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Hassell Hill Colliery


Benjamin Brady
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Welcome, 

 

This is a new thread dedicated to Hassell Hill Colliery. As some of you might be aware this layout used to straddle the fiddle yards of Alsager Railway Associations Hassell Harbour Bridge. However since the decision was made to rebuild the fiddle yards as a station this has left the colliery redundant. However a small group of us have decided to turn the colliery into a stand alone exhibit itself, already attending two shows. The decision has been made to use this opportunity to revamp the whole layout. This has included the expansion of the exchange sidings at the bottom incorporating a village and the engine shed on the low level. 

The area where the engine shed is at the colliery pit head shall more thank likely be changed to a washery and if possible a pit head baths shall be built up here. 

 

There is as always plenty of work to be done on the layout still but we shall chip away at it on Thursday evenings. 

 

Our next outing is at Basingstoke in March followed by the GCR model event in June.

 

Benjamin 

 

 

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I have seen Hassell Harbour Bridge a number of times, and loved the colliery as the other star of the show. I am glad that it shall have a second career, and I like the look of the village.

 

Hope to see the new layout in the flesh one day.

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I shall watch with interest: the only pre-NCB colliery layout I've seen so far!
 

My 4mm attempt will be designed with the ability to operate anything from pre-grouping Welsh 0-6-2T's to Austerities and Januses...

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Good Afternoon, 

 

Your right about the fan however I am almost sure we shall be reaching for the raincoats this year and an extra layer. It is bound to be polar opposites. 

As for the layout I can't help having a soft spot for the Welsh coalfields myself and would happily see some 0-6-2T's running about however as we are based in Alsager it has got to be Staffordshire really.  

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  • 4 weeks later...

Good Evening, 

 

With time pressing on and Basingstoke 4 weeks away, the village and engine shed board has had to come home. However this has enabled a lot of progress on the position of buildings and walls within the village. The Church is now almost completed, the only addition now is to add the odd bit of rust. The buildings are also coming along with roofs added now and the the next main task for them is to be painted. Cobbles shall be added to the streets and the level crossing needs to be added. There shall of course be a lot of detailing of the buildings required with so many back yards to fill in but this of course can come in time. The grocers does however have a window display, mind it is only just viable. 

 

We are looking at erecting the whole colliery at the club in a fortnights time for a testing session, I shall of course be armed with my camera to share the events of the day with you. 

 

Benjamin  

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  • 2 weeks later...

Good Evening, 

 

With Basingstoke only a week on Friday the layout has now been put up and shall remain up until we take it down ready for the journey South to the show. This give us a chance to test the whole layout and work on the extension, making sure it is show worthy. Over the weekend much of the scenic work was carried out, ballasting the new boards and adding greenery. It also allowed us to test the wiring. We did face one problem when I point would not throw, however this was traced to a lose wire and nothing serious. 

 

On the photos the rather crude row of terraced houses was placed on to represent where the row of houses shall go. The ones that shall be used on the layout are currently away at the moment with another member. I hope you can all see through the clutter. 

 

While down at the club over the weekend we were discussing possible other wagons that could be used on the colliery. One suggestion was gas works wagons. However we have been unable to located any drawings or pictures of the city of Stoke on Trent gas works wagons and as a result we now throw the question open to the knowledge of RMweb. If anyone does have any photos or information on these wagons we would all be keen to see it.

 

Cheers 

 

Benjamin 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Morning All 

 

     Final week before Basingstoke  , most jobs complete , and for those going to the show you will be able to see a new addition , this was done as a bonus , sorry no photos , he has gone on holiday to Cornwall , not the best week to pick .

 

     final day for work is this Sunday , collect all the boxes ready for show , and a bit of sprucing up on scenery , we will add figures on the Friday off the show , 

 

   Well that is all , hope you will come and visit and have a chat .

 

  Thanks  

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  • 2 months later...

Good Afternoon All, 

 

Firstly apologies it has taken so long to get back to you all with an update and a debrief from the Basingstoke show. We had a very enjoyable weekend and the layout preformed extremely well. This was the first opportunity we had to be able to run the layout with its additional 3ft and run round loop. We have returned with a few ideas which would improve the operation of the layout. The main one being the introduction of a brake van siding situated on the village board close to the allotments. There was also talk on how to improve the top end of the a layout and what other industry we could add, a gas works maybe. However this shall have to wait until our return from the GCR. 

 

Work has been continuing on Thursday evenings on the layout with the addition of static grass and the weathering of the buildings and the track work. To make the layout look a little more like a colliery line. We have started to add coal dust over the ballast which was really changed the appearance of the trackwork. This is still in the early stages with a lot of the layout left to do, however we are getting there. 

 

We are looking forward to the next outing for the layout in a 5 weeks time. 

 

Benjamin 

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Good Morning, 

 

Just a very quick update giving you an idea of how the addition of the coal dust has really changed the appearance of the layout. As mentioned above we have currently only manged to do one board at the moment, however it shall be the main job for Thursday evenings between now and the GCR event, to get it looking a little more distressed and colliery like. 

 

What you can also see on these photos is the addition brake van siding which has been added. 

 

Benjamin 

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Edited by Benjamin Brady
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  • 7 months later...

Good Afternoon All, 

 

Well it has been a while since I have posted much regarding the colliery. However work has been continuing on the layout. We have now started to redevelop the right hand side of the layout from the viewing perspectives.This has involved covering the old tunnel mouth up along with flattening the area out. We shall be adding a pit prop store at this end along with maybe a gunpoweder store. We shall also include a narrow gauge railway to transport the stores to the pit head. 

 

For those who wish to see the current progress of the layout feel free to join us at the open day down the club on the 27th of December. We shall have the colliery up and running.

The club is just off Moorhouse Ave, Alsager, ST72DH for those who wish to come. 

 

I shall try and add photos when possible. I forgot to take some last week of the progress. 

 

Benjamin  

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  • 3 months later...

Good Morning,

 

With less than two weeks until the Crawley Model Railway show we have pulled out all the stops to finish the alterations to the colliery. This has been helped with the addition of a member who knows his way around CAD and has access to a laser cutter. This has meant we have been able to populate the area very quickly with buildings. It is now starting to look like a colliery with a random assortment of buildings popping up. We had an addition working night last night and two more still planned this week before its final test and strip down this coming Monday we should have the layout ready.

 

Benjamin  

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Good Morning,

 

Well there is nothing more to do now with the layout apart from load it into the van on Friday morning for our journey south. We have the route and stops planned off and look forward to a weekend away. 

 

During the test run there was only two areas of concern and that was the double slip on the exchange sidings which required the blades being slight adjusted, and some of the scenery cutting back to accommodate the new weigh bridge hut. Other than that the layout ran well. It gave me an opportunity to take some happy snaps. However do excuse the clutter. 

 

The next update should be after the show with more photos. 

 

Benjamin 

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Good Morning,

 

We have returned from the Crawley Model Railway show and the layout is now tucked back up in its corner at the club. However during the course of the weekend a few things were noted on how to improve the layout for it's next outing and over the coming months these alterations shall be carried out. 

 

All in all it was a very enjoyable weekend playing trains as always and the layout itself received many positive comments. I have attached a few photos from the weekend. 

 

Many Thanks 

 

Benjamin 

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