A LOAD OF BEET
David Coasby Most layouts have coal wagons of one sort or another, and in most cases you'll quite rightly see loads of coal in them. With more and more castings and mouldings being made available in the popular scales, we are now beginning to see freight trains made up with other realistic-looking loads; a welcome change from the rows and rows of empty open wagons we used to see on a lot of layouts. Not that I've got anything against empty wagons, as once a load was delivered it stands to reason that the wagon would return empty in most cases. Having seen all the 'usual' model loads on layouts at exhibitions, my thoughts turned to the layout I'm involved with, and I started thinking... but first a little background history. |
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| The Model Railway Club's 7mm exhibition layout is called Happisburgh. The simple reason for this is
that it is based on an actual location on the northeast Norfolk coast. There had been plans in the 19th century to build
a railway there, but they never materialised. However, we have constructed our layout as if the railway had been built.
We realised that what was, and still is today, a small sleepy village, would probably have turned into a busy town had
the railway development gone ahead.
Norfolk is a rich agricultural area, with sugar beet being a very common sight in the vast flat fields. The method of planting and harvesting has changed radically in recent times, with manual labour all but disappearing. |
However, one thing farmers have always done once the crop was harvested was to form huge piles of sugar beet in the corner of one of their fields. In most cases the crop would eventually find its way to a local sugar beet factory for processing into molasses or sugar. If the factory was close by, then no doubt road transport would be used but years ago the railways had their part to play and it was once quite a common sight to see sugar beet piled high in open wagons on their way to the factory, which would usually have its own private sidings. Apart from the in-bound sugar beet, coal would be required to fire the furnaces; limestone was also used and, of course, outgoing tanks for molasses and vans for refined sugar. A privately-owned industrial loco would often be seen in such sidings. |  The real thing. A huge pile of sugar beet seen in a Norfolk field. Note the variation in size and colour, with lots of soil stuck to the beet. |
| So back to the model of Happisburgh. Those of you who have seen the layout at an exhibition
will have noted that to hide the fiddle yard we haven't used the usual 'tunnel' (not many tunnels in Norfolk!), but have
built a half-relief sugar beet factory in front of this area. Although this started life with a couple of simple sidings
we have recently expanded this area with further track and now even have a working coal tippler to feed the furnaces.
One of the features I wanted to model on the layout was a pile of sugar beet in the corner of a field just near the front of the layout. I looked at all sorts of things to try to simulate the look of 7mm scale sugar beet. A pile of grape pips came closest to the real thing but, somehow, looked just like a pile of grape pips! In the end I decided I'd have to model each individual sugar beet separately with some sort of modelling clay. DAS proved ideal for what I needed. It wasn't too fast-drying but once set was like concrete. I'd already armed myself with a good selection of prototype photographs of sugar beet kindly given to me by a fellow club member who, having discovering my enthusiasm for sugar beet, followed up with a carrier bag containing a heavy fullsize prototype. Basically they are like a large turnip, but slightly longer. Rolling tiny amounts of the DAS clay between my fingers soon produced a reasonable replica, although the photographs showed the sugar beet varied in size and shape quite a bit. Having established roughly how big my 7mm scale ones needed to be this was one of the few modelling jobs I could do and sit with my family watching television slowly knocking out hundreds of the little blighters! I got one or two of the condescending looks that only teenage daughters can give, but generally |
production went well and a few evenings produced enough to make the proposed mound.
When they were fully dry I gave them a quick spray with light grey car primer.
I was then ready to go to the club and see if my efforts would look realistic once in place. Giving a mound made earlier a liberal coating of PVA glue I sprinkled the modelled sugar beet on to the wet glue. Several gaps showed through, so more PVA was dribbled and more sugar beet added, adjusting here and there. I had noticed from the photographs of the prototype that quite a lot of sugar beet seemed to have strayed from the pile, so stuck an odd one or two, or small clusters, a little distance from the main mound.
 A pile of sugar beet seen in the corner of a field in Happisburgh A week later all looked good. The PVA had dried clear and everything felt firm and secure; very important on an exhibition layout such as ours. Next came the paint job. It took a lot of dabbing of different colours over several sessions before I was reasonably happy with the result. |
The colours of the' real thing' vary a great deal
and very much depend on how long the beet has been stood there, and if it is wet or dry. I used mostly poster paints
on the model, dabbing lots of vandyke brown, quite a lot of-wheat, some white, olive green and earth brown,
whilst all the time looking at the photographs I had in front of me.
(Note: Paint what you see - not what you think you see.)
What to me finally gave it that realistic look was a light dusting of brown and black weathering powders, which seemed to emphasise the deep shadows amongst the mound. So I finally got my mound of sugar beet. But then I started thinking, wouldn't it be good to have wagonloads of the stuff moving around the layout? But to make that many individual tiny sugar beet to fill several wagons (even with dummy packing underneath) would take a lifetime to produce. Anyway Guildex was coming up soon, so I hoped I'd perhaps find a ready-made product. Enter Dave, the proprietor of Ten - Commandments. The conversation went something like this: I walked away thinking 'that's not a bad idea'. |
| Some time later I had hundreds more beet made like the previous ones. This time,
once they had dried I cut the tops and tails off with a sharp craft knife - not easily be done when the clay is damp.
(Talking to someone who had worked on a farm where beet was harvested, I found that this was the normal process of harvesting - any green foliage and the bottom of the root being removed by a sharp knife. Looking at my photographic reference I noticed that even modern harvesting techniques seemed to leave the beet in a similar fashion. So my second batch of beet for the master wagonload is more prototypical than the original mound in the field.)
 The sugar beet, having been hand-moulded using DAS modelling clay, is then allowed to dry before having their 'tops and tails' cut off with a craft knife Next I checked both Parkside and Peco products for the internal dimensions of their 7mm scale 16T steel mineral wagons and cut a piece of thick styrene sheet to the same size. I then carefully piled the modelled beet on to the styrene to form a nice mound and poured slightly diluted PVA glue all over. |
When dry close inspection revealed a few holes
in one or two places so a few more individual beet were added. Once satisfied I gave the whole load a light spray of
Halfords acrylic grey undercoat and arranged to get it to Dave at Ten Commandments who promised them for Guildex.
When collecting them I couldn't help but smile when he said he'd sold out over the Guildex weekend, despite his original
thought that there was 'no call for sugar beet loads'
The plaster castings are quite fragile but with careful handling this doesn't present a problem. In fact the advantage of the plaster is that it is easy to file a little off the edges if it doesn't quite fit a particular wagon. The plaster is also very easy to paint and this was done using similar techniques to those described previously. A few odd pieces of foam card were cut and glued beneath each load to |
give the correct height and the each load carefully placed in a wagon.
Although these loads can be removed if required this hasn't been necessary as we have so many other mineral wagons to cope
with coal and other loads. Although I used steel mineral wagons, you were just as likely to see beet loads in old wooden wagons.
So Happisburgh now has a train of sugar beet, which would have been very difficult without the help of Ten Commandments. If you've got a favourite load you'd like to see on your trains I'm sure Dave would consider producing them for you if you're prepared to make him a master. He can usually be found at most big shows, or contact him via his website: www.cast-in-stone.co.uk |
 The load fitted into the 16T wagon. Although the sugar beet had been previously painted, a little weathering powder was finally applied once the load was in position, which enhances the depth and gaps between each individual sugar beet |
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