Nether Stowey

Calverdale
Nether Stowey
Wellham Green

Nether Stowey

I will not bore you too much with details of this layout as it was covered in great depth in previous editions of the Journal. Suffice to say it was probably the most realistic of my layouts built so far. More importantly it ran very well, mainly due to the use of electrofrog points throughout and a further change of auto coupling. This was the DG system which though in some ways similar to the MBM system has the added advantage of delayed action coupling. This means that once a pair of wagons, for instance, have been uncoupled over a magnet, they remain uncoupled for as long as they are being pushed, allowing the uncoupled wagon to be placed exactly where required. This is a tremendous advantage and I shall be using this system for all future layouts.

However did it work as a Father/Son project? I'm afraid the answer was no. My fault, you see, because I just could not leave anything the lad did alone. A little tweak here, a little there. Now, he is no fool and soon realised what was happening, which needless to say put paid to his involvement! He is, however, an excellent operator and we agreed an excellent compromise I'd buIld 'em and he'd operate 'em!

Nevertheless I was not prepared to give in completely and tried one last dodge to encourage his interest. I offered to fund a further layout which would be exactly what he wanted. He would build it and I would do no more than offer advice. This was agreed and layout number five 'Wellham Green' commenced.

Nether Stowey Station and Village

Auto train awaits passengers at Nether Stowey

A Great Western Ideal

The goods yard at Nether Stowey