John Wallis Titt Wind Turbine

Over a year ago we modelled the Wind Turbine that pumped the water at Cliddesden http://ngaugelightrailway.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/wind-powered-water-pump.html, and mentioned that it would be good to take a visit to the only existing example of the wind turbine today. Luckily it's only 15 miles away from where we live.

Over a year later I finally managed to make the trip over the Hampshire downs to visit the John Wallis Titt Wind Turbine at Crux Easton.

The trip was a planned mountain bike trip following Wayfarers Walk, a trial that extends over 70 miles from Emsworth to Inkpen Hill. Our journey was only part of this, Oakley to Crux Easton, taking in views over White Hill, Watership Down, Sydmonton Estate, Beacon Hill and the Highclere Estate. It was a very enjoyable mountain bike ride, and well worth having the Crux Easton wind turbine as the focus point.

Maybe in the future we'll make our little model a little bit more accurate, now that I have some detailed pictures, but to be fair when modelling in 'n' scale most of the detail is lost, and our model is a good representation as it is.

It's not something you see everyday, so if you are around the area, I would recommend a little visit. However if you wish to get any closer than the fence, be warned it is only open on the second weekend of each month between April and August. Find out more here: http://www.freewebs.com/windengine/corepage.htm
Ed

Southern Railway Era

Mixed train of 1925 leaves Cliddesden station for Alton. 

Head code disks on the front of the engine are metal washers just over 2mm diameter with the holes filled in. Prototype disks were 15 inches in diameter (2.5mm for N scale).

Behind the engine is a SR tarpaulin covered wagon, GW box van and 48' tri-composite lav. passenger coach.

The station building is in Southern livery with SR noticeboard promoting south coast holiday destinations.

David

Southern Footplate Crew

Loco crew from the Fleetline range painted and ready for mounting on the footplate. The crew are glued to a strip of brass that slides in between the handrails. I'll use double sided tape to hold it in place.

Looking at the loco we can just make out that the far handrail has the top half missing. I'll try and make a piece from fine wire and glue it to the remnant. The loco will also need two head code disks but at only just over 2mm diameter I'm not sure yet how to make perfectly round disks.

David

Back Scene

From the front

From the start our plans never had a back scene, and in some respects this was absolutely fine for our little layout which was only going to be used at home, where the audience was just family and friends. 

All the back scenes so far in our blog have been superimposed via photo editing software. The advantage to this was that we could create different back scenes for different views of the layout, without spening extra money on printing costs etc.

However now that the public will be seeing the layout we thought it would be a good idea to put a back scene onto the layout, so that people with cameras, can take a picture without other objects and people in the background, namely me and my dad eating cake.

So, we made a trip to Cliddesden as it is today, and took a panoramic photo of the fields and tree line behind Cliddesden station. The photo's were then processed in a photo editing program and then printed at a local printing shop on photo paper, to the dimensions we required in this case 120cm x 21cm. 

The back scene follows the back of the layout, following the curve in the back where the siding is. It slots in-between the back and a wall of 1 inch high hardboard, it is then supported by extra card to stop it flapping about. The good thing with this is that we can change the back scene without causing damage to the layout.

From the back

Ed