Bishop's Castle c.1932

[Jonathan]

I've seen several comments on here regarding aspects of the Bishop's Castle Railway.

 

Members may be interested to see the image below which shows the 4mm Finescale layout built over the last couple of years of the line's terminus by a group of modellers in the Bishop's Castle Railway Society. The layout is out and about on the exhibition circuit and has been seen at the Ludlow Model Railway Show in 2023. Bishop's Castle c.1932 will be out on tour this year at both the Shrewsbury and Stafford Model Railway Exhibitions in June and September respectively. The layout features models of both the line's locomotives - Number 1 (nicknamed Tankie/Tankey by the railway) an 0-4-2T acquired secondhand from the GWR and Carlisle  an 0-6-0 tender engine likewise acquired secondhand from a railway building contractor in the north of England in 1895.

 

I've now added a second photograph which shows the two engines in greater detail. An amusing sidenote is that when the GWR sold the 517 class tank engine to the BCR, the GWR would only release the engine once the cheque from the BCR had cleared. Given just how impecunious the BCR was, it was a wise precaution!

Edited January 10 by Jonathan
Adding additional photograph

[David C]

Looks like a really good layout which captures the run down and overgrown nature of the prototype. Any more pictures and details of the locos and stock? I'd love to see it in the flesh, too.

 

David C

[Jonathan]

Thank you for your very kind comments. There are plenty more photographs of the layout in its present form - but I'm not certain how many I am allowed to post on here. I'll put some more up very shortly and see if they stay. We are building an extension to it taking the model down the line to the next station at Lydham Heath. This was where the mile and a half long Bishop's Castle branch joined what should have been the "main" line to Montgomery but was also where the line in fact ended beside a country lane when the scheme ran out of money. When complete we will have an "L" or "T" shaped layout but it works very well as it is at present from the station down onto a traverser.

 

The rolling stock comprises the two locomotives which you have seen, a good selection of BCR goods wagons and POs of which we have photographic evidence of their presence on the line. Some of the wagons have been scratch built. Coaching stock comprises the ex 6 wheel L&SWR (ex Neath and Brecon and ex GWR) coach which by the date the layout is set was the only BCR coach then operational. We have two GWR 4 wheelers which the BCR hired in for excursion traffic and there is also an ex Hull and Barnsley coach not yet running. This survived - out of use - until the line closed when it was scrapped. We may twist history and have it trundling up and down as there are many contradictory tales of aspects of the BCR including when this or that ceased working. All the trains - save for cattle specials and the odd excursion - ran mixed.

 

All the buildings are scratch built, including the weighbridge which is where the layout normally resides and is where we have our museum and wall displays which tell the history of the railway. The weighbridge is the last surviving railway building in Bishop's Castle, now fully restored from near total dereliction. The model weighbridge building (the one with the slate roof) can be seen in the first photograph at the top behind the pile of timber and the cattle pens.

 

Replicating the rundown nature of the prototype with its grass grown lines, within a couple of years of closure (which came in April 1935) was our intention. By then, all of the buildings were falling to bits with the carriage and engine sheds propped up with heavy timbers to prevent their total collapse - as you can see on the model.

 

Thank you once again for your kind comments and if anyone else wishes to ask any other questions about the model, please feel free to do so.

 

Jonathan

[Jonathan]

Here are some more photographs of Bishop's Castle c.1932:-

 

The first is a bucolic "down the line" shot  with some of the local wildlife in evidence. We have a "spot the animals" quiz for our younger (and not so young) visitors. So far the hedgehog and stoats have evaded everyone's efforts to find them - but, along with the sparrow hawk, the badgers, the hare, and so on, they are there! The cow parsley is made from teased out green fibres and fine white scatter stuck on with hair spray; the hedges are from the usual rubberised horsehair and a mixture of coloured scatters. The fields are made from grass mats with added scatter. The results are very pleasing. The second photograph shows more detail of the rundown yard and rolling stock. The third is an exact recreation, deliberately in black and white, of a posed photograph taken on the railway in the 1930s, with the two engines and behind them the Gwilt wagon on the loading wharf siding. The final shot is of the layout being operated at the Ludlow Show in 2023.

 

Jonathan

 

[peterm1]

That's looking really good. Looking forward to more photos and the extension.

 

[2996 Victor]

Such a great model of such a fascinating railway. I very much hope to see Bishop's Castle out and about sometime!

 

Can anyone tell me what was the purpose of the plates over the side tanks on No.1, please? There seem to be some hefty rivets holding them in place!

 

Cheers,

Mark

[south_tyne]

This is absolutely wonderful. I've always been fascinated by the prototype and you seem to have captured that run down bucolic feel perfectly. I hope to see more pictures in due course.

 

Thank you very much for sharing 🙂

[MrWolf]

Seconded. It's great to see the model and the BCRS flourish. 

I've always been fascinated by the line and about twenty years ago made a 300 mile motorcycle trip to walk the entire line.