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Lady Victoria Colliery


shed64a

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I am in the early stages of planning a N scale layout based on the Lady Victoria Colliery. I have managed to get a copy of the plans to the colliery sidings which cover the area on the coillery side of the Waverly line.

 

What I would love to see are pictures that show what moved the coal along the main line. I have a couple of Waverly books and they have pictures of the pit and show J38/39 with coal trains but what other steam traction would have been used?

 

I know that Claytons seem to have been used frequently be again where they the only diesel traction used?

 

With this being such a large industrial site on the line I hope that the expert knowledge will help me in my quest. Being only old enough to know the site as a museum and catching the last of the coal movements from Bilston Glen whilst a primary school (made lunch much more interesting in the playground) has made this kind of traffic a developing hobby.

 

Here are a couple of pics I've found so far.

 

http://www.railbrit.co.uk/imageenlarge/imagecomplete2.php?id=6108

 

and

 

http://www.railbrit.co.uk/imageenlarge/imagecomplete2.php?id=6115

 

This is going to be a long project as the plans are nearly 2m long and they have still to be scaled up to the correct scale.

 

Chris

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Hi Chris and welcome to the true faith.

Essential reading is the David Cross book as it has several photos depicting trains in the area.

I have never seen a photo of any thing other than a Clayton as far as diesels go. J37s were used on the coal traffic as well as the Barclay tanks within the NCB area.

The Barclay in N gauge will be quite a challenge.

I look forward to seeing your progress.

Bernard

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I have come across two possibly unrelated anecdotes during my extensive research of the route. These are:

 

a) Reference to Hawick being a receiving destination for Class 8 trip-worked coal from Lady Victoria and b ) a photo of a Class 37 during the freight-only period with the caption claiming it was a trip working to Hawick, the only load visible being coal in 16 tonners.

I'd do anything within reason to find out where I saw that shot, I reckon it was an Ian Allan annual or similar hardback.

 

However, using my normal analysis of Haymarket's allocation, and respectful of the fact that published photos at the exchange sidings do feature Claytons exclusively, I would suggest that any of the following could conceivably have put in an appearance:

Class 25 D7602-08, Class 20 D8316-19/23

I base this on the evidence of these no-heat locos working other Millerhill-based trippers and targets on all the freight-only branches, interchangeably with the Claytons. I wouldn't completely write off Class 26 D5300-06 either after they became freight-only in '66, but suspect these would be extremely scarce. The local trip working instructions are what we need. Those or some signalbox records!

 

Footnote: depending how faithful to the prototype you want to remain, or if you want to capture a real essence of the line, introducing a little variety, I don't think anyone would quibble at the appearance of the other Bo-Bos I've highlighted. It's your railway, after all!

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and b ) a photo of a Class 37 during the freight-only period with the caption claiming it was a trip working to Hawick, the only load visible being coal in 16 tonners.

I'd do anything within reason to find out where I saw that shot, I reckon it was an Ian Allan annual or similar hardback.

 

 

 

 

Cross my palm with silver? Try Railscot!

 

Bruce

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Thanks for that guys, some useful info.

 

The canmore drawings are great, I found those earlier in the summer through scotlandsplaces.gov.uk and licensed them and I am currently rescaling them to N. The colliery footprint is about 4*3 A4 paper (couldn't find the tape measure!), and the buildings are no more than 300mm high. I'll go to RCHAMS at some point and have a look at the material that isn't available online.

 

The colliery is local to me so its easy to go and take lots of reference photos, but I unfortunately missed a doors open day tour that would have got me a look at where the wagons were loaded.

 

Chard, the idea will be to get a feel for the line and its workings as my kit building skills are limited (why this project then?) but this is a long term project that will hopefully teach me some new skills.

 

The foamboard has been bought to start the basic shells for the buildings so I'll keep you all posted.

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Hi Chris,

 

If you need any 'Now' photos...

 

I can see Lady Vic from my modelling room window.

 

5 minutes down the road or 2 minutes across the field.

 

Thanks

 

Thanks for the offer, we are closer to each other than we realise as I am 5 mins further down the hill, and to get there would follow the path that many of it employees would have taken.

 

Anyway back to the foamboard!!

 

Just to keep me going here is a loco trying to hide

 

post-8341-0-11127500-1315856359_thumb.jpg

 

Chris

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It's a great pity that neither of the locos which Lady Vic was best known for is on the site. These were the the two 0-4-2STs, one a Barclay the other a Grant Ritchie. Last I heard both still existed, the Barclay [No.6] at the Tanfield Railway and the Grant Ritchie [No.7] at Prestongrange, though in what states I don't know. The Grant Richie was steamed at Prestongrange for a few years in the 1970/80s

 

post-7313-12624618384641_thumb.jpg

Grant Ritchie 0-4-2ST [Ex Lady Victoria Colliery] at Prestongrange

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just a few pictures to show my slow progress, all the building are being built from 5mm foam board as that seems to match the plans for the thickness of the walls. Think I'll use brick paper over the foamboard.

 

The plans are from the RCAHMS site, the licence gave me digital files that were quite easy to rescale and then print.

 

post-8341-0-94940100-1317295746_thumb.jpg

 

post-8341-0-49131900-1317295828_thumb.jpg

 

post-8341-0-21164300-1317295854_thumb.jpg

 

post-8341-0-50553500-1317295874_thumb.jpg

 

The overall view, there is still a row of buildings to go on the right hand side

 

post-8341-0-74165800-1317295904_thumb.jpg

 

Headframe and small buildings on the left hand side next.

