Duddon Bridge - CLOSED

[NeilHB]

Thanks for that Neil. As to traffics, the obvious ones were pipes, cement, which would be bagged, and timber, often in long lengths for form work. The Stocks line also carried beer barrels for the construction village canteen. There was even a siding in a cutting into the cellar of the canteen. You can still make out the cutting at Stocks village. There was also usually some sort of private vehicle for the resident engineer, often a car on a rail chassis or a converted simplex tractor. Probably the best book, if you can get hold of it is the one about the Stocks contract which is called, "The lesser railways of Bowland Forest and Craven Country ISBN 9780951110881.The stock for the narrow gauge was mainly scratch built by various friends but one loco and some wagons are on display in Long Preston village Hall.Good luck, Unfortunately my copy is in France in a box and not ye shelved in its new home.Jamie

  

 

Thanks Jamie, greatly appreciated. Some good potential traffic flows there for the earliest operating period. I’ll keep an eye out for that book, sounds like it will definitely be useful.

 

Just discovered your project Neil and it chines with my own interests and endeavours so I'll follow your progress if I may. As an aside, the Seathwait Navvy Riot of 1904 in which a workman died shocked the area and is still commemorated in the Newfield Hotel with the Westmorland Gazette page framed behind the bar. As late as the 20c itinerant bands of workmen 'tramped' from 'diggings' to 'diggings' to work on pipe tracks (mainly) at this time, still with a reputation for hard drinking and trouble making, the great days of railway construction having mostly passed.

 Have you had the chance to look round the remains of the Duddon Ironworks by chance? would make a great modelling subject in itself.

Best Wishes

Guy

Hi Guy, please do follow :-)

I hadn’t realised that the riot was still commemorated - I’d only seen one passing reference to it in relation to the construction of the dam. No I’ve not managed to look round the remains of the ironworks sadly - last I was up there on holiday was before we’d decided on a location for the layout - think that’s the law of sod! I’ve seen plenty of photos of it though, and agree it would make a great modelling subject in itself.

[jamie92208]

Hi Neil

 

I've found two photos of the narrow gauge on Long Preston with some of the stock. The loco, which was one of the ones used at Stocks, was built by Ray Clasper and the wagons by the late Tony Bond who also did the two trestle bridges in the foreground.

 

 

Hope these are of some use.

 

Jamie

[Mike Bellamy]

.

I think I might be getting a few free beers (or chocolate!).

 

I work with Neil and I have the following books in the Bowtell 'Dam Builders' series that he can borrow . . . . .

 

• Lesser Railways of Bowland Forest and Craven Country
•  
• Lesser Railways of the Yorkshire Dales
•  
• From Durham's Dales to the Border

 

They will be delivered to his desk in about an hour's time . . . . !!

 

.

[NeilHB]

Thanks Jamie, they are great photos.

 

Mike you are brilliant - I owe you a pint and chocolate for this!

[Mike Bellamy]

.

Books delivered, chocolate received and beer promised - so far it's been a good day at work . . . . 

 

After looking through those books in his lunch hour, I think Neil has gone to lie down in a dark room . . . . . . .

 

.

[NeilHB]

.

Books delivered, chocolate received and beer promised - so far it's been a good day at work . . . . 

 

After looking through those books in his lunch hour, I think Neil has gone to lie down in a dark room . . . . . . .

 

.

 

Only a quick lie down honest - too much work to do otherwise...

 

Got plenty of ideas now from looking through the books! 

[81A Oldoak]

As promised, attached are the maps showing the full route of the line: 

 

Broughton and Dunnerdale Light Railway - full line map.jpg

 

I've also produced a cropped version, showing up Duddon Bridge and it's surrounds in better detail (hopefully)

 

Dunnerdale - close crop.jpg

 

You'll note that there is a short siding just south of Duddon Bridge, this is the slurry siding for dumping the waste from the paper mill, all designed to make operation interesting and keep our operators on their toes as it has to fit in with the various other workings on the 3 routes out of the station...! 

