Slow 16mm Modelling

A wonderful aspect of railway modelling is that you are creating your own organisation. A model has a physical presence, it has boundaries and it does something. It looks to you to be the boss. You are the head maquetteur. I’ve borrowed from the French (maquette can mean layout). Don't the French create a term with such style and panache?

A model 16mm Wrightscale Wren on our layout. This is whjat modellingis all about!

It those heady early days of planning, levelling and the all-important discussions with friends, the role of the boss is pretty clear. The boss leads from the front, makes compromises, sacrifices and whatever it takes to get things done.

As boss as your own little world, there are a plethora of decisions to be made. Before beginning, there is the story behind the model – or in business-speak the Company Objective. Something all-inclusive such as ‘layout which is not too complicated to run and can accommodate a maximum of rolling stock’ seems like a good idea. As the market-place is already crowded with Busy Great Western Railway Stations At A Time Just After Reorganisation, a little more imagination is required.

The Boss eventually settles on a scenario which takes account of the rolling stock he/she truly loves. In Malcolm’s case, this includes model Wrens circa 1922, a Glyn Valley Baldwin, a Quarry Hunslet or so, slate trucks, passenger wagons etc. It must also accommodate  the rolling stock friends bring. ‘1920s rural branchline serving a quarry would do’ It would take the loco’s and wagons which friends bring – they have come down the branchline to make a special delivery.

16mm Wrightscale Wren doing what she does best, pushing a train of skips. Photographed in a friend's garden

The idea has then to be fitted into the space available.  Should the track feature a turning circle, fiddle yard or an American Triangle? All are solutions to the modeller’s perennial problem. Prime mover and train progress into the layout and then majestically progress out again. They can procede into a concealed fiddle-yard to be reconfigured and turned around. They can go round in a circle and reappear; this is most fun if parts of the circle are artfully concealed. Best of all for the radio-controlled loco or layout boasting reliable electrical switching is the American triangle. A lot of hands-free fun can, in principle be had turning the train around.

Layout design by MD Wright showing station building, carriage and engine sheds and a bridge over a stream. The track is complicated but not overly so.

Depending on the space available, most maquetteurs go for some combination of these. Here the ingenuity and resource of the boss can really show itself. As we are no longer children, happy to play on the carpet, the layout has to make concessions to creaky old bones. There have to be elevated sections of track. In theory, this was easy for the Wrights as our garden slopes; all that is required is a little gentle terracing so we thought!  It is an interesting fact, probably not obvious until earth-moving starts that one cubic metre of normal soil ie mix of sandy, clay and stony earth, weighs roughly two tonnes. Measured in builder’s buckets filled to the brim, this is perhaps twenty such buckets – measured in buckets that can be carried by an amateur, considerably more. The boss has to have personal strength and be able to use a variety of ways to exhort, bribe and cajole the workforce.

At last, the plan starts to take shape. The maquetteur must become a details nerd. A train, especially its locomotive can cope with rough track, sinuous track or gradients but not all three at once. Careful planning, not to say yet more earthmoving is required.

Truly, going from being a dreamer to boss of a fully fledged working layout requires time, talent and treasure, to say nothing of energy.    

The successful boss is known for his/her stamina.

We all love the stories in our specialist journals of the maquetteur who rises at 5am to be at railway gathering. This and the get-together afterwards may last until midnight or after. He or she is perfectly coherent throughout even when all others go from enthusiastic to incoherent to forgetting where they left their car keys.

Boss and workforce beside elevated section of a turning circle.

This is what it takes to make and run a railway which is fun for self and all the group.

The trouble comes when the railway is up-and-running. A year of group meetings are in the calendar and a comfy ‘garage nook’ has been set up for repairs, storage and fiddling.

What now? The weekend comes when the maquetteur charges into the garden at 7am, eager to get stuck in. In these days of lock- down, it could happen any day of the week.  The only problem is what to do. The boss has to realise that the layout has reached a new stage. It is a matter of same-old same-old rather than the former headlong rush of challenges.

The moment of change has arrived. The boss has hit all the key performance indicators. Now is the time to slow down. The wise maquetteur recognises a limited number of projects to be carried forward. Roughly half our craft can do this instinctively. The others can face a problem. The pulsing, relentless energy which got the layout built is still there. It was great before – shouldn’t it be used to go forward? Well, no, sometimes it has to be reined in. It is time to get in touch with your inner weekender.

16mm water tanker built by Jim Hawkesworth on Wrightscale WD bogies.Why is it about to appear on a rural peacetime branchline? If you've got what it takes, you will have an answer.

The weekender is one who will stand there, sometimes thinking, or sometimes just sitting. The boss, especially one who has a group of friends dotted about the layout may even be bored. He/she is getting to grips with the subtle underlying reality of the mature organisation. It can’t be expressed in a few slogans. It needs a series of pictures, even stories. It comes out quietly, even shyly. Overmuch activity frightens it away. The posh name, I suppose, is The Strategy.

Now that the layout is coming of age, the boss has to consider maintenanc and improvements. Action must onlybe taken if the improvements they enter the spirit of the existing outfit, or makes a train day even more fun. A great layout empowers others.

Happy steaming!

16mm indoor layout created by the late Henry Holdsworth. Photo courtesy Jim Hawkesworth