Bowaters Paper Mill Railway
St. Neots MRC
Depicting an industrial railway serving Kemsley Paper Mill.
Bowaters operated two paper mills in Kent from 1924 to 1969, one in Sittingbourne and one at Kemsley. A steam railway transported wood pulp to them from Ridham dock on the Swale estuary. It was one of the last privately owned industrial steam railways in the UK.
The layout features the north-west corner of Kemsley mill and its associated outbuildings. The railway operated 24 hours a day, so the layout has day and night lighting. All the buildings are lit and have interior detailing. Trains are seen delivering wagons of wood pulp and China clay to the mill, and staff arrive from Sittingbourne to work at Kemsley or travel through to Ridham in converted flat wagons.
Wagons of logs arrive from Ridham and wait to be shunted to the log treatment works. The conveyor takes stripped logs to the mill for processing whilst some workers can be seen having a break in the canteen building.
The oil tank building is where small barrels are filled to keep the mill machinery working well. The warehouse is for storing paper rolls before they are wrapped and sent by road or rail to their destination. You can see a fork-lift truck emerging from the warehouse with a roll of paper ready to load a ‘Bowie’ which will head off to London whilst workers try to fix another fork-lift truck beside the workshop.
Peco code 100 O-16.5 track is used throughout. All buildings are scratch built, all locos are scratch built or modified brass kits, and all rolling stock is 3D printed. Control of locos and turnouts is DCC, and route selection is via a mimic diagram on touchscreens, phones or tablets.
You can see this layout at Beckenham and West Wickham MRC one day show on Saturday 29th March and at Chatham MRC Exhibition on 19th & 20th July 2025.
Will Heath and Jackie Kneeshaw also did a general talk about building the layout during ‘An Evening With…’ in May 2023. You can see this video on The Gauge O Guild YouTube channel.