 

There's also been a slight update to the history for the line, as new information came to light following some further research over the weekend. It turns out that the line was actually opened in late 1902/early 1903, and the line was used to assist with the construction of the dam at Seathwaite Tarn in 1904, which was built to supply water to Barrow-in-Furness with its vast quantities of water needed thanks to Vickers Shipyard and other various industries in the town. 

 

The ground frame seen in the previous post had a coat of primer in between the rain showers yesterday, so I'm hoping to be able to start painting it tonight after work. 

 

Yesterday afternoon's project was the repainting of my Dapol A1X - this had started out as 'Portishead' from the WCPR, and I'd previously repainted it, but had come to the conclusion that the shade of green used just didn't look right. So out with the paints again yesterday, and a new coat of Tamiya Flat Green was applied which looked much better: 

 

Photo 04-04-2018, 08 09 17.jpg

 

I need to put a second coat on tonight, and then can start to reassemble tomorrow. There are now three Terriers in the loco fleet, and each one is different...

I like the maps and the story. I'm not sure that softy, southern, Terriers will be up to the climate though. 

 

Regards,

 

CK

[NeilHB]

I like the maps and the story. I'm not sure that softy, southern, Terriers will be up to the climate though. 

 

Regards,

 

CK

 

Thanks Chris - don't worry there will be a couple of Manning Wardles and a quartet of Hudswell Clarkes (must finish off converting one of them to the side tank ala Mid-Suffolk) standing by ready to assist should the softies not be up to the job...

[81A Oldoak]

Thanks Chris - don't worry there will be a couple of Manning Wardles and a quartet of Hudswell Clarkes (must finish off converting one of them to the side tank ala Mid-Suffolk) standing by ready to assist should the softies not be up to the job...

Good, hardy Yorkshire stock! 

[NeilHB]

A very productive day at Tim’s today has seen quite a bit of progress on Duddon Bridge.

 

Firstly Tim has been busy this week, and the trackbeds for the mainline and Broughton Mills branch are down, and the fiddleyard has it’s covering of cork too.

 

 

We will now be using the fiddleyard as a sort of turntable, having come to the conclusion that it wouldn’t quite work with what we had in mind. The central three roads will now serve the main line, but are single ended. In order to access the FY road for Broughton Mills, one simply swings the turntable round 180degrees, and aligns the road on the far right - simples!

 

 

Can you spot the difference? Just a slight modification to the Peco settrack points - I think this might invalidate the warranty though...

 

We then cracked on and started the base for the level crossing on the main line, it’s only a single track lane, so nothing major, and no gates to motorise either.

 

 

And then got further on and stuck the points down, only one small mistake here of not measuring the second point when it went down, which meant take it up and start again so it wasn’t on the skew...!

 

 

We’ve also sorted out the copperclad for the joint between the boards, and the first road onto the turntable. Tim is going to sort out the bolts to align the turntable this week, so we can at least get the track down on this line next weekend. Can’t lay any track on the Broughton Mills branch yet, as we need to build a catchpoint just after the junction, and currently waiting on the order of Peco chairs to do this. Once that’s done it’ll be a simple matter to sort out the ungated crossing base on this line too.

 

Then came the fun part - sorting out the trackplan for the next board

 

 

So, from right to left - platform line on the right. The point and line continuing straight on will be the timber tramway - this will be laid on code 100 as we wanted to differentiate between this and the main line.

At the far left is the coal/goods siding, still need to sort out the exact alignment for this, but this is the rough idea at the moment.

The line heading off to the bottom left of the photo is going into the mill complex - there may be a kickback siding here, but that depends on space on the next board and how it all looks.

Between that and the timber tramway is the mainline continuing up the valley to Ulpha - at this point the main line will be running down the middle of the road, but only for short distance while it continues between the mill buildings.

 

Here ends the post...

