighting. The model also won the Lineside Trophy award at the 2018 16mm Garden Railway Show in Peterborough.

Station Renovation

This station was purchased from a popular online auction site and restored in full, externally and internally complete with lighting. The station was sold shortly after renovation.

Conversion of a cheap G scale wagon to that of a Leek & Manifold flat base wagon.

This was an easy and cheap conversion that involved simply cutting away some of the unnecessary detail and scratch building the two end panels from Plastik card. The bogies and wheels were replaced with SM32 versions.

Scratch built model of Ashover Butts Station on the Ashover Light Railway

Made again from Plastikard, this model was sold shortly after completion.

The railway under construction back in 2008

A selection of images from the first year of the railways’s construction, a time when the children were young and keen to be involved in the building process. Interestingly the eldest is currently in his 2nd year of a civil engineering degree, one hope’s these early life experiences have led him to choose such a career.