 

I don't think its to bad so far for my first attempt at scratch building.

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All I can say is WOW!

 

Being one of the ham-fisted, sausage-finger types completely incompetent at modelling, this kind of attention to detail leaves me quite speechless. When complete it will look amazing. Be sure to keep the photos coming with progress!

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Good stuff, are you going to use scalescene prints or similar to actually cover the buildings.

 

If done carefully scalescene stuff is excellent in N gauge.

 

At the moment yes, I have just started covering some of the smaller buildings and so far so good.

 

All I can say is WOW!

 

Being one of the ham-fisted, sausage-finger types completely incompetent at modelling, this kind of attention to detail leaves me quite speechless. When complete it will look amazing. Be sure to keep the photos coming with progress!

 

I hope it will live up to the promising start, as I've mentioned before this is my first attempt a scratch building so we will see :no:

 

More pictures soon.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

I am in the early stages of planning a N scale layout based on the Lady Victoria Colliery. I have managed to get a copy of the plans to the colliery sidings which cover the area on the coillery side of the Waverly line.

 

 

Any chanace you could send us a copy of the plans please? (if you've still got them) or tell us where you found them as i've been looking since about july(2011)

 

Thanks

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Any chanace you could send us a copy of the plans please? (if you've still got them) or tell us where you found them as i've been looking since about july(2011)

 

Thanks

 

I got licenced copies of the plans from RCHAMS from here:

 

http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/53619/digital_images/newtongrange+lady+victoria+colliery/

 

these are of the individual elevations and a site plan showing the main footprint. The footprint shows some of the running tracks. These plans are of the buildings are today, but they don't appear to have changed to much.

 

The plan of the sidings came from the National Archives of Scotland item RHP28492, these are from 1935 but it's not to difficult to adjust for later surface changes. Again this is an official copy. I had meant to get a later set of plans but made a mistake ordering but it hasn't caused a problem so far.

 

My model project has slowed for now due to a new job which is giving less time but I'll get there.

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  • 5 months later...

http://www.flickr.co...ool-1337593@N25

 

Just found this little shot! Hope it helps!

 

Due to a new job that keeps me away from home for large chunks of time, progress has stopped but finding the following pictures has kickstarted a new push at finishing something!

 

I only looked at the above image and not the rest of the set and there are a few gems, enjoy

 

http://flic.kr/p/cLdofw

 

http://flic.kr/p/aJ3qj8

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I have come across two possibly unrelated anecdotes during my extensive research of the route. These are:

 

a) Reference to Hawick being a receiving destination for Class 8 trip-worked coal from Lady Victoria and b ) a photo of a Class 37 during the freight-only period with the caption claiming it was a trip working to Hawick, the only load visible being coal in 16 tonners.

I'd do anything within reason to find out where I saw that shot, I reckon it was an Ian Allan annual or similar hardback.

 

However, using my normal analysis of Haymarket's allocation, and respectful of the fact that published photos at the exchange sidings do feature Claytons exclusively, I would suggest that any of the following could conceivably have put in an appearance:

Class 25 D7602-08, Class 20 D8316-19/23

I base this on the evidence of these no-heat locos working other Millerhill-based trippers and targets on all the freight-only branches, interchangeably with the Claytons. I wouldn't completely write off Class 26 D5300-06 either after they became freight-only in '66, but suspect these would be extremely scarce. The local trip working instructions are what we need. Those or some signalbox records!

 

Footnote: depending how faithful to the prototype you want to remain, or if you want to capture a real essence of the line, introducing a little variety, I don't think anyone would quibble at the appearance of the other Bo-Bos I've highlighted. It's your railway, after all!

I know it's going back a bit on this thread, but it does occur to me from my time in Edinburgh (from late '68 to mid '72) that while, for most of that period, the Claytons were the normal power on the Edinburgh area trips / targets (Exx numbers), one did occasionally see something different, For example I can identify from my photographs that class 24 No. D5071 was at Granton with just a brakevan in tow on 16/3/70, while a month or so earlier class 37 No. D6903 worked the afternoon Millerhill to Leith South trip (target E13) comprising mostly coal for Portobello PS. I saw the latter working on a number of occasions and a Clayton was usual. Of course none of this relates directly to Lady Victoria, which I only visited a couple of times, but it does suggest to me that if a Clayton failed (hardly an unusual occurrence), Millerhill would probably substitute whatever was to hand, route availability permitting.

Bill

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It wouldn't be this shot:

 

post-5524-0-30823600-1349559007.jpg

 

I do have doubts that the coal was collected from Lady Victoria sidings from time to time after the Hawick trip working left Millerhill. On the above trip I can positively say that it didn't - our first stop was the level crossing at Heriot after we set off from Millerhill.

 

It was common for the coal merchants in the town to sell the coal as "Ashington", "Harbottle", &c, &c. I can't recall any coal receipts around our house showing "Lady Victoria". However, that's just circumstantial evidence of mine - the definitive truth is out there.

 

After the original question appeared, I emailed the museum to see if they could help - that was on 5 October 2011- and I'm still waiting for a reply.

 

Bruce

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Bruce,

I seem to recall that Lady Victoria was a central processing site for a number of pits, hence your description of a number of different 'brands' could be quite correct. That's according to the grey matter at least, so the usual disclaimer applies!

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