 

 

Nice little Great Northern bufferstop on the coal/goods siding - I believe it’s a Ragstone Models kit (Tim will know).

 

Lastly is a quick progress photo of a couple of the loco fleet

 

 

“Swallow” is a standard Dapol A1X, with which I’m making slow progress repaiting. The next task is to attempt lining the side tanks.

Seen next to her is “Stickle Pike”, an Ixion Hudswell Clarke. This has been altered from the standard model, as I’ve changed the smokebox door (older style hinge), a new chimney courtesy of the spares box (I think it’s Manning Wardle in origin), and I’ve changed the buffers. I’ve also added a small toolbox to the footplate. She just needs another coat of paint and lining now.

 

That’s all for now folks.

[wagonman]

I seem to remember a very old P4 layout based on more or less the same premise - narrow gauge and standard gauge combined. Ulpha Valley Light Railway or something like that?

 

Irrespective of this, yours is a nice idea! 

 

 

Built by members of the Norwood MRC

[NeilHB]

The first plain track has officially been laid on Duddon Bridge...

 

 

Fiddleyard to the first point, over the board joint and the level crossing, so plenty of excuse to wield the big soldering iron, the little one just couldn’t manage it bless it! Just the checkrails to go on the crossing now.

 

 

Next up was the platform road, and the first part of the loop up to the coal siding. Again across the next board joint so out with the copperclad sleepers again. We couldn’t resist at this point setting up the next part of the track layout to see how it all looked. Pretty pleased so far we have to admit. Tim had set the last board up earlier in the week and confirmed that the kickback siding would fit (hooray), so that’s featured here at the far left. This will serve the loco shed for the papermill, the coal dump for the boilerhouse, complete with obligatory narrow gauge between the coal dump and the boiler house, and then at the far end the siding will enter the rag shed, where the waste papers etc. were stored for reuse. Current thinking is that the rag shed will be at an angle against the backscene, and though the rails will go into the shed, the door will be modelled closed as there won’t be enough room to fit a wagon inside. There’ll be a nice sturdy stone wall between the siding and the road, which will be coming across the board here at an angle to run between the mill buildings.

 

 

First train on the layout - digitally powered! :-D

 

Back home I’ve been working on a few projects that will feature on the railway:

 

 

Four wheel brake third, this is built from Kirk coach parts. I have a box full of these, so there may be a couple more coaches in the future along similar lines - from our research it appears that these were the coaches supplied for the opening of the railway.

 

 

Next up is the ground frame that will control the pointwork in the station. I’ve made some progress since last time, and it now has a covering of Slaters stone plastic sheet instead of the laser cut brickwork for the base. The stonework will be more in keeping with the location of the railway, plus makes it a bit different from the standard kit. I’ll also be changing the supplied corrugated plastic roof for some slates.

 

 

Lastly is my scratchbuilt Furness Railway Sharp Stewart 0-4-0ST (Rush classified this as a C1). Completely built from plastic sheet and strip, my friend has 3D printed the saddletank for me which has been a massive help. It’s just loosely placed in position at the moment to get a feel for how it looked, hence the slightly drunken appearance. I’m really rather pleased with how this is coming together at the moment. It needs more work on the saddletank to remove the print lines, but it’s getting there slowly.

Edited April 16, 2018 by NeilHB

[NeilHB]

I popped in to Tim’s on my afternoon off from work today to do a bit more work on the layout.

 

Tim had been busy this week, and laid two out of the three main roads on the first fiddle yard, so the first task was to lay the third road and fix the travel bolt

 

 

We also ran the first powered trains, just to make sure it was all ok!

 

 

Since my last visit, Tim had also laid the rest of the pointwork on the second board, so the trackwork in the station environs is now 90% complete. This enabled us to begin work on the last scenic board, which Tim had prepared earlier this week but cutting out the leat from the water mill that will form a central part of the mill complex on this board. We managed to sort out where the trackwork was going, and then started to lay the cork underlay. The end nearest to the photographer (I.e. me!) hasn’t had any cork laid yet, as this end will a) be squeezed between the mill buildings, with the left hand track being under one of the mill buildings and b) dependent on the alignment of the roads to the second fiddle yard sector plate turntable.

