Life in General20 Oct 2008 09:30 pm
What’s this? Another one?
In just under three weeks Dufftown, a model narrow gauge railway 4mm scale will be exhibited in Brighton. It’s a layout I’ve designed and help build, and it’s not nearly ready, so I thought it would be fun to record the last few weeks of the race against time on a blog. So I will.
I don’t suppose it’s based on Dufftown in Speyside is it?
Loosely, yes. Dufftown is actually served by the standard gauge Keith & Dufftown railway and was served by a spur from the Strathspey Railway. The narrow gauge (009) layout represents a sort of “what if” instead of trying to engineer a standard gauge line up the steep gradients and sharp twists of the FIddich Gorge they’d gone for narrow gauge. As such, there’s very little geographical resemblance, but features are “inspired” by my own impression of some aspects of area.
Nice idea!
It’s a lovely part of the world.
I’ve had a couple of holidays up there and walked the Speyside line from Dufftown (including parts of the Keith line with tracks still down) to Ballindalloch.
Did you see the recent BBC4 prog about the Speyside line?
Yes it is. I once walked the line from Dufftown back to Keith, where I was staying, but misjudged the time it would take (about 4 hours from memory) so it was almost dusk as I arrived at Keith town.
Along this stretch of the line both Loch Park and the Mill of Towie appealed to me as possible modeling scenarios, though they’ve not been used. I’ve also walked Dufftown to Aberlour a few times, though not all the way on to Ballindalloch.
I watched the Whisky Train four times! I really enjoyed seeing familiar places and I was reminded of a few more inspirations for the model (we went and looked at remains of the siding at Dailuain).