BILSTON STEEL WORKS
Entry posted by PaternosterRow in BILSTON
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Some months ago I came across a fantastic website - www.britishsteelbilston.com - about the Bilston Steel works in Wolverhampton, West Midlands. This has been put together by Mr Andrew Simpson who worked there and is well worth a visit - there are some fantastic photos including a section on the Work's locomotives. In fact, I contacted Andrew and he put me in touch with a Mr Roger Deans, a chief fitter at Bilston, who has provided me with information and a lot of stories about his time there. I was so taken with Bilston itself, and is a place I clearly remember from my childhood cycling adventures down the canals, that I decided to recreate a small shunting layout based on a typical British steelworks.
Bilston in its early 70s heyday - a clear shot of how close you could get to a Blast Furnace from the canals in those pre H&S days! The furnace was called Elisabeth (with an s not a z) in honour of the owner's daughter and not the Queen as often suggested. She was first lit in 1954 and closed down in 1977. Her weekly output was about 5000 tons.
Canal boats would often float past even on the most busiest of days at the Steelworks.
My take on part of a steelworks. Note the mirror underneath the building at the end of the canal. Like all micro layout creators I am obsessed with successful scenic breaks! Apart from the obvious join line across the canal I think the trick works rather well.
The Engineering Shop at Bilston. Notice the uneven buckling of the corrugated panels - that is how they actually look in real life on all industrial buildings. I'd like to claim that I have successfully emulated this in my own model but can't as it was entirely accidental. I guess when you use the correct thickness of foil you get the same effect! The colour match is also a lucky guess and came from a discarded paint can found at my local tip.
The above picture is actually from Shelton Bar Steelworks in Stoke on Trent. I was so taken with the scene that I wanted to recreate it on the layout.
May take on the Shelton Bar building over the canal.
I love these wagons from Golden Valley Hobbies. They are being hauled by a freelance version of a Hunslet 0-4-0. Based on the cheap Hornby mechanism I have used bits and pieces from an old Dapol Shunter kit and a second hand Bagnell. The Dapol 16T mineral is permanently attached and its wheels have been given extra pickups that feed the Hornby motor via small connect wires - whilst not a brilliant crawl type runner it works really well on the layout.
Plan view of the layout - it has a fiddle yard to the right and is connected via a link to my Floodgate Street layout to the Left. I've done this for space considerations and also to allow FGS to share the new fiddle yard.
More pics to follow about construction etc.
Edited by PaternosterRow
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