St.Neots Model Railway Club
Bowaters
0-16.5 7mm
Bowaters Paper Mill Railway is a new O-16.5 gauge layout nearing completion.
Based on a paper mill at Kemsley in Kent in the 1960’s, this was the last privately-owned industrial steam railway in Britain. It closed in 1969.
Logs and raw materials arrived at Ridham Dock - a Medway estuary inlet and were transported to Kemsley to be processed.
The Mill still exists, north of Sittingbourne in Kent, built on the marshes of the Swale estuary, at Kemsley. Part of the railway has been preserved as a heritage line (Sittingbourne and Kemsley Light Railway) running many of the locos originally used
A great deal of research has been done to gather as much material about Kemsley mill and the associated buildings and although the whole site cannot be depicted, we have tried to capture a sense of the place and show as much as possible.
The layout is presented as a diorama through a proscenium arch. All the buildings are scratch-built, the locos are modified brass kits, and all the rolling stock is 3-D printed.
The layout is controlled with Lenz DCC handsets or phone throttles. Points are operated by Cobalt digital motors switched using a mimic diagram run on a Raspberry Pi through a dedicated wi-fi router to touchscreen, tablet or phone.
The Build Process
Here is a collection of photos showing the build process.
Meet The Locos
These are all the locomotives that ran the line. Only the narrow-gauge ones have been modelled, including three 0-4-2 saddle tanks and the diesel. Three 0-6-2 side tanks are under construction.
Basis Reference Photos
Here are a few photos of the mill that we used to help build the layout and get the right feel of the site.
