What is Cuddle?

Back in the far off days at the turn of the century, when Y2K fears had subsided. There was a fledgeling model railway scale called Gn15.
As most of you know, it uses OO/HO scale track with G scale to model minimum gauge railways in the 15” gauge range, as popularized by the works of Sir Arthur Heywood and railways like the Ravenglass and Eskdale and Romney, Hythe, and Dymchurch. One of the attractions for modellers was that industrial type model trains would negotiate 6” radius curves (and tighter), as a matter of course. This was perfectly illustrated in the late Carl Arendt’s now legendary Squarefoot Estate Railway. Indeed, the popularity of Gn15 and Micro layouts went hand in hand for quite some time. There were some wonderful ideas produced. Some made it to construction and operation, some didn’t.
That is where Cuddle comes in. It was the brainchild of one Andy Anderson, who is sadly no longer with us. He had discovered the shale oil industry in Dorset, become fascinated with it, and decided to build a model railway inspired by the shale oil production process.
What was special about Andy’s concept was that the whole operation was distilled down onto one yard of straight track. No points or sidings. He produced an inspiring sketch and later a mock up to prove his point. It was a well thought out concept and I was rather taken with the idea.

Andy’s original sketch

The later mock up

Sadly, Andy passed away before he had a chance to build the layout, and it remained a sketch on the Micro Layouts website for many years. Then, while riding my trainer bike in the garage the other day, I spied an old shelf in the corner left from the builders remodeling work. For some reason I immediately thought of fitting Cuddle on it. I checked the shelf, it looked pretty solid and is actually 4’ x 11”. That extra foot gives me a little more wiggle room to fit things in, as I feel Andy’s mock up looks a bit cramped and I like having some space on my layouts for a little more scenic development.
So, that’s the plan. To bring Cuddle to life. I hope to keep my version essentially as Andy had envisioned his concept. The retort house with the clock tower for example, that has to stay. As does the train having to pass through the loading bay to get to the engine house. I’m not sold on his original idea of loading barrels of oil onto a boat. I may do something different. We’ll see where the journey takes us.
Thanks for the idea Andy.