Cuddle Country Album

Here then is some more research material culled from the internet that I’ve been using in the design of my version of Cuddle.

Of great importance in getting the right “feel” for the layout is getting the structures built from the correct material. With Cuddle being a coastal location with rocky cliffs all around. It’s quite natural to assume that the buildings would be made of stone. A quick drive through the area courtesy of Google Earth showed that all the houses and farm buildings in the area are built of grey stone, probably Purbeck Stone. Most of the structures in the village of Kimmeridge have thatched roofs, which would be a no-no for an industry of this type. However some buildings in the area have tiled roofs. Too bad they weren’t pantiles as I have quite a lot of pantile embossed styrene in stock.

A typical small cottage

Another stone built cottage

For fun, I traced the routes of the tramways in the area onto a Google Earth photo, to see how it related to the modern features. I thought you might like to see it. It also gave me a probable location for the works. The black line is the route of the original Cuddle tramway line that inspired Andy Anderson's project.

Tramway routes from the map transposed onto the Google Earth view.
(X marks a possible location for my works “in real life)

This view across Kimmeridge Bay (geograph.org photo) gives you an idea of what the backscene should look like.

A view across Kimmeridge Bay. X marks where the shale oil works would
have been if it really existed.

All this should give you plenty to get excited about for the project. But there is even more excitement to come.

Pages from the sketchbook (1)

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.

A view up the layout

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. 

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.

Perhaps these are condensers, it’s what came up on a google search

Perhaps now it’s time to start on the shell of the retort house.