Sidmouth Branch Progress #2

Hello again! It's high time I shared some recent developments on the Sidmouth Branch. Sidmouth itself was notably absent in my announcement post, as little progress had been made. 

Since the middle portion has remained broadly unchanged, this post will focus on the progress that I have made at either end.

The area around Sidmouth station has gone from being quite empty to nearly finished.

Although generic assets are currently being used as placeholders, those of you familiar with the area will note how little has changed; the station buildings and much of the goods yard remains in situ, in use as an industrial estate.

The yard was full of private traders, from coal and grain merchants to larger businesses like Miller & Lilley who owned siding space in many other Devon goods yards.

Many new houses were built after the war, much aided by Miller and Lilley who imported and stored construction materials in their own sizeable warehouse.

Sidmouth's rail-served gasworks has also been modelled, as it was before the late 1950s, when the site was purchased by J.P. White, who used it to build VW campervans.

The last thing of note within immediate station surroundings is Bulverton farm, and the public riding stables, it took a few tries to get the orchards looking right, but I am happy with the current iteration.

Much has changed on the northern third of the line, since this was the section I started with when I first learnt how to route build: It has all been ripped up and re-done. Now field boundaries have proper fences and foliage, streams and footpaths have been suitably detailed, and embankments have been re-laid to closer match photographs.

Most notably the road crossings at Gosford and Cadhay have been modelled, which was fun to do, but a little fiddly. There was some quite complicated loft work here.

The things to do next will be to finish adding embankment grass and telegraph poles, rebuild a hundred or so field boundaries between Ottery and Tipton, as well as detailing the towns themselves, then its just a simple matter of assets, signalling, and scenarios.

The more that gets finished, the more there is to do!

I look forward to sharing some more soon!

-Leonard