16mm Layout With Gravity Incline

It is always fun to find links, especially with romantic times and places.

Here is a 16mm layout with plenty of contours and gradients, based on a Welsh slate quarry. Hunslet locomotive is by Wrightscale. We now invite you to go even further afield.

What, indeed could be more exotic than nineteenth century Paris? For centuries, the British have looked forward to fun or study in Paris. If they couldn’t make it there, they would import a few French chefs, Paris fashions or racy French novels. So here is a little bit of Paris which you could put on to your 16mm scale layout.

This print of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte (1808-73) is taken from a photograph by Appert: courtesy MD Wright. LNB is a character I have tried to sketch in a former blog. He had a plentiful back-story. He considered himself to be semi-royal, and as the heir to Napoléon Bonaparte (1769-1821). The youth of Louis-Napoléon was spent in various parts of Europe and in circumstances varying from Army to prison. After a daring escape from captivity, he turned up in Paris just as the Second Republic was foundering. (The first Republic was post Revolutionary France.) In 1852, he took power and was elected leader for life in an in-out-simple-majority type plebiscite. Just like a certain other in-out referendum the result was always contested .

In honour of his uncle Napoléon, he called his administration (1852-1870) the Second Empire and himself Emperor Napoléon III. This empire ceased with humiliating defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and he ended as he began, in exile.

It is said that the French tried to forget about him, which is not entirely true. In school textbooks he was held up as something between Macbeth, tragically flawed, and a warning about the effects of fornication and substance abuse. Jean Paul Sartre sets Hell in a room furnished in Second Empire style. No-one is entirely useless - he can always serve as a bad example. At the same time, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte has his defenders. The turmoil since the Revolution had not done much for general living standards. There is some truth in what George Orwell wrote. A revolution merely transfers wealth from one group to another. There is no overall increase in assets themselves.

In other countries, the pie was increasing so everyone in theory could have a larger slice.These16mm models of a 19th century prototype show how freight could be moved. In early 19th century Britain, energy production, agriculture and industry all increased. Gradually, the population became better off. A widening network of railways shifting ever increasing volumes of freight. helped growth on its way. Up to 1850, France was somewhat behind Britain in this respect. During the Second Empire, the pie did increase. The Belle Époque, that explosion of wealth and general living standards was helped by the reforms of 1853-70. Education was reformed. Mechanisation crept into everything. The railways which had been but a pious hope began to be built.  There were improvements in agriculture.

To a hungry person, the arts are little more than a mirror or a lamp, but when the belly is full, they are important. A range of French arts flourished. Being something of an iconoclast, NIII suggested a Salon des Réfusés. Artists such as Manet and Pissaro could show their works and shake painting etc out of its complacent rut.

Most importantly for the Decauville story and through it the whole history of 60cm/2’ gauge railways, NIII authorised the rebuilding of Paris. Decauville and others were inspired by the 2’ railways of Wales, they in turn inspired the engineers of Britain and thus were built the lovely prototypes of the Lynton and Barnstaple, Clay Cross, Snailbeach etc.

This picture shows what we think of as a timeless scene. MD Wright has photographed tourists standing on a bridge leading to the Ile de Paris, with Notre Dame Cathedral in the background. Before 1853, the scene would have been different. The cathedral would have been hidden by slums, freqently threatened by the river in flood. The broad avenues and golden stone represent a tremendous effort. Napoléon III planned a peaceful and rational Paris, one where the mutinous under-classes could no longer build barricades, where Law and Order would reign supreme, where homes were airy and hygienic and large new hospitals could be built. It started on the back of the proverbial envelope, using coloured crayons. Wide avenues would spread from the centre. The old city walls, the old bulwarks, would become boulevards, providing concentric ring roads and linking the new railway terminuses.

One such plan was proposed for London just after the Second World War but was never built. What made the difference in Paris?

Enter Georges Eugène Haussmann. His weaknesses were to prove his strengths. He suffered from asthma, so he approved of green spaces. He had a genuine civil-service mentality, so he was not out to make money for himself. He was pig-headed, so he was blessed by certainty. NIII was prepared to back him.

An army of labourers more-or-less levelled the old Paris, evicting thousands. This (slightly later) picture shows the quarries at the Decauville premisses just outside Paris supplying stone. Before rebuilding, they created a network of sewers and gas pipes below ground and fresh water supplies above. Vast new parks were allocated. Then Paris was rebuilt, largely as five to six storey blocks of mansion flats, with handy attics for artists. There was no real provision for labourers and servants; their accommodation was simply moved from the centre to the outskirts.

