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The Beckley Tramway By Dave Medhurst An imaginary little line set in the south eastern corner of East Sussex, the Beckley Tramway was constructed in 1902 as a light railway and exhibits many Colonel Stephens and South Eastern and Chatham Railway features. A station at Four Oaks would have served the village of Beckley on a line that linked Rye with Northiam, but the Second World War saw it fall into disrepair resulting in the inevitable closure. Fortuitously, a preservation group have reopened the southern section of the line and the layout depicts a current day Four Oaks station with an engine shed now marking the end of the line that would have once continued on to Northiam. The preservation theme provides a good excuse, if indeed any were needed, to indulge in diversions from strictly correct motive power and ornately liveried pre-grouping locos rub shoulders with industrial diesels hauling stock from a variety of railway companies. The majority of stock to be seen at Four Oaks on this occasion has come from the bench of Paul Tasker.
Passengers arriving at Four Oaks are treated to scenes of springtime in the Sussex countryside as they proceed along an 8 mile route, largely following the River Rother. Whilst negotiating a tree-lined 1 in 83 gradient on the station’s approach the keener eyed may catch sight of a heron eyeing up his lunch in one of the river’s tributaries. Having passed the rather hectic goods yard the train is brought to a halt at an oak tree shaded platform where the locos, their crews and maybe even the operator are given the opportunity to take on essential supplies. A Pentroller controller in conjunction with playing cards and electronic dice handle the stock movements, the latter being intended to spice up life for the chap in the fiddle yard! Much of the greenery has been individually planted on a foundation of plywood and card formers covered with plastered netcurtain material. Track construction is steel rail soldered to rivets set into stained plywood sleepers, all of which is lit by directable tungsten-halogen low voltage lighting hung from a 14ft single span pelmet.
With stock being constantly built to higher standards more recent construction has tended towards etched kits as Paul finds these more enjoyable to put together and considers they give a better-looking end product. Components included in a kit may be modified, replaced with parts cannibalised from other kits, or scratchbuilt if this will obtain a superior result. The power source for locos seems to have been standardised as Mashima can motors on Branchlines, Ultrascale based, 2-stage 60:1 or 80:1 gearboxes, often with the driving axle repositioned. Compensation by one means or another and Smiths couplings are almost universally used as is a top coat of Ronseal varnish applied with a bottom-of-the-range airbrush. A generous proportion of the SECR and LBSCR locos and coaches have however been painted by Bob Fridd of Canterbury.
Further reading can be found in issue No.108 of the Model Railway Journal. | | Interested in this layout appearing at your exhibition? if so please contact Dave Medhurst, Exhibition Manager. |
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