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Copperas Hill. A 4mm industrial model railway by Phil Baggley.

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Copperas Hill

An OO scale model railway by Phil Baggley

Copperas Hill is an OO scale, 16.5mm gauge portable model railway that is loosely based on the Lowca Light railway that linked the United Steel Company's Workington works at sea level with the Lowca Tar Plant, Harrington No. 10 Colliery at Lowca and the Micklam brickworks on the cliff tops to the South on the West Cumberland Coast.

Copperas Hill was predominantly worked by Austerity 0-6-0 steam locomotives.
The United Steel Company Yorkshire Engine Co. diesel shunter is backing down to a heavy freight before attacking the hill.

Copperas Hill had a 1 in 17 gradient

The modelled slag cones were cast with thick, lumpy plaster.

Two Austerities storm the hill with a short coke & iron ore train while a two coach local train simmers in the short station.
During the second world war, slag could not be tipped at night so it was held in slag pots and dumped on the shoreline next day. Tipping at night could have guided German bombers to a strategic target.

United Steel had both diesel electric and diesel hydraulic variants of this design.

The high sided coke wagon is a plastic wagon kit by Slaters.
The Yorkshire Engine Co DE2 is a kitbashed Whitemetal kit by DJH. The conversion was described in an article "Yorkshiremen in Cumberland" published in British Railway Modelling magasine.
This type of locomotive has been in service for decades on the works and at the local Port of Workington. They are still in use.

Amazon on banking duties

The cliffs were cast in rubber moulds using casting plaster.

Amazon coasts back down to the exchange sidings with a former brake van, now in use as a platelayers van.
The Class 110 dmu is an imposter - they did not run on the Cumbrian Coast line. The Derby lightweight kit by dc kits would have been prototypical. 

All the Austeritys are former Dapol (now Hornby) models.

Super power as three Austerities shove a heavy iron ore train up the hill. The last locomotive "Repulse" has a Geisl ejector instead of the usual round chimney. This was a late performance enhancement for steam power.

 Repulse begins the climb with a short iron ore train.

The concrete sea wall is made from card, sponge painted with matt emulsion.

The derelict fan house was based on one still surviving in Whitehaven.

 Amazon banks a mixed freight while a couple of coal wagons await discharge of spoil on the gantry. 

 50 ton hot metal ladle and carriage. The model is a kitbashed and detailed Marklin HO scale model. The old mine workings were made from thick card covered with DAS clay which was then scribed and painted.

Copperas Hill attended a number of model railway exhibitions throughout the North of England and Scotland. It's last exhibition was York, after which it went to a new home on Teesside. The track is PECO finescale flextrack excepting the points which were all hand built. The baseboards were made from 4mm ply and the landform was shaped with polystyrene blocks glued together. Grass is bleached and dyed carpet underlay and local dirt and sand was collected, sieved and glued down with dilute pva glue.

BRM cover Copperas Hill was featured in the April 1999 ( Vol 7 No1 ) issue of British Railway Modelling Magasine

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