Workbench EXPERT MODELLERS SHOW YOU HOW
PART A visit to the Cornish china clay facility at Carne Point inspired Peter Marriott’s ONE latest layout project. In this first instalment, he explains the attraction of the location and makes a start on the all-important harbour wall.
Last year, I began building a new ‘OO’ gauge layout loosely based on Carne Point in Cornwall, on the River Fowey, where china clay is unloaded from railway wagons and transferred to ships for export.
Back in 2021, I was able to take one of the hour-long boat trips from Fowey harbour, which pass the Carne Point loading terminal. Although no ships were anchored next to the jetties, I did get a great view of the various structures and surrounding landscape. There was also a handful of CDA hopper wagons dotted around the location, presumably awaiting attention before rejoining the main fleet.
On my return home, I reviewed my photographs and set myself the task of building one of the smaller loading sheds, together with a length of harbour wall (over 1.5 metres in all). The latter would provide an interesting task, as a range of different materials have been employed at the real location, presumably owing to changing practices at the site, and extensions and repairs over the years.
OO GAUGE 4 hrs
THE REAL RAILWAY
The single-track branch line to Carne Point runs for about five miles alongside the River Fowey, emanating from a junction with the Paddington-Penzance main line near Lostwithiel station. The branch now terminates at the china clay loading jetties but, until June 1965, there was also a passenger service along this branch linking Lostwithiel and Fowey, with a halt at Golant being the only intermediate stop.
China clay, or kaolin, is highly decomposed granite, weathered by its interaction with water. Discovery of china clay deposits in Cornwall was made in 1755 by William Cookworthy and clay is now extracted using high-pressure water jets to force it out of the ground, which has resulted in the pock-marked landscape in the area around St Austell and Par. After much washing and filtering, the clay is dried to a fine powder ready to transport by rail, road and ship.
Today, freight trains operate on an as-required basis rather than to a timetable, depending on demand and supply of the material. Most of the traffic travels from Goonbarrow Junction, on the Par-Newquay branch, then along the main line to Lostwithiel. The china clay loading dock, which was taken over from BR by English China Clay (ECC – now Imerys), has modern mechanical equipment to speed the loading of ships that will take the precious cargo to various parts of the world.