For anyone wealthy, the new clean, tidy Paris became the ideal holiday destination. Thanks to improved transport, all the joys of French regional cooking were available. Art, theatre, fashion, music and dance which had received extensive state encouragement sice the renaissance finally had worthy showplace. Thanks to all the gas lighting and the quick routes for emergency services, Paris was safe. The other attraction were the girls drawn into Paris, at a safe distance from disapproving relatives. One 20^th century journalist doing fearless research at the celebrated nightclub, the Moulin Rouge, discovered to his pained surprise that ‘not a single girl was from Paris.’ What is true now was true then. Parisians considered that how foreigners met and what they got up to was their own business – as long as rents etc were paid. The tourists loved it. On the one hand, they could boast of their adventures in Paris, on the other, police and hospitals were always close by.

We haven’t forgotten Decauville. His family occupied a farm at Petit-Bourg, Evry on the Seine just south of Paris. They did well because they had specialised in sugar-beet. The pastry chefs of Paris could buy everything they produced.  They were doubly fortunate. The farm sloped down to the river and its upper levels were made of building-grade limestone.

The whole new Paris presupposed quality building stone. Sewers were lined with it, the new mansion blocks were lined with it. The Decauville family had the next best thing to a gold-mine, as long as they could transport the products of their quarry to the barges waiting on the Seine. The balanced or gravity incline was used in Germany at the end of the 18^th century. Rammelsburg in the Harz had parallel track. As they went down, the laden carts pulled up the empties. A more modern version of this existed at the Decauville farm, possibly as early as the 1840s.

Thanks to kind Roger Bailly, we are able to present a detail from an engraving, by the celebrated Victor Rose. It suggests that by 1880, the ‘plan incliné’ was transporting hardcore rather than top quality stone. It shows the sophistication of the quarry railway as well as the amount of material which had been extracted. One balanced incline leads to another. At least 20 tipper wagons are visible though relatively few labourers. Investment improves productivity which improves salaries, that virtuous circle which characterises France of teh later 19th century.

Decauville portable railway was the felicitous child of the agricultural and quarrying sides of the Decauville enterprise. If he hadn’t had track available, he would not have invented his agricultural railway. The agricultural railway gave rise to military railway. The genius of Prosper Péchot created essential refinements and the German Army improved on it yet again. And all thanks to Haussmann and his patron Napoléon III.

Here is a challenge for 16mm modellers. Add interest and contours to your layout by creating a balanced incline on your railway. As the laden wagons go down, they can pull the 'empties' back up to your quarry or farm. In the illustration of the Decauville quarry, a chain on a pivot links the up with the down train.TAs mentioned before, there ae many and varied prototypes. The pastoral 16mm scene below features a Wrightscale Wren pushing some empties along the level.  It could be just coming to the base of an incline. It pushes its empties to join the waiting train of empties. When a train is ready to descend, they are pulled up. It would be fun!

16mm WDLR stock

We read with interest Steve Thornhill’s article in the latest issue of Sixteen Millimetres Today (Issue 175 pp 42 to 45). We are delighted that he shares our interest in this strange yet strangely logical prototype. Various books have been written on the topic - more later.

The Baldwin Gas Mechanical was a locomotive used on 60cm gauge railways during the First World War. Photo taken at Froissy upper Somme by Malcolm Wright

We admire his go-ahead pioneer attitude. All he had was Mamod track and his ‘occasions’ box. And of course, an idea! From the basic bogie, he then created a series of wagons fulfilling several different purposes. Some were simple push-along ‘trucks’ some were more elaborate bolster wagons - bolster wagon consisting of two bogies linked by a chain. This flexible arrangement could take anything from a load of prefabricated track to a gun. 

The story of the Steve Thornhil wagons reflects the story of the originals. They too were ingenious improvisations. In the First World War, the British Expeditionary Force did not go to France with any portable railway equipment. They imagined that, like Napoleon, they would be powering through Northern Europe so fast that no railway building could keep up . Only the beastly trenches of the Opposition were stopping them!

In the meantime, they had to dig trenches of their own and staff them. Once armies were camped out in this way, supply became an issue. At first, they relied on their Allies to provide them with the necessities  – and didn’t ask too many questions as to how they were doing it. They didn’t reflect on how the German armies were supplying their own trenches.  Perhaps, as they struggled through the mud with rations on their backs, they assumed that the French and Germans were doing the same. But not for long …

This 'official' War Department bogie bolster arrangement could be used for timber, lengths of prefabricated track, you name it. Wrightscale 16mm bogie bolster kit

Various forms of supply were tried. They requisitioned horses and mules in their millions. Lorries, buses and taxis were tried. There were always problems. The life of the horse at the Front was tragically short. The primitive tyres of their lorries cut the French country roads to ribbons. For want of handy peasants, they used their own soldiers. But of course, if an army of humans is used to supply an army then that army in turn requires an army ….. Same went for the horses.

The men on the ground quickly spotted the problems and equally rapidly looked for solutions. Like Steve Thornhill, they found some good ideas and then looked in the ‘spares’ box to replicate them. The Imperial War Museum, whose archive is now available for genuine research, has some photographs which immortalise the creations of the men on the ground.