 

 

The timber tramway, which will be the line on the far right here, will have a catch point and a gate across the line before it switches to lightweight rail (code 100 spiked to wooden sleepers) and crosses the mill leat on a somewhat flimsy steel girder bridge. We’re making use of a couple of the Wills 4mm bow girder bridge kits here for the bridge, as it’s ideal for a lightweight bridge in 7mm scale. Those of you who have seen us out and about with the 7mm NGA stand and demo layout will recognise that the bridge over the stream on this has made use of the same kit. The lightweight bridge will ensure the use of small petrol/diesel locos.

[NeilHB]

Called in to see Tim on my way home from work this afternoon - he doesn’t hang around and has laid even more track since Friday!

 

 

Start of the main line on Board D - this line here will be running down the main road - over to one side, but still in the road surface which means lots of checkrailing to do and lots of infilled track. Where the line reverts to normal track will be where the road starts to swing away towards the rear of the layout. The sleepers for the mill line are next to be laid - again more inset track for these...!

 

 

You can see the start of the mill line here on Board C - sorry not a great photo as it’s down at the moment while Tim works on Board D and the second fiddle yard. The mill line here will be inset where the main road comes across it.

Edited April 23, 2018 by NeilHB

[NeilHB]

There was lots of progress made on Duddon Bridge yesterday during the site meeting.

 

 

I’m getting better at this soldered track malarkey now! First (of many) checkrails installed - this is on the mill siding where it crosses the main road. As you can see we’ve made some alterations to the Peco settrack points - fairly easy to do now we now what we’re doing. I don’t think any of the points on the layout are now as Peco intended them to be...

 

 

And the other rail in, and the main line check-railed for most of its length:

 

 

Just the far end of the main line to go where it crosses the board joint into the second fiddle yard.

 

Having sorted the checkrails out, we set up all three scenic boards together for the first time!

 

 

I’d say it’s definitely starting to look like a layout now! From here we are looking up the line in the direction of Ulpha. I’m quite pleased with the flow of the main line through the layout.

 

 

With all three boards up, we could start looking at the alignment for the coal stacks and rag shed siding, which is at the rear of the layout, and runs across all three boards. The main road curves off the edge of the board here, as represented by the lengths of wood. The siding will swing out closer to the main line, crossing the road at an angle, but curving back towards the rear of the board to run parallel to the road.

 

The siding here serves three purposes, firstly it houses a small loco shed for the paper mill shunter, after the shed is the coal stocks, served by a short length of hand operated narrow gauge which feeds the mill boilers, the line then crosses the road to serve the rag/waste shed.

 

Once all the track is in place, we can then start to build up the road surface to top of the sleeper height using more cork floor tiles.

 

However we’d welcome suggestions for what to use for the top surface of the road in order to bring it up to just below top of the rail height please?

 

 

Having sorted out the alignment for the siding, we then took it all down again, and set up the last scenic board and second fiddle yard, ready for Tim to finish off the main line checkrails over the board joint.

 

He’s been busy again last week and laid all five roads on the second fiddle yard. Central three are for the main line. The two outer lines will serve the mill siding and the timber tramway respectively, by rotating the board round 180degrees so that their roads line up - simples!

 

Thoughts and feedback welcome please.

