Coney Hill Light Railway

[Dava]

I started modelling in Gauge 0 about two years ago, having previously worked in 7mm narrow gauge. Recently I sold my ‘Irton Road’ minimum gauge layout, and after a time away from active modelling I became interested in the variety of Standard Gauge industrial and light railways.

 

Light railways often had a ‘thrifty’ (wisely economical) approach which can be applied to modelling in Gauge 0, ideal for the modeller on a budget. There is huge scope for recycling both modelling and other materials. I grew up reading and being influenced by modellers from a previous generation, such as Edward Beal, Peter Denny and John Ahearne, who showed what could be created from basic materials of wood, card and metal in the pre-plastic era. I met Jim Read via RMWeb who is very much in this tradition too.

 

I became interested in the Derwent Valley Light Railway east of York, notable for its attractive timber buildings and grass-covered track. I wanted to build a small layout as a test and display track as well as developing my skills to gain practice and confidence. Alphagraphics produce a DVLR station building as a modestly priced card kit, which I built up spending a few happy weekends wearing out scalpel blades on the ornate detailing. This was reinforced with artists mounting boards I’d saved from designers’ visuals. To match it I built a simple platform-mounted goods shed from card.

 

As a very simple project, I took a ply-topped baseboard I had built for one of my sons’ HO gauge layout and cut a 6’x20” segment. For track, I had acquired a bundle of Peco flexitrack cut lengths at a GOG event, and added to this a Peco point and a handbuilt, slightly curved turnout, the total cost being around £35. I’d gone through the normal process of playing with different track arrangements and concluded that in the limited space, a reasonably interesting layout could be constructed. This gave a running line into a dead-end platform, a headshunt and a kickback siding. There is also a simple narrow gauge feeder using 12mm track to represent 20 inch gauge.

 

This was all fine until I started thinking of exhibiting the layout rather than just running it as a test track for my own amusement. Six feet is just too long to go in the car! So surgery has been performed, with some track lifted and the baseboard shortened to 52”. A matching one is being built and between them this will give a length of 8 foot 6”. The second board will have a traverser or sector table and a siding to a mill alongside. The maximum train length will be 26”, enough for a loco and 3 wagons or 2 x 4-wheel coaches.

 

Hopefully the weather will warm up a bit so I can get on with the woodwork and tracklaying over Christmas! Then ballasting and scenic work to follow. The photos very much show work in progress.

 

I haven’t said much about rolling stock, but some of the locos are in my gallery, including a LNER Sentinel shunter (Walsworth models kit), the Peckett and Planet, and an Ixion Hudswell Clarke which awaits detailing.

[Hesperus]

Looking good Dava, especially those buildings.

 

Is that the Peckett that you scratchbuilt in the first pic? You've made a great job of it

[Dava]

Thank you kindly Hesperus, it is, there are photos in my gallery link below. This is the one which started out with a Hornby pug chassis - like the one you're doing - but running was just too fast/not controllable, so I built a chassis which was not too hard. Jim Read is also doing one. We share an interest in thrifty modelling it seems...

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/gallery/image/42963-peckett-class-1287/

[Hesperus]

I'll probably follow your advice and build mine a proper chassis in good time, I'm just happy to have built something which runs at all at the moment. I'm trying to build an 0-4-2T as my main passenger loco but keep running into problems with the chassis so knocked up the MW as a quick fix to practice a few techniques.

 

The thrifty modelling is fun and really builds up the old modelling skills, I'm too scared of messing up an expensive etched kit and if by some fluke I did make a great job of one it would look odd with my vintage stock. Thanks for the link to your gallery, I'll study that pic of the chassis closer when the time comes.

[Dava]

So the weather has warmed a bit & we can work on the new baseboard. So now we have 2 x 51" boards. The new one has the remains of the siding and narrow gauge loading dock on it. Beyond that there is a new (well, recycled handbuilt) point, to the right a siding and to the left the planned sector table.

 

All the clearances are tight, but I'm planning around a 3-wagon train or 2 4-wheel coaches plus 0-4-0T or 0-6-0T fitting into a 25" train length. These can be run into the sector table tracks. The photo shows a very rough mockup. I've never built a sector table (or a traverser, come to that) so it will be interesting. Plenty to do over the festive break....

[Dava]

So since the last post we've been busy finishing the new baseboard, painting it, setting out track and today a session to lay the sections over the baseboard joints and connecting the new (well, reclaimed) point. New sleepers cut from wood and pre-stained, then rails soldered to brass pins each side of the joints.

 

This will give us an extra siding, intended to be to a small building with loading bay from the local brewery. At the back of this will be a sector table with two roads, part-concealed by a wall and possible low-relief buildings. Clearances will be tight but from the experiments so far, should work.