As early as winter 1914, experiments began. These first home-made narrow gauge tracks tended to be a practical way to address the most pressing problem – how to get supplies from a siding on a standard gauge, or metre gauge railway to the trenches. The counties of northern France were quite rich in metre gauge railways which supplemented the standard gauge network. Some of the tracks were quite ingenious, and that is before we discuss the rolling stock!

Around Ypres, in the northern section of the line, track was improvised from wooden stakes joined together. Sheets of metal bashed out of ration tins were used to plate the parts which received most wear. They even had points on these proto-railways. This has incredible modelling potential – Steve Thornhill and fellow enthusiastd please note. For the record, they used biscuit tins, the large size ….

An 'official' War Department bogie which as you see also doubles as a push truck, if a wooden platform is added. It has a metal frame and brakes and is rated at 5 tonnes. Wrightscale 16mm WD bogie

On these ran the ‘push-wagons’ so-called because they were designed for pushing by human power. It is to be noted that their descendants, Class A wagons with removable sides were rated at a maximum load of 3 tons 12 hundredweight – well over 3 metric tonnes. Simply by putting the load on rails made humans more productive than military general service road-wagons each hauled by two mules. The limiting factor was the quality of the rail.

A contemporaryphotograph of a heavily used road (the route supplying Verdun during the siege of 1916) shows that the army being transported is equalled by the army repairing the road. Collection MD Wright

The wagon which inspired Steve Thornhill was the so-called Calais-pattern push-truck. The drawing he refers to is the excellent one by Peter Foley. (page 171 of WDLR Companion). The ‘Calais truck' was still being used in 1918, though running on 16 pound per yard (approximately7kg per metre) rail rather than on timber baulks.

Other wondrous creations are recorded. What could not be made was scrounged, mainly 9 pound/yard or 16 pound/yard railway, from French agricultural and light industrial workings. Thanks to the Decauville company, almost every farm, brickworks or quarry had some. With good will and rough-and-ready engineering, much could be achieved.

The would-be modeller can refer to Imperial War Museum negative Q1453 for a picture of a man-hauled trolley, Q 7906, a Lartigue-type monorail, Q 33416, a Wilson-type monorail operating in a trench and to my special favourite, Q 4380. This is the Scotch Express, probably posed for the occasion. This wonderful construction was made from motor-car parts. The radiator is clearly visible and the locomotive is (possibly) running on the inner rims of the car wheels.

A trench, even a replica trench, requires wood, corrugated iron and plenty of labour. Photographed by MD Wright at Apedale 2014

Though the Imperial War Museum photos date from the Somme campaign and later (July to October 1916 on to November 1918), we can be confident that our boys had improvised labour saving devices long before then.

For those who are keen on vehicles repurposed from motor cars, there were some ‘official’ prime movers – the Crewe tractors. The Crewe works of the London and North Western Railways converted Model T Ford cars for military use, both on roads and on rail. 132 were provided for the  War Department programme, though not officially for War Department Light Railways. Another 6 one-ton Ford lorries were, it is believed, built for the war in East Africa.

By 1915, a tremendous tonnage was being moved out to the trenches. In the reminiscences of Ian Hay, some well-established regiments had built homes from home and many modern conveniences in timber. Piccadilly Circus and the Fleet, not to forget Tipperary, had been mapped on to the fields of the Somme. By early 1916, the British were quietly imitating the French, who had an immensely sophisticated trench railway, first developed by Prosper Péchot of the French artillery. To begin with, they were given a branch-line. A month into the Battle of the Somme they were forced into their own War Department Light Railways programme.

A century after the First World War, a bogie wagon designed by Colonel Péchot of the French artillery shows its metal, still able to carry ten tonnes of freight. Taken at Apedale by MD Wright

As the story goes, Top Brass had tried to support the Somme offensive by transporting supplies and ammunition by lorry. These machines were so thirsty that there was no fuel for buses at home. As the Home Front was vital for making the ammunition, this could not be tolerated. In fact, General Haig was already sympathetic to the concept of Field Railways and the Home Front was a welcome excuse for making trench railways official. Sir Eric Geddes and the War Department Light Railways were approved by the highest authorities..

In fact, as the photographic evidence shows, a proper railway of bogie trucks running on 60cm prefabricated track pre-existed the War Department Light Railways. On the other hand, the rough creations of the resourceful military workshops were still being used at the end of the War.

All self-respecting horses stayed well back from the action. These ones charged the enemy in Spring 1918. Photo copyright MD Wright

The First Hundred Thousand Ian Hay. A contemporary account, republished many times since

Col Péchot:P Tracks To The Trenches by Sarah Wright Birse Press

WDLR Companion by  Colonel David W. Ronald and Roy C. Link. It has a treasury of contemporary photographs, drawings by Peter Foley and it has illustrations refurbished from the sketches which appear in WJK Davies

WDLR Album compiled by Roy C Link (both RCLpublications)

Light Track to Arras

Light Railways of the First World War by WJK Davies

Ahhh... any excuse to show the BGM once more