HolyPort

00, 1980's Network South  East, 12 @ .5 foot


Back ground to Holyport

Port Isaac Holyport Drummore Tal-y-Bont
Great Western Railway - Light Railways



The first task was to strip Holyport Mark One's factory/ fiddle yard board of track. I did this by using copious  quantities of boiling water to loosen the glue holding the ballast in
place, pliers to pull out the track pins, and a pointed putty knife to lift the track. I left the layout overnight to dry then sanded off any unwanted ballast etc and   patched the cork.
I tried to do minimum damage to the scenery.

I was then able to 'get on site' and decided to lengthen the platform (left) requiring replacing the road with a foot path. The platform is a card core veneered with Slater's
Plasticard. I tried to make the platform more visually interesting by widening it as approached the factory. I don't think that worked and had made it extra work.

As I finished the carding I realised that a concrete and tarmac platform a mix of light and dark grey would be visually dull so I decided to replace the tarmac with red bricks.
Its relatively easy to make any colour of brick you just add  dye when manufacturing sand-lime bricks. So the bricks must have come from the brickworks at
Tallarn Green.

The next move was to add fencing. I then added the seat, lights, ticket machine and snack dispenser hat make the platform more visually interesting and help to hold the
fence in place. The people followed I've tried to place them in realistic poises. I haven't weathered as the platform etc as they are recently built.

A major changes is the railways as been improvements in health and safety this is shown on Holyport by the safety notices
round the gate and the coloured lights saying when it is safe to cross. The pathway is to/from a car park behind the hedge.

The Class 09 'Gronk' was unappreciative of the carriage shed which has been temporarily removed and the ground on which it sat grassed over.


OPERATION

My initial thoughts were to be prototypical and operate the passenger service with a class 162 'bubble car' shuttling in and out. Experience showed this to be dull
so I added heritage trains. My stock gives me the options of trains from either the Cholsey and Wallingford Railway hauled by a Class 09 'Gronk'/industrial loco or
a B-set from the Didcot Railway Centre hauled by a Great Western Railway loco.

Freight operation is more interesting. A 'Gronk' hauls trains to/from from Slough. The options are an oil train, a van train, or a metal train to the factory - notice the recently acquired bird.

The siding at the right back serves an industrial estate with the oil depot and a factory. The oil trains comprise a barrier wagon 1-3 tank wagons and another barrier wagon.

The van train.

The metal train comprises two vans and a coil bogie flat wagon . On arriving the 'Gronk' removes a van and an
empty coil wagon from the siding inside the factory. It then shunts a full coil wagon to siding inside the factory.

The van at the front of the factory are then removed and replaced by the van from inside the factory and an inbound van. The second 
 inbound van is then shunted into the factory. The outbound wagons are then marshalled up and the 'Gronk' and wagons run to Slough.
There are two coil wagons an empty and full. The full is always in bound and the empty always out bound.