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Aire Valley Railway

Hi. Time now to go from the sublime to the ridiculous, "The Liquorice Line". Where on earth did that come from? Rewind to 1995 I was in my second year of retirement and off to Australia with my wife spend a few weeks with her Sister and Brother in law..One of the places we visited was Melaeuca Station. This was part of a Tea Tree Oil Plantation. You boarded a narrow gauge train which took you on a large continiuous circuit. The train stopped at various points and a train crew member explain

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

Aire Valley Railway

Hi. I guess it's about time to look at further layouts I have constructed. After the Windermere boats and the two layouts that came to nothing I came up with the Idea for Semerdale. I'm not sure how the idea for the layout came about ..As mentioned in the Railway Modeller article of May 1998 I was looking for a few "tweaks" in the scale/gauge. Also, for what ever reason I built it as an exhibition layout and as mentioned in the above article I am more of a constructor than an operator. Most

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

Aire Valley Railway

Hi.. Just had a long weekend in Halifax. Among other things I paid a visit to the Kirklees Light Railway at Clayton West. It must be about 15 years since I was last there. Not a lot seems to have altered except I'm not sure if number 7 was around then. In some ways it's a one off style of line for a 15 inch gauge line. No "Express " locomotives as on the RHDR or the R and E. Am attaching some images. Badger, the little green loco hauled our train. Yours truly is seen in front of Owl. I

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

Aire Valley Railway

Hi. Just a quicky. If any of you have not discovered it yet, If you Google Summit Tunnel fire 1984 you will find quite a bit of information. Sorry I didn't mention it in the blog.   Derek

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

Aire Valley Railway

Hi. After the tragic event in Canada of the runaway oil tanker train I was reminded of the oil tanker train derailment in Summit Tunnel in 1984 on the L&Y route between Leeds/Bradford and Manchester. The cause of the the derailment was a sheared axle. Fortunately there was no train running in the opposite direction and the driver of the tanker train escaped along with the locomotive and first four wagons. It must have been really horrendous for him. However, oil escaping from a rupture

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

Aire Valley Railway

Hi. Not much to report re the Glyn Valley Tramway. I went to Chirk and to the little industrial estate and made some enquires only to draw a blank. Back at the station I asked a chap who was a local if he knew where there might be any activity re the refurbishment of the G.V.T. He thought there was but couldn't say where. I wandered around a bit but without success. It was real hot so I ambled back to Chirk station car park only to find my car blocked in with a couple of lorries which were

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

Aire Valley Railway

Hi After the period of building the Windermere boats and the etching of all those stanchions a change of modelling was needed. Two things came together at this point. A spare bedroom and some passed down 009 locos and rolling stock. This culminated in the infamous episode of bashing a hole through the chimney breast which went up through bedroom to create a tunnel. I would hasten to add the fireplace in the room below was not in use. The bashing through was done when my wife was away for

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

Aire Valley Railway

Hi. Back from East Grinstead. Did the full trip on the Bluebell line. Not sure that passengers starting at East Grinstead will find it easy, Sainsbury's have cut their parking time down from two hours to ninety minutes so it's a pay and display car park a little distance away. No problems for my party though with living in East Grinstead. My Grandson dropped us off at the station. It was a bonus weekend for me as it was the model railway weekend with layouts at Horsted Keynes and Sheffield

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

Aire Valley Railway

Hi. This post will be mostly images of the stages in the construction of the Wndermere vessel M.V.Swan.. I mentioned in my posting of 11th June the hull is built on the plank and frame method. I'm guessing most of you will know this method. I will now do one of my digressions.. I see over the next fifteen years all the remaining signal boxes are to be closed and twelve Railway Operating Centres will cover the whole of the system. On the one hand it seems drastic and maybe will on some signa

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

Aire Valley Railway

Hi. Having looked at the image of the home made drilling machine I posted in my last blog again I'm not sure if does show things very well. While I realise no one is going to construct such a machine in this day and age when small pillar drills and hand held mini drills are available i am attaching a simplified drawing which I hope will help to explain it..I say this in jest but then we had to scratch build machines to scratch build models. It beat using a pin chuck in the hand to drill brass

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

Aire Valley Railway

Hi. I have been delving into my photo bits and pieces. With luck attached below is a photo of the panel and diagram of Mill Lane Jcn signal box which I retired from just over 19 years ago. It controls Bradford Interchange Station which replaced Bradford Exchange some years ago. The old Exchange box went along with the old station The ten dead end platforms of the old station were reduced to four in the new one. The ten old platforms were divided equally, Five G.N., five L.and Y. The old bo

