I always find that it helps me to sketch things out, to get a feel for things, as well as making mockups. I prefer to draw by hand rather than use CAD drawing programs. I feel more in control. I have advanced to using an iPad and Apple Pencil though.
So, here I present to you some pages from my sketchbook things that are helping me to visualize the project. First off, a couple of overall views. The track is shown going around a six inch curve to go offstage. That isn’t set in stone.
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| A view up the layout |
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| A view down the layout |
Finding a suitable retort house was proving to be a problem. (The retort house is where the shale is crushed and heated and the oil and gas extracted.) In Andy’s designs and writings he talked about a picture he’d seen of a retort house that had a clock tower. This was a fascinating thought. Sadly, I have not found a picture of such a structure but I’ve come close with a picture of the small retort house at Somerton gasworks in Somerset. A small structure it would be easy to lengthen to fit the site. It has a chimney and a clerestory roof for an interesting roof line. It even had an extension on the side I could adapt to be a covered loading dock on my model. Maybe add some pipe work to link it to the adjacent smaller structure. But I think it shows promise.
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| Retort house based on Somerton |
As I researched retort houses and shale oil processing it became apparent that I’d need to model some kind of condensing apparatus. This is needed to distill the oil and gas out of the shale. I like these sort of things, they can help give purpose to the structures with pipe work and ducting passing between them and other buildings. I found a couple of things. One that looks like three chimney stacks and the other that looks like a big old water tank sort of thing. I do like the “big old water tank thing”, with panelling on the sides. It will likely find its way on to the model.
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| Perhaps these are condensers, it’s what came up on a google search |
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