Hi all
Back again with a bit of a odd ball model. I do't know how many of you have had a look at the Cool4Cats web site. These are delightful card kits of a range of subjects all of which make into working models, automatons I think is the word. I have made several over the years and powered them with those cheap motor and gearbox items. At my last viewing of the site there still were not any railway ones. I thought I would have ago at scratch building one. This is probably my last throw a
Hi Everyone.
I see it's six weeks since I posted my "penultimate blog" and a heck of a lot has happened in that time. I have moved from the Lake District back to my roots in Shipley. I have an apartment over looking the River Aire just half a mile from Saltaire where I was born so I think I can say I have come full circle. To say the least it has been a hectic time for an 85 year old but with the assistance of my family is has happened and I'm settling down. So, on to what may be my last blog
Hi All,
I see it is just over a month since my last blog. Have I been up in the loft again? yes, but nothing to do with this blog. This is possibly my penultimate blog as I have come to the end of "what I built since the Aire Valley". more on the whys and wherefores next time.
This one is about the small 1/1200 scale WW2 warships I started to construct after parting with the last model railway, Cranly Lake.R.R. Incidentally, the new owner of the layout has posted a video on youtube which
Hi.
I have been up in the loft. Yes I know yet again. Having a bit of a clear out and found a couple of my real stone models after completing the first stage. Thought they may be of interest or maybe not.
Cheers Derek.
Hi all.
After posting the last blog I found a couple of images of a model of Emett's Nellie which I thought I had already posted but looking through my past posting I cannot find them so I'm attaching them today. If I have posted them before my apologies. Nellie is now in the hands of my daughter down in Ellesmere and. is usually kept in a show case and just comes out at Christmas as will be seen in one of the attachments. Also attaching a pic of a model Hiab sea crane. She works in
Hi.
I have been up in the loft today looking for something which I didn't find. However I did find some items of railway interest. First up is the delightful photo of the the last B.R. shunting horse, Charlie and his "workmate" whose name I do not know. The original image was a calender which I received many years ago from a friend who as we can see had exceedingly good tastes in New Year greetings. The title is Working Partners and was done by a professional photographer. Charlie died on
Hi All.
Just a quickie. Single attachment showing the latest bit of stock on the Fairfied garden line.. It started off as a toy bendy bus somewhat about the same scale as the two Chad Valley rail vehicles. It was obtained from Pound Stretcher. The power chassis is the IP Engineering budget chassis I picked up at NG North. Somewhere on youtube is a 30 odd second video of it on the move..
See you at York? Cheers Derek
Hi again.
Back again after over a month. I am posting the last model railway I constructed. Cranly Lake Railroad. This was only the second 7 mm scale I had built, the other one being the Liquorice Line. I was seduced by the Bachman Shay. Also at the same time my Friend Paul Towers sent me details of a very short line in Canda. " The Portage Railway" which was only one and one eighth miles long with track gauge of 42 inches. It was a tourist line connecting two lakes and had two locos, t
Hi.
Attaching two more box diagrams. Shipley Bradford Jcn and Shipley Bingley Jcn. The former was at the Bradford end of the Shipley triangle. ;As mentioned ;in a previous posting there were some boxes between Manningham Jcn and Shipley for which I don't have drawings. (1) Manningham Sidings.;Spare and summer only coaching stock was stored here. (2) Frizinghall. ;There was a large wool warehouse here served by rail. These two boxes had signals on the passenger lines but no points. ;(3) Shipley
Hi Again.
I am posting the second of the signal box items. This is Manningham Stn Jcn. mentioned in the last posting. A personal note first ..I first worked at this box as a Train Recorder in 1944, crikey that's 70 years ago. The R.D. relief post was a second bite at the cherry. There was a further bite when I got a permanent position at Manningham. It had a 40 lever frame of which 6 were spares. The sidings off to the top left led to the engine shed. At one time there used to be a signal
Hi All.
I am hoping to publish a series of blogs which are not about models. They do however have a tenuous connection to the building of the AVR. When the 44 hour week was introduced on BR it created a bit of a problem regarding signal boxes which were open 24 hours 7 days a week. The solution was to give each signalman one day off every other week though it did not work out at every other week as Rest Days as they became known were not taken on the night shift so as not to disrupt sleep pat
Hi All.
I am posting pics out of the book Junction X. All I can say is they seem to be a bit of an odd ball mix. Some I would think are pre war photos. Others early to mid war with some of the captions written to suit the time of the broadcast of the drama I will leave you to make your own minds up.
