3mm scale layout of Launceston & District MRC
Lakebank, the ex Furness Railway branch line built by the Launceston & District MRC has now been sold and has moved to a new home in North Wales. It is hoped that when things return to some normality it will exhibited in the North West including the Lake District.
Before it departed we made a video showing the history of the layout and a flavour of the operating. This can now be viewed on Utube either by searching ‘Lakebank’ or using the following link
Have a look and enjoy
Having returned from a successful trip to the Netherlands with Lakebank ,where we had a very warm welcome and loads of interest from the Dutch, as well as the camaraderie of Gordon and Maggie Gravett, Mark Tatlow, Jerry Clifford and Olly and Chris, I have turned my attention to the left hand side of the layout.
The small station building was previously used on my old layout- Wye Knot- and is based on a mixture of Fairford GWR station and Symonds Yat on the Wye. Valley. The signal box is also recycled and is from my first Broad Gauge layout- Bagborough West.
The over bridge is made from stone embossed plasticard initially painted with a wash of acrylic paint and then the individual stones were picked out in water colour. Finally it was given a wash of acrylic weathering paint. The four horse drag(old mail coach) on the bridge is again recycled from Bagborough West. The coach itself is scratch built from plasticard. Makes a change from ‘the bus on the bridge ‘!!
What is left to do now is mainly adding the small detail to the scene. This includes signals, fencing, plant growth,people and animals. I have tested whether the two boards fit together in the travel box and to my surprise found that all the odd bits of the scene all seemed to intertwine very well. 2 large trees have had to be made removable together with the sailing ship and the sky part of the backscene.
As many will know, Lakebank was featured in the latest issue of Model Railway Journal, no. 250. Since it was published we have added more details to the scene. These include fencing along the edge of the lakeside, advertising around the station and steamer office and the appearance of the Swallow and the Amazon.
These two dingies were made by making a balsa wood former for the hull and covering it in aluminium foil. Strips of cartridge paper were then glued with paper glue around the former, each one being overlapped to represent clinkers. When the whole had dried the former was removed. This was easy as the paper glue did not stick to the foil. The hull was then completed with seats etc using thin card. The mast is a thinned down cocktail stick and the sail is cut from paper and painted. The details of the two dingies were found on a website devoted to all things ‘Ransome’. A Google search will find it.
The next job will be to provide some more road vehicles and then to augment the freight wagon stock.
Lakebank was shown at the Minehead exhibition run by Exmoor Modellers yesterday the 6th August. This was its fourth outing and many of the earlier glitches are being ironed out. So much so that we were awarded Best in Show judged by the lovely Maggie Gravett. Comments were made on the overall atmosphere especially the Lakeland clouds and the windy effect on the water of the lake.
Sorry about the bloke holding the plate!!!
Lakebank has had it’s first showing at the Exeter MRC exhibition 30th/31st May with great success. We were delighted at the reception from experienced modellers and the general public.
Considering the layout hadn’t been run in ernest before the show it operated extremely well. The main problem was with the couplings which had not been properly set up.. It now needs to be fine tuned and run regularly.
The back scene is a photograph of the Lake District fells much cropped and stretched. It was printed out professionally on a plasticised matt paper and then glued to the back scene with spray mount..
Here are a few more pictures of the layout taken at the show;
The ex L&Y 2-4-2 tank arrives with a local passenger still in the old L&Y livery.
Ex L&Y Barton 0-6-0 arrives with a pick up goods.
Work has continued steadily in preparation for Lakebanks first outing at the Exeter MRC show at the end of May. The main scenery is complete and the bugs in running the layout are slowly being ironed out. We are awaiting the backscene and there is still some fine details to be finished. Here are some photos to show were we have got to.
This shows the steamer office for the lake steamers . Lacking population At the moment.
Steady progress is being made on the layout despite lots of talking and coffee on club nights!
The scenery around the throat of the layout is almost complete and efforts are being made to get the layout running more smoothly and complete some of the stock.
there will eventually be a back scene to replace the stark white board as at present.
The front of the Lakebank layout is meant to represent the edge of the lake with part of the steamer jetty and the steamer office. What is needed is a steamer on the water. As the period and location for the layout is based on Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons it seemed a good idea to have the houseboat which belongs to Captain Flint. Arthur Ransome based this on the Twin Screw Steam Yacht “Esperance” which was built in 1869 for the Farrow industrialist H. W. Schneider. He used it to get to the railway station at Lakeside to catch his personal train to Barrow. The yacht is preserved at the Windermere Steam Boat Museum and I found plans and photos on a web site devoted to Ransome’s boats. Below is the completed model made of balsa, card and plasticard. Eventually it will be embedded in the representation of the lake at the front of the layout
Eventually Captain Flint and his parrot might be seen on board!!
I have now finished the model of the ex LNWR Precursor based on the old GEM kit. It has been finished as LMS number 5292 Medusa. The original LNWR number was 366.
The picture below shows it outside the engine shed on the Lakebank layout it is destined for;
Work continues slowly on the club layout. The engine shed which is modelled on the early version of the one at Coniston is now virtually complete. The station buildings and goods shed are in their final positions and work has started on the platforms and the yard around. We are not happy with the profile of part of the embankment at the back of the layout and this is going to be redone. There has been much discussion as to whether we will have a cattle dock as shown in the plans as this would entail the cattle having to be driven through the station yard to get to it. It is not thought that this is prototypical.
Nicks workshop mutterings 