The narrow gauge lines were the backbone of the slate industry. I've already talked about it in a previous blog post. Hauling blocks of slate, blasted from vast caverns underground or the huge quarry faces that cover the region, into the workshops where the blocks were trimmed and dressed to form slate roofing tiles. These tiles would then be loaded onto narrow gauge railways to be hauled to the ports on the coast to "roof the world".
You’d probably think with a title like "Slate Quarry Album", that this is nothing but a book full of pictures. Yes, there are lots of pictures. Inspirational pictures at that. But this book is much more. You could build a slate quarry inspired layout using this book alone.
Slate quarries are a prefect choice for a micro layout. Compact sites, masses of track work. A line could appear from a tunnel mouth and disappear into a workshop almost immediately.
The photographs in the book drip with atmosphere. There's plenty to influence a micro layout design.
But it's not just the photographs. There's plans of wagons of all types. From "wagons" that are little more than frames to haul blocks of slate from the quarry to the workshop. To coal wagons that were used to haul the coal for the steam engines that powered the inclines and workshops.
Locomotives are not forgotten, there are drawings for you to construct some very distinctive slate quarry motive power.
The text is interesting and informative, written by people who knew the industry, drawing on accounts from slate miners as well.
There's so much inspiration.
I have to build a micro based on at least one of the pictures and contents of this book.
You may think that I made an extremely bold statement earlier when I said that you could build a slate quarry micro using this book alone. I think it's very feasible. I would certainly consider it for a project sometime.
This book is a highly recommended read.
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