Not much EM Progress, so a visit to 'Bowton's Yard'
Last week I did not report how I was converting the Bachy Crab, because I had done no trial running. I'm afraid that is still the case! I've just left the workshop in frustration after dropping so many clangers that todays progress has been negligible.
So this week's input to the blog that started so as to report progress on a new EM layout, will be a series of photos of 'Bowtons Yard'. This is a freelance S4 layout which is based on distorting the history of John Summers & Sons, the steel makers who moved from Stalybridge in Cheshire to Hawarden near the Welsh border, close to Chester. The plant is still there today but under what name and if still producing steel, I know not.
Summers almost certainly moved to Chester because of very poor rail access at the Stalybridge site which was known as Globe Iron Works. All of that is true.
In my distortion of history, John Summers joined forces with the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway to build a single line goods only branch from Dukinfield station, (near Guidebridge). In order to make this branch more financially viable, and because a good flat site was available in the district known locally as 'Tame Valley', about half way along the route to Summer's plant, a small goods yard with warehouse and coal drops was built and came to be known as Bowtons Yard.
Here we are looking towards Stalybridge, with our back to the Great Central warehouse. The buildings are all scratch built to fit the site and are made from down-loaded brick papers etc purchased from 'Scalescenes'.=: - an excellent range. They all follow typical Lancashire cotton mill designs and are several stories high acting as a three-dee backscene.
The land contours lent themselves to allow a few coal drops which the local coal merchants are happy about. The road is the vehicular access to the warehouse; at the bottom of the slope is a road tunnel which gives access to the yard proper.
These two shots show us the GC shed which shelters the exit to 'Guidebridge' hidden sidings from normal view.
One of many horse drawn vehicles comes out of the darkness of the road which tunnels under the railway after passing through a valley of 'dark satanic mills'.
Same horse & cart but a view showing the relationship of road and rail.
This shows the road tunnel entrance to the yard.
An ex GC 'Pom-pom' waits for a road. The larger mill, less than half of it in this view, is a scale model of 'Globe Worsted Co's mill at Slaithwaite but Lancashire-ised by being in red brick rather than York stone.
Same again, different angle.
Looking towards Guidebridge and showing most of the layout. The loco is a J72 which is totally silly, no such loco would have come so far south and west !!
But they were delightful little engines, so I have to have one. This one was based at York during the period depicted.
A W-D in LNER livery waits for the shunter to assemble its train. The sloping road entry to the yard out of the road tunnel is also shown here.
That's it for now, I hope to get back to the Crab next time.
Have a good modelling weekend,
Dave
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