Regards Derek
Hi.
Bit of an odd ball posting this time, when are they not? The first three photos go back a considerable period of time. The first one is the cover of the first dedicated railway book I bought. Railways had featured in other books such as the Odhams Press publication How it Works and how it's Done. . but this was my first real railway book. As may be seen from the cover it is the script of a B.B.C. broadcast. On the title page it quotes, A dramatisation of events that occurred at a vital
HI.
I am posting the last three Aire Valley drawings. Not really any comment I can add here except to wish you all a belated Happy New Year.
Regards, Derek.
Hi all.
It seem my 84 year ears are not what they used to be. Indeed the word use was PROP which I guess makes sense as the item was about the making of the film. I have never watched any of the various dramas including the current one about the train robbers. As an ex railwayman what happened to driver Mills was unforgivable.
Anyway now am hear I will attach some more Drawings. The small one shows alterations done to some of the freight stock.
All the best for Christmas and the
Hi All.
I am attaching another three drawings.
Did any of you see BBC Breakfast the other morning regarding Yorkshire being the New Hollywood. There was piece on about the making of the Great Train Robbery drama , aired this week.The presenter was on the Keighley and Worth line showing the diesel loco used in the film which he referred to as 105 ton TRUCK. I have just got used to Train Station instead of Railway Station, what next.
Just in case my next post is late.. All the best
Hi again.
Back to the A.V.R. When constructing the Aire Valley stock and locos the drawings I used were very simple, not much more than basic dimensions . The early items of stock were built from card and details were drawn straight onto the card. OXO tin locos were built on the cut and fit method..All this is a bit hazy now. It is going on 60 years ago. Anyway stuff did get built to what I considered reasonable for the time..At some point I thought it might be a good idea to make "off
Hi All.
I got myself in a bit of a tangle on my last posting on the garden line I'm attaching some further images The odd ball figure was the driver of the passenger railcar.
Cheers. Derek.
Hi all.
A nice sunny but very chilly day here in the South Lakes. Took the chance to take some images on my "Garden Line". This is the only model railway I have left and if I don't make an effort to post a blog on it it will get passed over. Don't get to expectant regarding this line. It's very simple and was in fact built for a reason other than a model railway. When we moved up here at the end of the last century (that has quite a pioneering ring about it) the front lawn was in a bit of
Hi all.
A couple of postings ago (stone walls) I mentioned having a tour of the Burlington slate Quarries. I had hoped to see the slate crusher in action but it wasn't working that day. This visit was in connection with a new layout I was working on. The Little Langdale Railway. The time was to be the present. I was looking at a Heritage line which would also be used to carry crushed slate from a quarry to a seaport. It was to be situated in Cumbria, Yes, not all slate comes from Wales
Hi All.
I was exhibiting my latest completed project at the Furness Model Railway Show last weekend 12th and 13th. This was another of my real water models, Hirstwood Lock No 19. Also showing it at the Blackpool Model Boat Show next weekend. This a model of a narrow canal lock..It is one of those models I had to have a go at to see if it could be done. I had originally looked at a broad canal but at the planning stage realised it would have to be narrow canal. I came up with an optimum le
Hi.
More on real stone modelling. After all the personalised walls it was time to look at something a bit more challenging. At the time we were living at Keighley just a stones throw (no pun intended) from Bronte Country. In the end it came down to "Top Withens" the remote, now derelict farmstead on the moors above Haworth. Not to build it in this state but as near as possible as it was. Maudie and I did several trips to the building to measure the ground plan and try and calculate the slo
Hi.
Bit of a change today.;I'm not sure if you will consider the ;items in this blog to come under models as we normally think of models or a touch of arts and crafts. Read on and see what you think. The items here were constructed between 1996 and 2007. They are miniature walls constructed from real Yorkshire stone. They were tailored for friends and relations who were to receive them. It started when Maudie and I were going to visit some American friends ;who we met up with while we were on a
Hi.
Further to my posting of 17th july. This was about the attempt at a 009 layout ( tunnel through the chimney breast) and the indoor garden layout. I said I didn't have any images of these efforts apart from the one of the the garden line loco which I attached. Guess what? I have found some. Explanation. I have been down to Ellesmere again to a family get together for my Great Granddaughter's Christening. I was asked to look through my family photos for any revelant photos and found the attac