 

I’ve just agreed to buy a 4-wheel brake end coach on the GOG website, this is just what the passenger train needs to replace the goods brake van. Lots to do on the point control, building the sector table, wiring and track fettling. Not forgetting the narrow gauge line...

 

...so now, 5 days after Christmas, quite a lot of progress has been made, its been pouring wet outside rather than cold, but fortunately quite OK in the garage. Now able to post an update again.

 

Yesterday the coach arrived – thank you John H., its a Ratio GW but painted nicely in LNER teak finish it resembles a North British Railway vehicle closely enough. Maybe trial running will be possible before the end of the holidays?

 

On the layout, much work went into building the sector table out of plywood offcuts and scrap, aiming to create a light but rigid structure, complete with box side and end to stop trains falling off it. The clearances between the tracks are tight but seem to work.

 

All the track has now been laid but railjoints will need final adjustment once its all wired up so we can see how the locos behave.

 

Next steps will be splitting the two baseboards so the new one can be turned on its side to install the point control and wiring.

 

[Dava]

Well, today & yesterday I've been doing the wiring, so both baseboards are on their sides as I sort out the feeds, connecter between the two boards, and control for the new point. Not my favourite task and maybe I should have considered DCC instead! But hopefully we'll be running by end of this week or before. Just received my invite to the Mansfield show in March so we'll need to be ready for then.

[Dava]

So here is an update, having spent too much time in the garage working on the layour I managed to catch a nasty chill.

 

Lots of work on the wiring, I hadn't wired a layout (except the first half of Coney last easter) since the 1990's and it shows. You rarely see the wiring so the first photo gives it away. I dont like wiring computer D plugs but what else can you get as baseboard connecters now? The point rods are also shown - these are wooden dowel rods which also operate rocker switches from Maplin. The sector table also has a rocker switch. We will be having a gate on the back road of the table to prevent any runaways.

 

Last night some wiring problems including a permanent short on the re-used new point had to be sorted before the first train could rumble out of the new sidings, inevitably with the 'Planet', taking no chances.

 

Then today, after dosing self with cold medecines, a chance for some test trains involving all four locos and the passenger train including the new coach, to see what works. The buildings went on as well so it was just like a preservation steam gala day!

 

Most things work well. The Ixion Hudswell Clarke does its impersonation of the Easingwold Railway loco, but will be back to the works queue until the sandpipes are shortened to stop them fouling rail chairs and other minor defects corrected. So the Peckett is back on the passenger train. Its NG-profile wheels make it very sensitive to over-gauge track (31mm would suit it better) and there are a couple of 'wide' spots including the curved road on the new point, so track modifications and checkrails in a few places will be required.

But overall it shows that the 100-inch running line is much more fun than we had before, the sector table works even with the tight clearances shown in the final photo, and we can have three trains in traffic, with four or five locos on the layout. Then there's the narrow gauge to sort out...

So lots to do fettling the track, before we make a start on the scenic work.

[hartleymartin]

The Planet looks really good. Until you tell someone, they wouldn't think that it was a hack job of an Atlas Plymouth. Mine has stalled because I broke my hacksaw blade trying to cut through the metal chassis block.

[Dava]

Hartley,

 

Yep, lots of singleminded hack needed on the Atlas job, buy a new blade and power to your elbow! The remains of the chassis block will ballast a couple of wagons!

[hartleymartin]

I take it that you are running a straight 12Volt DC layout. I don't think that there is room anywhere in to put a DCC Chip in the Planet.

[RedgateModels]

For those keen to see this layout it's appearing at the Mansfield Show 2nd and 3rd March 2013 http://www.mansfieldmodelrailway.co.uk along with Jim Read's Moxley Heath and my own Fourgig East where I'll probably be doing scenery demonstrations including ballasting.

[DLT]

Fascinating little project, I will be following.

Cheers, Dave.

[Dava]

Yes, thanks for the interest. I think I may be doing scenery work at Mansfield as well....on Hartley's point, I'm still 'analogue man' as far as DCC is concerned. Back at work today so progress will be a lot slower.

[Dava]

So, as progress on Coney Hill is small-scale this week, here's a few references back to one of the inspirations, the Derwent Valley Light Railway, although I certainly don't claim it is modelled on any actual part of the DVLR, just that it is located in the same general area 'near York' and shared the same engineer.

 

First up is a pic of the restored Murton station although this one originally came from Wheldrake, further down the line. Its a double-gabled version, the Alphagraphix kit mine is built from being the smaller single-gable type. The blackboard outside declared there were no trains running when we visited. The line is part of the Yorkshire Farming Museum and is worth a visit, their website being at http://www.dvlr.org.uk/ They are having a Centenary Gala on July 20-21 with two visiting steam locos which have 'connections with the line' - so one is probably 'Joem' the surviving J72, but the other? We'll have to wait & see.

