The Biscuit Shed



I've been working on the “Biscuit Shed”, the first of the buildings for my new Farthing layout. It is inspired by the “beer shed” in the GWR Goods yard at Stratford on Avon, which was used as a loading facility for beer traffic from the Flower & Sons brewery.




The biscuit theme draws on the so-called “biscuit siding” in Gloucester Old Yard, which served a small loading shed that was used by various industries over the years, including Peak Freen’s biscuit company.




Every building has a history, and so it transpires that the Biscuit Shed was the original train shed of the erstwhile North & South Junction Railway's terminus at Farthing. When the GWR took over that line it was decided to keep the shed as a transshipment facility for the area’s blossoming industries, and in 1899 the GWR entered into contract with Badger's Biscuit Company for just such a purpose.





This non-standard history allowed me to use some roof trusses with a  "Queen Post" pattern from an old Airfix station canopy kit.





The side was built using laminated styrene and braced as per the beer shed at Stratford on Avon. I've only just discovered microbrushes (the green thing), they are proving quite useful.





I used a small jig to make the supporting timber posts. The jig was developed with input from NASA engineers and proved an excellent way of gluing the posts firmly to, er, the jig! :-)




I liked the “waisted” appearance of the timber support columns in the beer shed at Stratford at Avon, so I tried to copy this by fitting a hollow section of square rod around the bottom of each post, filed lightly at the top to add an angle. This was also a convenient way of hiding any inconsistencies in the height of the support posts (purely theoretical, of course!).





Still working on the loading dock, it will have a polyfilla surface and sleeper-faced sides.




The footprint of the dock is a bit odd as the building will be located in the front left corner. The white pipes on the roof marks the join of the Wills slate sheets. Once painted grey I hope they will blend in - sometimes I think it is best to hide a join in plain sight, so to speak.




So just a little more work and then it's time to paint it before embedding it on the layout.