Edited April 29, 2018 by NeilHB

[jamie92208]

It's looking good.  I like the idea of the hand propelled coal feeder NG line for the mill.   There was a prototype not too far away at Lakeside that took bunker coal from the coal yard down to the steamers.  It had a couple of wagon turntables on it.   As to the road surface I', not sure what to suggest but would probably use Hydrocal with some sort of surface dressing as it dried depending on what the surface is.   For cobbles/setts I scribe it after it dries for tarmac I would use sand.  Black sand from Tenerife is excellent.  For the sand I either sprinkled it as it dried or painted the whole area with PVA then sprinkled sand on liberally and brushed it off a couple of hours alter with a soft brush. You can also use the PVA/sand technique on mounting board. I did that on the station yard on Green Ayre.   I could post some photos of both methods if you wish.

 

Jamie

[NeilHB]

It's looking good.  I like the idea of the hand propelled coal feeder NG line for the mill.   There was a prototype not too far away at Lakeside that took bunker coal from the coal yard down to the steamers.  It had a couple of wagon turntables on it.   As to the road surface I', not sure what to suggest but would probably use Hydrocal with some sort of surface dressing as it dried depending on what the surface is.   For cobbles/setts I scribe it after it dries for tarmac I would use sand.  Black sand from Tenerife is excellent.  For the sand I either sprinkled it as it dried or painted the whole area with PVA then sprinkled sand on liberally and brushed it off a couple of hours alter with a soft brush. You can also use the PVA/sand technique on mounting board. I did that on the station yard on Green Ayre.   I could post some photos of both methods if you wish.

 

Jamie

Thanks Jamie. We did consider having the coal feeder line as loco operated, but decided it just wouldn’t look right. I had forgotten about the coal feeder line at Lakeside, will have to dig some photos out of it and have a look.

 

There are some useful ideas there, so if you could post some photos please that would be great thank you.

[jamie92208]

Hi Neil

 

I've had chance to dig back through my construction photos.

 

Here is some of the black sand tarmac method.  

Areas have been brushed with PVA then sprinkled, left for 10 to 15 minutes then brushed again to get the excess off. 

 

This shows the completed effect in the coal yard next to the station approach.

 

However beware.   Getting the black sand can be costly as SWMBO insisted on coming to Tenerife with me on the collecting expedition for some reason.  You also need to get some Sangria and a tube of Pringles.  When the Sangria and Pringles have been consumed the Pringles tube makes a brilliant container for the sand when you go to the beach.

 

Here's the other method where I used mounting board to go on the roadway just below rail level on what is meant to be a disused tramway.

First the pieces of board are laid and glued.

Then Hydrocal, pre coloured with poster paint from "The Works" is laid on and smoothed and then sanded flat.

This is then scribed with the appropriate pattern of setts,

Then painted and dry brushed to highlight the grooves.

 

I hope that this is of interest.

 

Jamie

 

[NeilHB]

Brilliant, many thanks Jamie. Some very useful ideas there for Tim and I to think about.

[jamie92208]

Brilliant, many thanks Jamie. Some very useful ideas there for Tim and I to think about.

 

No problem Neil I look forward to seeing progress in due course.

 

Jamie

[NeilHB]

I managed to get some actual modelling done yesterday evening.

The first road vehicles for the later time periods on Duddon Bridge:



This started out as a Russian Gaz kit, which was basically a clone of a Ford lorry. I bought this part built from Tim a couple of years ago, and have now got round to finishing it off. Just needs the last few bits sorting (number plates, transfers and some weathering) before it’s good to go.



Next up is an Tamiya Tilly 10HP car kit. I’ve modified this one by mounting the spare wheel under the rear of the chassis, rather than on top of the cab, and then filled in the recess on the cab roof. I’ve also added a bulkhead between the cab and the rear, canvas roofed section. Just the glazing to add to this one.



Oxford Austin 7 - lovely little car! I’ve painted the seats and dashboard on this one (you can just about see the seats through the windows) just to show up the interior a bit. It really needs a coat of satin varnish to tone down the shine!

Edited April 30, 2018 by NeilHB

[NeilHB]

Well the signalman/stationmaster/porter/shunter at Duddon Bridge can no longer complain about getting wet when working in the ground frame - it has a roof!

