The original concept behind what I have named Tankerton Town, but should I rename it Blackwall Point? In fact I quite like the back story put together by our former 3mm Chairman Wim Harthroon. He has put a thread on RMWeb as below;
https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/124623-imaginary-railways/page/15/#comments
"For a bit of relief from things Western I offer another imaginary railway, a short one in London's Docklands. In the nineteenth century London's docks spread along the Thames, mostly on the Essex side. Development on the Kent side was restrained a bit by the presence of Greenwich Observatory. However by the 1860s businesses were springing up along the Thames along the peninsula of Blackwall Point. These were the upcoming "new industries" of chemicals and telegraphy. So I imagine the SER, which had run its North Kent Line around Greenwich to avoid Admiralty opposition, to have built a branch out to Blackwall Point where a ferry connected it with the GER's Blackwall terminus on the London and Blackwall Railway. The map, based on an 1870s map from that well known Scottish source, shows what I mean.
The junction with the North Kent line actually existed as part of the Angerstein's Wharf goods only branch. I've given the line an intermediate station of Greenwich North as well as indicating potential private sidings.
The Blackwall Point backstory was applied to a small 50 inch by 50cm layout I started building for the 3mm Society's 50th Anniversary in 2015. Family difficulties meant I never finished it, but I include the trackplan here.
Very much a minimum space "bitsa station" design. The points were B6 geometry as at the time we were experimenting with etched brass and laser cut ply point kits and one of the purposes of this layout was to be a test bed for that. (Wayne Kinney's point kits have come along to rescue us all from that clunky kit method). However the resulting points did look good - 3mm Society cosmetic chairs needed too - and were very smooth running. I did take a picture or two
I also made a small 1:5 scale mock up, which I photographed.
Operation would have been a bit nightmarish, these micro-layouts always are, but the challenge was to have a complete layout within the confines of 50" by 50cm - the 50 being important given it was a 50th anniversary. Unusually the gauge was 13.5mm, again this was to be a test bed for suitability of that gauge. I re-gauged an SECR O class I'd built to 12mm gauge with new wheelsets and intended to do the same with an SECR railcar. I'd also widened the wheelsets on half a dozen wagons from 12mm gauge. This is not the place to go into the merits or not of 13.5mm gauge over 14.2mm gauge, just accept, dear reader, that it seemed a good idea at the time.
When regauging the O class I did build a new tender chassis, one with split frame electrical pickup. It made the loco a much better slow runner for shunting purposes".
As the now owner of the layout, I quite like the concept, so seriously thinking of going back to it.
