It probably seems like I've been a little quiet on the modelling front of late, but whilst current projects have taken a back seat, I have actually been working on something else that I didn't want to reveal until today. I've affectionately called it 'Project Holme Hale'.
So, for context, my Grandad was a farm labourer and I fondly remember how he used to tell stories of the things he got up to. About a month and a half ago, as my wrist was recovering, I got back out in the garden to tidy up the then neglected vegetable patch. This was another legacy of his and an influence he had on my life, but I digress. Whilst I was turning over the plot, I was reminiscing over his tales and how much I miss him, when I half remembered a story of him loading up wagons in the goods yard at Holme Hale, Norfolk. This would have been in the early-mid 1960s when the branch was in its final days. There was one key memory that stood out: "blue potatoes".
Yes, you read that right, blue potatoes. What I could remember was him saying that he used to load potatoes at Holme Hale, but that these were sprayed with a blue dye to deter people from eating them (although he'd then confess to swiping a few because "they still came up lovely once you scraped the skins off"!). After talking to my neighbour, he confirmed that this used to be a practice by which potatoes destined for cattle feed were sprayed blue to mark them as such (which reawakened another memory of Grandad saying that the cattle that did eat them would have blue drool because of the dye).
So, where am I going with this? Well, I figured that, whilst Grandad was not in any way a railway man (his interest was always farming), me recreating that memory as a model would be my own way of remembrance to him.
I done some deep digging online and found reference to a modern practice of spoil marking with a blue dye based on E133 "Brilliant Blue" - E133 was authorised as a food colourant in the 1960s and so the time frame would fit its use in agriculture.
So, I had my shade of blue and my historical basis for the model. All that was left to acquire now was a wagon and an appropriate potato load. My initial search led me to discover Ten Commandments plaster based sugarbeet loads (which my Dad had commented was something else Grandad used to load into wagons). Hmmm. One wagon had now become three, as you get two sugarbeet loads per pack. I acquired three Bachmann 16T mineral wagons from a well known auction site and these were weathered accordingly. And what of the potatoes? Well, eventually I found a brand called Juweela, who make 1:45 scale potatoes (approx 2.5mm diameter per potato - large by '00' standards, but the best I'd get).
This is the result:
(Before painting blue)
And the final result!
A strange thing to see, but one that is historically accurate! It almost seemed a shame to paint them, but I obviously have my reasons for doing so.
Here's how the sugarbeet wagons turned out:
So, I modelled some wagons in memory of my Grandad. Job done, right? Right...?
I looked up Holme Hale in Peter Paye's 'Branch lines to Thetford' and found this photo:
Uh-oh... Looks like I now have a loco and a new traffic flow to model if I want to represent the railway my Grandad would have interacted with.
Back to the auction site it was then! Starting with the two grain wagons, these were TOPS era wagons as purchased, so I renumbered them using Cambridge Custom Transfers and then weathered accordingly:
Finally, the 03. I acquired a model of a plain green 03 but realised upon arrival that it had the wrong chimney. It seems replacement flowerpot chimneys aren't something you can buy online, so I had to use my ingenuity. I cut the mid section of an old paint brush, drilled into the top and bottom, cut a small section of a cocktail stick to make a peg for the bottom and ran a ring of wire around the top for a lip. This was what I ended up with:
I then renumbered, lightly weathered and added both warning flashes and builders plates to get this final result:
So there we have it! One sentimental tale about blue potatoes led to me modelling an entire freight train!
The only thing left to answer, is why did I have today as my deadline and date to reveal this side project? Well, today would have been Grandad's 92nd birthday and for that reason alone, it felt appropriate.
Happy birthday, Grandad x
- James
