derekarthurnaylor

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 of other buildings in Saltaire I was pleased about. One was the Barclay's Bank frontage.As with most of the town it was a low relief model with lots of "gingerbread.". The other building was much more simple and in mini low relief. This was the Fire Station next to the bank. Sat behind the doors was the front of a Modelcraft card kit petrol tanker which gave the building depth. I think that just about covers the A.V.R. I dont suppose it seems much but without repeating chunks out of the various articles which I don't think is what "blogs" are about, It covers, albeit very briefly, my thinking of my ideal model railway. I started these blogs about the A.V.R. off the cuff and wondering if indeed I should. However If any one would like more information make it known in a comment. If it's of interest there were three things which came along and made modelling life a lot easier. Plasticard. For me it was brilliant. Locos, rolling stock, buildings.you name it. I think you all know it.s not recommended you smoke while using MEK, ok you shouldn't smoke full stop.However I can remember George Slater at his demonstration stand at a Leeds exhibition smoking throughout the show. He was a chain smoker and the cigarette never left his mouth until he used the butt to light the next. I think he lived into his nineties. Then there was dry print. My early locos and stock were were all lettered by hand using a mapping pen. Very laborious indeed but of course there wasn.'t any suitable transfers for the AVR..Some early print sheets had Roman and Gill Sands on the same sheet just the right size for my models.They were available in black and white. This meant you could lay white letters down and with care you could lay the black down just covering one edge of the white and this gave you blocked letters. The final item was connected to lettering but I will have to leave that till next time.

Hi iainp. Thanks for your comment. I am still at a loss as to why the A.V.R. gelled with so many modellers and indeed it is still remembered nearly 40 years since the last article. I am hoping to continue with my modelling world after after the last ? Aire Valley blog if folks are interested Thanks again. Derek.

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 mechanism to drive it Now for £;3.99 you can get a nice compact low voltage motor and combined gear box. One drives the cable car on Port Maud . I found the prototype when I was working (as a relief signalman) at Engine Shed Jcn at Holbeck Shed. The owners were reluctant at first to let me take photographs of it ;I don't know who they thought I was.but in the end I got my pics. The Works was sited near Green Cove Halt a little way out of Saltaire. Not the best place near the local beauty spot. If any of you have the Railway Modeller, April 1968. featuring the works there's a photo of the works ;in situ on the layout. This is the only known published image of a scene on the aborted layout. The American railcars are on the high level line above the works. I'm working on attaching more images of this aborted line. If I might now digress;a bit. One day while working at Whitehall Jcn. at the north end of the Leeds triangle a freight train headed by a 9F had been stood at the home signal from Engine Shed while other traffic was worked by. On pulling off for the freight the driver opened the regulator just a little to much and it stuck open without any forward movement. It gradually dug itself into the rail. In the end the crew had to throw the fire out..I'm not sure all this time on how the 9F was rescued but four lengths of rail had to be replaced before normal traffic was resumed. Fortunately no one was injured and there were no booked passenger trains over that leg of the triangle.I was told the 9Fs were prone to this One other scenic feature I was quite pleased with was the trees and the crane in the Forestry in the Aire Valley article in April 1975 ;Years later I tried to purchase some more of the Khahia grass I used for my original trees, I tried garden centres and flower shops all to no avail no one had ever heard of it..The crane was eventually motorised but I don't think it loaded many logs. The village of Stony Ridge had quite a bit of industry.for a place it's size. That's about for now I'll look at Danes Crossing Works and some other bits next time.

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 most interesting being (as in the American railcar) the split axle insulated frame method used. The power unit was very compact, much as a modern car is under the bonnet compared to early cars.as mentioned in other postings It was used on the Stony Ridge Branch. An interesting working re the branch was the Wednesday Market day working. This was change over day for the units so the branch unit could return to Saltaire for servicing. The branch unit carried on to Saltaire and the unit from Saltaire worked up to Stony Ridge. So the mid day market working saw the only through workings on and off the branch. Quite a treat for the residents of Stony Ridge.Passenger stock. The original six vehicles were the the two bogie coaches loosely based on the Welshpool and Llanfair stock. These ran on standard Triang TT bogies. The four four wheelers weae based on the original Talyllyn coaches.. These ran on Triang TT goods brake van chassis . These the right length for three compartments plus the full length low step made for easy boarding. Over the following years a hotch potch of single coaches were constructed. Two of my favourites were a four wheeled four compartment coach based on a Cork and Muskerry vehicle. This ran on a long wheel base TT goods chassis with a scratch built low long step.The other was a short bogie coach based on a Shull and Skibereen Vehicle. Whether there was need for all these extra coaches I'm not sure. They did make for a change and could be used to strengthen trains or run extras.One odd vehicle was a combined bogie brake van with two 3rd class compartments and a horse box. I think my original thinking the passenger compartments were for the grooms. It was numbered as a freight Vehicle. Having mentioned it was numbered as a freight vehicle I should mention the numbering system. Loocs were allocated 1 to 10. Passenger coaches 11 to 20 Goods vehicles (except the Hoppers) 21 to 60 Hoppers 61 100 and finally rail cars 101 to 110 so there were no repeated numbers.Silly but it seemed organised.

