Apart from running trains, building the scenery is probably the next best thing I enjoy in railway modelling. Placing trains in an appropriate model setting is, I feel, a really important consideration. Let’s looks at the construction and development of one end of my layout, Kirtley Bridge. Hebden Beck Quarry not only provides traffic for my layout but helps hide the main traverser fiddle yard from public view.

In Upper Wharfedale, a number of quarries were once served by the Midland Railway - indeed Swinden Quarry near Grassington still uses this line through Embsay and Skipton. Nearby at Threshfield, a smaller much earlier site has become the inspiration for my pre-WWII model quarry operations. Old photos and maps of trackwork, buildings and rolling stock have enabled me to adapt this prototype to give me a satisfying operational and visual scene. Initially the model quarry was built with two sidings. One of these entered the transhipment shed and this allowed wagons to be loaded and then drawn out to depart from the site.

A second siding was used to store quarry supplies such as machinery and gunpowder. This seemed to work well but, with limited road access, the arrival of the workmen’s coach interfered with more pressing traffic. For this reason a few years later, I added a bespoke platform to separate these two activities.

More recently, spurred on by the success of a similar development in Kirtley Bridge goods yard, I decided to lengthen the siding and extend the quarry yard out onto a small additional baseboard. This is shown by the yellow line across the track plan. This not only allows more realistic martialling of stock but has created a more interesting view of the site, as it might well have looked later on.

The labels within the attached photos are used to illustrate the techniques and the resources I have used to create the finished scene. These are not in themselves the least bit revolutionary, but rather it is the combination of these various elements that can help make a scene convincing.