 

Another resource worth looking at is an Industrial Railway Record article from 1973 with good photos, map and track plan of the line whilst it was still running. http://www.irsociety.co.uk/Archives/51/Derwent.htm

 

Back to work...

 

So, as progress on Coney Hill is small-scale this week, here's a few references back to one of the inspirations, the Derwent Valley Light Railway, although I certainly don't claim it is modelled on any actual part of the DVLR, just that it is located in the same general area 'near York' and shared the same engineer.

 

First up is a pic of the restored Murton station although this one originally came from Wheldrake, further down the line. Its a double-gabled version, the Alphagraphix kit mine is built from being the smaller single-gable type. The blackboard outside declared there were no trains running when we visited. The line is part of the Yorkshire Farming Museum and is worth a visit, their website being at http://www.dvlr.org.uk/ They are having a Centenary Gala on July 20-21 with two visiting steam locos which have 'connections with the line' - so one is probably 'Joem' the surviving J72, but the other? We'll have to wait & see.

 

Another resource worth looking at is an Industrial Railway Record article from 1973 with good photos, map and track plan of the line whilst it was still running. http://www.irsociety.co.uk/Archives/51/Derwent.htm

 

Back to work...

[RedgateModels]

I think I may be doing scenery work at Mansfield as well...

 

I would appreciate it if this isn't the case

[Mike]

Cracking project, following with interest

Mike

[Dava]

As temperatures plummet, I've been working on small details, such as the station nameboard, walls, fences and other things.

 

The main news is that I'm very pleased that the layout will now be getting its very first airing on 2nd Feb at the Trent Valley Group Annual Open Day of the 7mm Narrow Gauge Association, at Mickleover Community Centre - see link below for details. Thank you to Mike B. for this! This should help to show where the operating challenges and problems are before the Mansfield show. Lots of work to do so the layout will be a 'work in progress'. Better get that narrow gauge line running! There may well be 'guest' Ixion Hudswell Clarkes visiting on the day.

 

http://www.ngtrains.com/Pages/Admin/Shows/tvg3.htm#Whats%20On

 

Dava

[hartleymartin]

Almost a fornight later I have finally obtained a new hacksaw so I can continue working on my own conversion of the Atlas Plymouth Shunter. In the mean time I was learning Koine Greek, but that's another story.

[Dava]

Today the layout will be dismantled & packed up in readiness for its debut at the Trent Valley Group Annual Open Day of the 7mm Narrow Gauge Association, at Mickleover Community Centre. Photos will be taken, including the new brewery. So if you're near Derby on Saturday, come and see us - link to the webpage above.

 

Coincidentally my article on building the Peckett loco appears in the Gauge 0 Guild Gazette which has just arrived - proud moment!

 

Now off to the dentist to find out what's causing the trouble...

[Mike Bellamy]

Hope all OK at the Dentist - I'm there on Monday!

 

See you in the morning - there is now a hall plan and it all fits (famous last words) and I've sent my son shopping today for the catering supplies from Tesco. Fun starts at 5.00pm tonight with the arrivel of EDM Models and after we've unloaded Paul's van we need to fetch the big layout. The West Midlands group also plan to set up tonight with others arriving in the morning - open to the public at 10.00am. I'll be brewing tea and burning bacon in the kitchen !

 

Mike

[Mike]

Hi Dava, just spent a pleasant morning reading the Gazette and enjoyed your article. Hope the show goes well, looking forward to some more photos etc.

[Dava]

So today it was off to Mickleover, arrived nice & early to find two empty tables. Here's a pic of the layout packed up for the first time.

 

The layout ran well and it was a chance to find out the possibilities as well as problems, and all the work needed before the Mansfield show. I had not seen the layout from the front since extending it and there have been lots of changes with new buildings, scenic work and some details starting to appear.

 

But remembering it was a 7MM Narrow Gauge show, here's a shot of the narrow gauge (0-12) with an assortment of locos in front of Mike Bellamy's Hudswell on the passenger train (my Hudswell did not leave its box, such was the interest from visiting locos).

 

The next visiting loco was Paul Martin's exquisite Manning Wardle 0-4-0ST from Ixion. Here it is shunting the brewery siding - the brewery did not exist a week ago and is being created from a Skytrex warehouse front. Lots to do in this area.

 

The layout was designed round a train length of three wagons - so here is the MW shunting (all) six with ease!

 

Needless to say it also made it onto the passenger train before Paul reclaimed it! Thanks Paul.

 

The final visitor was Neil Blair's Midland 1F, a fine loco but more branchline than light railway so a little tight through the points. It was good to meet Neil and compare notes on 7mm microlayouts.

 

Thanks to all the visitors who spent with us and a special thanks to Mike and the Trent Valley Group, most enjoyable.

[Mike]

Glad the show went well and nice to see the photos, my kind of railway.

[81A Oldoak]

Delighted to see the Ixion Hudswell Clarke and Manning Wardle on your layout.