Baie de LA Maye

Tramway du Baie de la Maye

Se, narrow gauge, 12 @ 2 foot

The future

Description      Why Se     Tramway du Marquenterre

The future    The North Downs Model Railway Circle is thinking about running a 'large layout exhibition' possibly staring late autumn 2021 or 2022. The Circle needs large narrow gauge layouts. The options are to extend Rhiw to 16 foot, Bowerchalke to 12 or 16 foot, and/or for the Baie de la Maye to (1) refurbish all four boards or (2) refurbish boards 1 & 2 and rebuild boards 3 & 4 with 4 becoming a passing station and 3 becoming an active sandpit and the existing sandpit would be re-sceniced as out of use. With either option possibly extending the Baie de la Maye by adding more scenic board or having the fiddle yards at the ends rather than behind the layout.
Any action will depend on the layout meeting the Circle's current mantra    'No action till funding is available, there's identified operators, and an identified need'.

Prior thoughts    about refurbishing the layout

Description  On either side of its Estuary the River Somme laid down the Marquenterre an area of flat land rarely rising above 10 meters criss-crossed by drainage ditches, canals and windbreaks. It is famed for its dairy farming and aggregate extraction. At the end of the nineteenth century tourism started developing round the Somme Estuary but due to poor transport not in the area west of Rue. Frederic Delaitre a banker released that by using Decauville’s new system an inexpensive narrow gauge rural tramway could be built across the Marquenterre. He formed a company to build a tramway from the coastal railway line at Rue to le Maye and Quend-Plage les-Pins. The tramway headed west from Rue for four kilometres to Marquenterre were la Maye line turned south-east into le Champ Neuf (the New Field) and after four kilometres reached the la Maye on the Baie de la Maye. From Marquenterre Junction the Quend-Plage les-Pins line turned north west passed through le Bout des Crocs and St. Quentin en Tourmont as only the first six and a half kilometres was built it ended at Dunes Les Blancs a temporary terminus in the middle of nowhere. Given the tramways speculative nature costs were minimised with limited station facilities and signalling only at Marquenterre (Junction). Train control uses baton pilote, the equivalent of a British train staff system, with sections from Marquenterre to Rue, le Maye, and Dunes Les Blancs. The tramway rapidly found that seasonal tourist traffic was far from a money-spinner, local passenger and freight traffic were helpful but wouldn’t keep the tramway afloat. So every effort was made to develop sand and gravel traffic enabling the tramway’s to survive the 1920’s and 30’s despite the decline in other traffic due to competition from motor vehicles. By the 1950’s the tramway had become largely a sand and gravel haulier with limited other traffic. The layout is inspired by the Tramway du Marquenterre.

Why Se    The layout is built to S scale (1:64) on 9mm gauge track the combination is known as Se. The advantages are it scales the 9mm track up to 576mm or very close to 600mm and at 1:64 scale the Jouef skips are almost the correct scale size. All other stock and the buildings are scratch built

Tramway du Marquenterre.    The tramway connected the mainline at Quend to the English Channel tourist resorts of Quend Plarge [beach] and Fort Mahon Plarge. It formed a Y with a ‘mainline’ line from Quend to Quend Plarge and a north westerly branch from Monchaux to Fort Mahon Plarge. The line was prompted by the Society Immobiliere de St Quentin Plarge’ a firm of speculative builders who needed the tramway to bring in building materials and purchases. They used the Decauville 600mm [24”] tramway system due to its low cost and suitability for civil engineering works. In 1914 the line was lifted for the war effort re-laid in 1919 and continued in operation till 1928.

Prior thoughts    The problem is the Baie de la Maye has no role. It is not needed at (a) Tadworth were there is neither an operator nor space, (b) Lenham, and (c) other exhibitions were standard gauge layouts are preferred. Until a role is found other projects have higher priority so the layout has to use in stock material not needed by other layouts.

A quartet of poor photos of a scenic layout

OPTIONS

 
REFURBISHMENT