The Fareham and District Model Railway Club CIO was gifted the layout Fairhaven Town by the widow of a former member several years ago. The original layout consisted of two scenic boards, one of 4ft length and the other of 5ft, depicting a country terminus dressed in Southern Railway style. Over the course of time various additions led to an extra 2ft board with overbridge leading to a 5ft fiddle yard. At the other end, a dairy was planned on a new 4ft board with cardboard mock-ups made of the buildings. The layout was exhibited in this part finished state in 2019. Further revised plans for the layout included replacing the 2ft board with one of 5ft thus extending the goods yard, and to make it a through station rather than a terminus. Another 5ft fiddle yard at the dairy end gives a total length of 28ft made up of four 5ft and two 4ft boards which makes it easier to transport the boards in pairs of the same length.

My contribution to the team effort was to construct the main dairy building, the bridge/corner building, the cheesery and a booking-in office, either worked up from mock-ups or using them as a guide with other members of our group working on the remaining buildings in the complex, namely the offices and pump house/boiler. The ‘artistic director’ of our group suggested that a variety of building styles and materials should be used, giving individuality to the scene.

The roof of the bridge is from painted and weathered corrugated plastic whereas the pitched roof has cardboard slates, one of which has slipped. At the top of the roof is an ornate tower, the design copied from a local car park, which carries the weather vane. The pipes across the bridge are as the original plan. These pipes are presumed to carry milk from the main dairy across to the cheesery and also water in the other direction for flushing out the milk tankers.

This building is deemed to be the oldest of the four and pre-dates the coming of the railway. It therefore has a stone finish and is in low relief. The mock-up was used as a dimensional guide only; as the building is fairly substantial, a more robust material was selected. This was 5mm thick solid foam board which was a challenge to cut but simulates the thickness of an old stone building. The window and door positions were copied from the mock- up, the only alteration being a pitched rather than a sloping roof to the hoist cabin. Wills 4mm stone sheets were attached above two courses of Slater’s 7mm stone. Various acrylic and tester pot paint grey, cream and clay colours were applied to give a random effect. Our artistic director gave a final dirty wash to tone it all down.

The roof styles of all the buildings also needed to be different, so a tiled fishtail was decided upon, formed by cutting over two hundred coffee stirrers and painting with terracotta acrylic. The side nearest the front of the layout has a couple of large, glazed openings allowing the interior of the dairy to be viewed. The floors and ceilings were constructed with the same foam board covered longitudinally by yet more coffee stirrers. A trio of vats can be seen rising from the ground floor to the second. These are in half relief and were formed by cutting plastic cotton bud containers in half. A backscene with closed doors gives the impression that there is more building beyond.

The two sliding doors to the front of the building were also made from coffee stirrers. Two sidings serve this dairy, one for tankers and the other for churn traffic etc.

This building was again worked from the mock-up, although this had to be shortened to avoid a pinch point on the platform. A dedicated siding serves this facility, which again is a low relief structure. Keeping to the edict of a different style to each building, this one has a brick and render finish. The walls are constructed from two layers of cardboard laminated together with the lower six courses of brickwork exposed on the second layer. The top layer (the render) has several distressed areas with some of the render either cracked, exposing the brick under or shows signs of repair. This render received a couple of coats of cream acrylic followed by a slight dirty wash. Roller shutter doors were chosen, one fully closed, one fully open and one slightly open. These were formed using corrugated cardboard packaging painted in light grey to represent metal.

A slot was cut in the rear of the building and the backscene just above floor level, running almost its entire length to facilitate my ‘Heath Robinson’ style loading and unloading method. A tab with a stack of crates glued to its end passes through this slot, then through the open door onto the platform, making them visible when the tab is extended. A section of platform paving is also attached to the visible end of this tab which then will line up with the existing paving on the platform surface. When a van stops by the crates, they can be withdrawn inside and to one side thus hiding them. The van plus the low angle of the roof act as view blockers. When the van is removed, voila! the loads have gone giving the impression that they have been loaded. Of course this action can be done in reverse with the load being deposited by the van (see the diagram), all low-tech stuff! Lines are drawn both on the tab and on the backscene as guides to show the correct positions for operation as the solid roof prevents sighting. The roof was made from the same material as the doors, with a couple of skylights added. Various shades of grey, white and brown give it a weathered look.

The last of the quartet, this building and its associated hut are of a wooden construction. The larger booking-in office had its cardboard mock-up overlaid with the ubiquitous coffee stirrers, dry brushed with a mix of grey, white and brown to give a well weathered look in need of some TLC. Another corrugated roof adorns this structure, painted the same way as the cheesery but it has a more pronounced overhang giving some weather protection for delivery drivers awaiting attention.

A few details were added, such as some weeds at ground level, an open door, an open window, a sliding hatch, a bell to ring for attention (a top off a ballpoint pen), and a desk with a note pad and pencil. The gap between this office and the re-sized cheesery needed filling. A discussion took place and it was decided that a hut would fill this void. Once again coffee stirrers to the fore (I think I am going stir crazy!) to give a very basic hut, weathered in the same fashion as its bigger brother. Roofing felt (emery paper) tops it off.

There have been many past and present club members that have contributed to this project, one that has been many years in the making. There are still many details that need to be added to this, the dairy board, and other areas of the layout including a complete revamp of the electrics which hopefully will all come to fruition before too long, in readiness for exhibition in the near future.