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

Aire Valley Railway

Hi. Having messed about attaching files which I hope I am getting the hang of I thought I thought I had better get on with further etching. Nothing to do with railways I'm afraid. I mentioned the building of the SS Raven which was the the start of my second ship building period. The first was was during the war While the rest of my classmates were into building Spitfires and Hurricanes and the like I was into building British warships. The drawings for these were produced by a firm called Model

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

Aire Valley Railway

Hi. I gather the image I attached got through Stating the obvious it was a B/W print of part of Nethertarn on the aborted line.I going to try a few more. One of interest is the one of the Clinker Block Works, a bit dark, with the American rail cars on the line above I think it may explain why the line was aborted. The image of the stamp may be of interest. Regards Derek.

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

Hi . Before going into further etching, an answer to to a question I get asked on odd occasions. " Do I regret parting with the Aire Valley"? I will dodge that question and just say it is in the past and you cannot change the past. A move of house with no room for the railway was the reason for the sale. I know it's been mentioned before that the locos, except two, and rolling stock went to friend in Australia. On a visit to Australia some years later to visit my wife's sister my friend gave me

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

Aire Valley Railway

Hi everyone. I finished my last posting with a mention of another item connected to dry print.This was etching. It was the final "aid" to giving that final finish to the locos. There was an article in I think the Model Railway News explaining how to etch your own nameplates. The author was the late Dennis Allenden, an Englishman living and working in the U.S.A. modelling superb French locomotives and rolling stock in 7mm scale. The production of name plates was in fact pretty simple but need so

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

Aire Valley Railway

Hi. About more buildings.The last one of any note to be constructed was Danes Crossing Works at Saltaire. As mentioned in the Railway Modeller article of August 1976 the interior of the building was completed after the whole of Saltaire was remodelled. Are interiors of buildings worth doing? I suppose it's up to the builder. I had always wanted to have a go and was pleased I did.Little did I realise then that the works was to be the penultimate article about the Aire Valley. There were couple

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

Aire Valley Railway

Hi again. The layout and buildings. I'm sure it would be just a bit boring to go into a lot of depth on this subject so I have selected items I hope might be of interest. I;think the clinker block works ;might be a good place to start. It's a poor man's crib on John Ahern's brick works. A couple of reasons. One, lack of space for a brick works. Two, it added another dimension to C-Oil. creating further rail traffic between the two works. Construction was a bit odd in using a complete alarm mech

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

Aire Valley Railway

Hi again all. First off,Sorry Petetg i have no idea what the diesel unit on you line could have been. I doubt you will ever find out.Second. He's at it again, me that is How is the mineral on the AVR spelt? C-Oil. That's right. Look out for today's error. I think the only item of motive power not looked to date is the steam railcar featured in the Aire Valley steam developments article of February 1970 article in the Railway Modeller. I think I detailed the construction problems. Possibly the

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

Aire Valley Railway

Hi All. I feel a bit of an idiot as I have another correction to make (what again?).The Rocal loco, it turns out it was a tank engine. The only reason I know this is because after my last blog I dug all my bits and pieces out and there was the Railway Modeller article "Internal combustion on the Aire Valley". Well it was 47 years ago. As mentioned in the article The body was parts of the Airfix Drewery. I guess I may as well continue with the the two pairs of railcars.. No prizes for knowing wh

derekarthurnaylor

derekarthurnaylor

Aire Valley Railway

Hi again.   First a correction to my last blog. I got P.D.Hancock's first name wrong. It's Philip not Peter. I played about with standard gauge in the early days as I guess many of us did. My interest in NG took off after reading the late L.T.C. Rolt's "Railway Adventure".It's hard to define why one should take a shine to a particular type of railway. Anyway I constructed 18 inch of 8mm gauge track and an 0-4-0 chassis. None of this was done overnight and I came round to realising that with

Aire Valley Railway

Hi everyone Thanks for your comments. Sorry to have taken a bit longer than intended getting round to this. I had been down to the Porthmadog Model Railway Show with my latest exhibit. It's called Port Maud and is not really a model railway but a model harbour with real water in which the tide ebbs and flows. The basis of the model is a garden potting tray. There is a small element of a railway in it. It's a simple cable hauled car connecting the harbour to the village. It's a total fun thing a
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