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This charming small layout is Gypsum
Works by Brian Bassington. It was an entry in this year's Chelmsford MRC's
French Connection competition for 30"x20" layouts. This one features bi-level
action.
On the top level, the loco brings mineral gypsum from the mine (inset into the hill),
crosses the interesting A-frame trestle, and enters the Gypsum factory building.
In principle, it dumps its load into the processer and returns to the mine for another
load -- in fact, it simply circles round to begin the cycle again.
Inside the factory, the gypsum processing (supposedly) continues, and the finished
product is sorted and shunted on the lower level, by a different locomotive.  All
in all, this is an interesting model of a prototypical industrial works. Photos by
Terry Allen.
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 And here are a plan and photo of the Chelmsford
winner for 2001 -- it was built by Graham Watling and is called Grumblewick
Coombe. It is built in A3 paper size, features a traverser fiddle-yard under
a hill then traverses a 3-arch viaduct before arriving at a tiny station serving
an Inn in a desolate valley. A chute is provided for delivering the beer! (Plan
is approximate only, not to scale.)
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And finally, a blast
from the past...
 
Long-time reader Jack Matson found
these pictures in his files. They're ads from the 1960's showing off the Vollmer
plastic brickworks kit. It's served by an HOn30 (9mm gauge) railway using Egger-Bahn
stock (no longer available) -- a very early example of commercial industrial narrow-gauge
equipment in action! This display of 40 years ago was so well done that I can still
get modeling ideas from studying these photos. Jack also found a rare color photo,
which shows the little railroad's role in the entire production cycle -- from raw
material acquisition through shipping the finished product!
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