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 who they are named after. They were very useful vehicles. In the early days Derek and Maud & providing the short haul services between Saltaire and Morehead. Later they also worked some odd days on the Stony Ridge branch though normally service on this line was provided by railcars 103 and 104 (no names) and later by the the steam railcar. The branch service was run by one or other of the railcars, there were no loco hauled passenger trains on the branch. I was rather pleased with the bogie on number 103. The system worked very well and in addition to providing 6 wheel pick up it was also created three point suspension.Over the years I converted all the four wheeled stock to three point suspension. As there is only one more loco that got into print may as well finish the loco roster off. This was number 7 Stony River. In the Steam development article in Feb 1970 I mentioned I was looking at the possibility of a Shay. Some time later I received a Letter from Dave Rhind in as South Africa asking why build another U.S. loco what is wrong with a British built geared loco. Great I thought if there was such a thing. There at the end of the letter were details of the Avonside geared loco built for the Natal Sugar Company. The Avonside locos had worm and wheel drive. So along with the two drive shafts to the bogies this was correct. It was of all metal construction. It was of course a cousin to the Heisler. It performed sterling work hauling Co-il. One of the locos that never got into print was a huge freelance model of a Mallet loco. Huge in the sense it would not fit the A.V.R. loading Gauge. I confess I know not what happened to it. The other one was my scratch built model of Monarch. This ,along with the rest of the locos and rolling stock was sold on but that's for later.

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 a young family and shift working- I was a Signalman- total scratch building was not on the cards. I was about to revert to standard gauge when along came Triang with TT scale. It was pretty crude stuff and 12mm gauge ie three foot gauge but so was the I.O.M. and the Irish NG lines. I think I got the Jinty,two coach and track set The track was a no no and along with the coach bodies discarded. The Jinty chassis was coverted to a 2-4-0 and resulted in an I.O.M inspired loco. This was No 1 ANTHONY Named after my son I have the completion date as May 1957. The 8mm chassis was used as the basis for No 2 ANNE. This was inspired by one of P.D. Hancock's locos.this was completed in March 1958. The bodies of both these locos were constructed from my now iconic OXO tin box! In those days you followed the crowd, metal for locos card for rolling stock This was pre plasticard. Loco No 3 AUDREY.was named after my youngest daughter, ANNE my oldest daughter.. AUDREY was of mixed construction.Chassis ,boiler and smokebox. from a lipstick tube and other bits of metal the cab and bunker from card.I tried to follow the Forney practice of flangless rear drivers and the bogie had a fixed pivot. Needless to say this did not work. So back to flanged rear drivers and swivel bogie. I had to pack the boiler and smokebox with lead as the motor was in the cab and bunker. As you may guess it had a heck of an overhang on curves.but she ran very well. She was completed in Febuary 1960. Inbetween times some rolling stock was built, for instance the two bogie coaches based on the Welshpool ones and the four 4 wheeled coaches based on the Talyllyn original stock. The latter were mounted on Triang freight brake van chassis As you will see every thing did not run smoothly but we were getting there. And indeed I'm just about of space so will close down for now.

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 and seems to be one for the ladies. Sorry I hav'nt an image of it. It may still be on the "modelboatmayhem site. Click on to the Blackpool Show and there should be several images. A final personal note on Port Maud if I may. It's named in memory of my wife who saw the project started but passed away before it's completion. So, on to the AVR. I was always bemused and still am that it generated the interest it did and guess still does . I trust this does not sound bigheaded as it's not intended to. I'm assuming that if you are interested in this blog you will have read quite a bit the AVR. via the Railway Modeller. My main mentor was John Ahern's Madder valley. It was years before it's time and I really must get to Pendon before it's to late. I always thought of it as narrow gauge in all but gauge if that makes sense. There was also the late P.D.Hancock's Craig and Mertonford. Though it was a bit of a let down as the standard gauge encroached but that was Peters perogative. An old friend, Paul Towers (it was his show I was at over the weekend) while he was Editor of Model Railway News discovered a really good NG modeller,David Mander and his "Stronlochar Line. I mention this as I admired David for pressing on with 8mm gauge track when I gave up on 8mm when Triang introduced TT 12mm track.. Sadly David passed away some years ago. Locos and stock from the three of us, Peter, David and myself are with the 009 Society Heritage collection. Anyway if you will forgive me I will call that it for now. I'm not used to this bloging. With this somewhat odd ball introduction I will call it a day. Not sure how you guys would like future blogs to go. More on the AVR and what followed it sale? any thoughts?. Problems of fifties and sixties scratch building. I will try and gather my thoughts on what my be of interest. Derek

Derek Naylor here. Builder of the Aire Valley Railway. I have just turned 84 and have just been in the internet since christmas so to say the least I am still having problems with this new world. Had great fun trying to get in to this site.I did notice several mentions of the myself and the A.V.R. and before I go headlong into what happened to the A.V.R. and to me post the railway I an just checking to see if anyone would really find it interesting. If there interest perhaps the odd blog or two.