4mm/P4 Gauge
Presented by Steve Howe
This particular scheme came into being through thinking about light railways that were associated with the coast, possibly for industry, or some, as in the Rye & Camber, purely for leisure. It was at about the same time that I was casting around for a little project to make good use of an odd collection of eclectic rolling stock acquired on whims over the years, and rootling around in the garage roof to find an elusive piece of ply, put away for just such a purpose, that I realised my old surfboard really was due for retirement. Memories of sunny teenage times spent on Gwithian Sands (and in the rather dodgy nightclub known as Sandsifters, located in convenient isolation in the old sand quarry at Gwithian beach) triggered the slightly eccentric (alright, alcohol-fuelled) notion that maybe the two could somehow be combined into a modelling project.
Gwithian’s industrial past has long been centred around sand extraction and streaming for tin and other metals from the Red River’s sediments, and a study of the 1906 OS map revealed a string of streaming works all along the Red River valley which extended inland as far as the river itself. Crucially, the gradient was gentle all the way to the coast; a perfect opportunity for a light railway to serve these industries.
The railway continued to provide a viable summer passenger service to the coast for tourists and Sunday trippers alike up to the outbreak of the Second World War when services were again suspended and, with the track in a poor state, lorries took over the sand transportation, and the line was quickly reclaimed by nature.