 

 

Using the rafters supplied with the kit, I then added a layer of plasticard either side of the ridge line last week. Last week I ordered some of York Model Makings laser cut roofing slates (they really are rather good, and speedy delivery too!) which have been applied this evening after work. Dead simple to apply, being self adhesive, and very easy to cut through being card. Plus they actually look like slates so all in all I’m rather pleased with how it looks now. Hopefully this means that it should be able to stand up the Cumbrian weather a bit better than the (plastic) corrugated iron supplied with the kit.

 

Need to get cracking now and paint the window frames and the door...

Edited April 30, 2018 by NeilHB

[NeilHB]

Update time on Duddon Bridge. After a quiet couple of weeks, the navvys have been out in force again.

 

The Broughton Mills branch has now been connected to the rest of the world - hurrah! Just the last couple of bits of rail to sort out on the trap point first. This has been laid with C&L sleepers. Sadly these are about 10thou too low compared to Peco’s own sleepers, but nowhere seems to have Peco’s individulay in stock anywhere (and that includes Peco!), so we’ve stuck a strip of 10thou plasticard underneath, and et voila, they match!

 

 

Sticking down each chair individually made a change from soldered track construction, but I think I can safely say that I prefer soldering track (and those who know me well know how much I detest soldering!!)

 

Having sorted out the Broughton Mills branch, we turned our attention to sorting out the coal siding for the station.

 

 

Quite pleased with how the siding has turned out, with a nice flow to it. Compared with our original plan, the siding now has a lot more capacity, which is always good.

 

You’ll also note that Tim has been very busy since the last update, and has laid the coal stock/rag shed siding completely. This siding is very tight, which is fine as we’ll only be using short four-wheel wagons and locos on it. There will be no shunting of the siding with any of the Broughton & Dunnerdale locos...severe fines will result!

 

You can see the next phase of tracklaying has commenced, as we’ve started the other trap point, which protects the main line from the timber tramway. There will be about 2-3inches of chaired rail passed the toe of the trap, before there will be a gate across the line, and the transition to code 100 flat bottom rail up the tramway commences. The track along this section will be pinned to actual wooden sleepers, with a greater spacing between them to give it a very lightweight look.

 

Obviously there is a rather large hole in the board before the timber tramway itself is reached, and Tim has started, and pretty much completed the lightweight steel girder bridge which will carry the the line over the mill leat:

 

 

This is constructed from a pair of Wills 4mm bow girder kits, which make a nice lightweight structure in 7mm scale. Tim has done a cracking job with the bridge, especially as it’s on the skew to cross the mill race!

[NeilHB]

Productive day round at Tim’s today -

 

 

Great fun was had hand spiking the track on the lightly laid timber tramway - this is right at the front of the layout, so we wanted it to really stand out. After what has been a fairly horrendous week at work, it was really nice to have a mind numbing task to do - quite therapeutic in fact!

 

 

The bridge which carries the timber tramway over the mill race - Tim really has done a cracking job on this. We need to wait for the scenic boards to be cut before we can sort out the bridge abutments properly though, as they will continue over the board joint.

 

 

Overall view of the progress so far. The next phase of development may be glimpsed in the background...of course we are including narrow gauge on the layout! There will be a section of 09 running at the rear of the layout, serving various parts of the paper mill complex, including the rag/waste shed, coal stocks and the boiler house. This will be powered, but earlier periods will require the services of a miniaturised haymotor locomotive...

 

Tim has also made some good progress on the two slurry wagons. The tipper bodies on these came from a pair of Triang Big-Big train skips, mounted on a new inside framed chassis:

 

 

 

These will appear every so often n the layout, emerging loaded from the paper mill complex, and going off scene down the main line towards Broughton, where there is a slurry siding just outside of the station complex. They will then return empty at a later point in the sequence. It all adds to the operating interest

Edited June 8, 2018 by NeilHB

[81A Oldoak]

What are you using for the rail spikes?