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Mark Forrest
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1 hour ago, Mark Forrest said:

Iwhy go to the additional expense of engineering a new trackbed alongside the existing tramway?

 

The horse-drawn Nantlle tramway became the Caernarvonshire Railway, then the LNWR, then the LMS and now the first couple of miles of the Welsh Highland, and as your stupendous South African NGG16 hauls you down to the terminus at Caernarfon you can still see the trackbed of the original tramway winding from side to side on a very different course to the current line.  At one point the two are close to right-angles to each other.

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12 hours ago, Mark Forrest said:

Best I can come up with at this stage is that the now disused section to the left might still be laid in lighter section rail e.g. code 55 flat bottom as opposed to the code 75 bullhead used elsewhere.

 

I insist that you lay hand-casted short sections of fishbelly rails on stone sleepers just for authenticity...

 

:D :D

 

Al.

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12 hours ago, mike morley said:

 

The horse-drawn Nantlle tramway became the Caernarvonshire Railway, then the LNWR, then the LMS and now the first couple of miles of the Welsh Highland, and as your stupendous South African NGG16 hauls you down to the terminus at Caernarfon you can still see the trackbed of the original tramway winding from side to side on a very different course to the current line.  At one point the two are close to right-angles to each other.

Now you’re just tempting me to add Wales to the list of possible locations where the layout could be set, even if it’s just for this bridge:

R1222.  Nantlle Tramway. 20th October, 1963.

 

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I did a field trip to Nantlle a couple of years ago and that looks like the bridge where I gained access to the trackbed.  The views from there are fabulous (turn 90 degrees to the right and Snowdon dominates the view).  One curious thing about the quarries of the Nantlle valley is that nearly all of their numerous inclines have been obliterated but nearly all the winding-houses remain intact.  The result looks slightly surreal.

 

If you want to set your layout in Nantlle, history is on your side.  After the Caernarfon Railway converted the lower section of the former trackbed to standard gauge, the transhipment of slates from the 3'6" gauge horse-drawn wagons to the standard gauge loco-hauled wagons caused delays and breakages.  There was a proposal to convert the rest of tramway to standard gauge but it was rejected by the majority of quarry owners who felt a lot of the ground the line would cross was not stable enough to support the extra weight.

Edited by mike morley
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How about coming on a recce for locations over my way Mark? Loads of railway related books and crannies around the Wrexham/Trevor district and handily close to Llangollen for some proper decent riding

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2 hours ago, Jason T said:

How about coming on a recce for locations over my way Mark? Loads of railway related books and crannies around the Wrexham/Trevor district and handily close to Llangollen for some proper decent riding

Sounds like a plan, let's do that soon.

 

 

Found some more info on limestone quarries and tramways serving them, closer to home, but not an area I know particularly well.

http://www.churnet.co.uk/article.php?xmlfile=./caldontramroads.xml&caller=index.htm

 

 

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Having given it a bit more thought, I think I have my location for the layout.  I'm thinking somewhere in the bottom left corner of the area cover by the OS White Peak map, in the area around Leek.  I've not gone as far as to pin down an exact location or plot a route, although may do at some point in the future.  I'm planning on drawing inspiration from several lines locally and over the border into Derbyshire.  This sorts out a couple of things I needed to resolve before developing the plan further.

 

First of these, who built the line/what type of stone for bridge and buildings.  I'm going to assume that the North Staffordshire Railway would have been responsible for the exchange sidings and connection to the mainline prior to grouping.  This means I can take inspiration for structures from their Churnet Valley and Cauldon Lowe lines.  Interestingly, the Cauldon Lowe line was originally planned as a light railway connecting Leek with the LNWR line at Hartington, which evolved into the narrow gauge Leek & Manifold; so there may be some scope to develop a "might have been" storyline.

 

It looks like I can justify limestone and/or sand as the main traffic flows the line, with possibility of some coal mining in the area too. With the traffic source off scene in the fiddle yard, I could operate in limestone mode for one operating session and sand for another.  This should keep me busy in terms of building rolling stock and also fits in reasonably well with some stock I already have.

 

Useful links:

Historical photos page on the NSR (1978) website:

http://ns-railway.co.uk/historical.htm

 

Some info on the Cauldon Lowe line:

https://spellerweb.net/rhindex/UKRH/NorthStafford/Cauldon.html

 

Reposting the link from a previous post about the Cauldon /Caldon tramways:

http://www.churnet.co.uk/article.php?xmlfile=./caldontramroads.xml&caller=index.htm

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I have a book that might be of interest.

 

20200119_104447.jpg.5e3a3b1fb9b552756255f80e0481a7c8.jpg

 

Although it covers the line to the east of your proposed setting, it covers the Peak Line with detailed station plans, building elevations, and lots of loco and wagon photos.

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5 hours ago, Stubby47 said:

So not North Wales then...

Not this time...

 

 

4 hours ago, Stubby47 said:

I have a book that might be of interest.

 

20200119_104447.jpg.5e3a3b1fb9b552756255f80e0481a7c8.jpg

Although it covers the line to the east of your proposed setting, it covers the Peak Line with detailed station plans, building elevations, and lots of loco and wagon photos.

That does look useful, I’m not sure what to do about private owner wagons for the pre-nationalisation period; need to establish whose wagons would have been used, so could be particularly useful for that.

 

So far, sum total of useful volumes in my collection amounts to these two...

E94D84FC-4644-48CE-BCA4-483573C2FB44.jpeg.63ae7159ecce80d19660d88de94430ae.jpeg

7E7D7954-EC25-4909-8084-1712A3FD4670.jpeg.10708d96f1ec43ee5580f5f7017fc250.jpeg

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1 hour ago, Andrew P said:

If your still looking for a name Mark, Leek Forrest sounds good to me.:good:

Thanks Andy, I'm not sure though; doesn't sound very typical of the area I'm looking at (although there is of course Macc Forest a little further north).  Can't say I've given it much thought, but something with the suffix "Low" might work.

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There’s no forest in Leek but there is a place called Lowe Hill

 

So why not remove the ‘e’ from Lowe

 

Leek Low Hill?

 

Don’t remove the ‘L’ though, I can’t imagine anyone would fancy a trip on train from Eek

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I think I’m going with the working title of Manifold Valley Minerals.  I’ll invoke modeller’s license to assume that the Leek, Caldon Low and Hartington Railway was built as a standard gauge through route connecting the N.S.R. at Leekbrook Junction to the L.N.W.R. at Hartington.

The layout will represent the point where a spur from this through route met up with an industrial line (upgraded from a former tramway) used by various quarries and mines in the area.  From here traffic could reach either the N.S.R. or L.N.W.R. lines.

Currently thinking is that that sidings might be somewhere near Cowlow, about 2 miles from Hartington, 9 miles from Leek (by road).  In addition to the mineral traffic, I might include facilities for loading milk churns as I gather this was a key source of traffic for the Leek & Manifold narrow gauge line.

 

 

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I've had the plywood for the baseboard cut (roughly) to size for a while, but there have been a couple of things I needed to finalise with the design before I could assemble it.

 

Firstly position and height of baseboard cross members.  Obviously, I needed to avoid positioning cross members directly under turnout operating mechanisms, I also knew that I wanted some different levels so that the trackbed would need to be raised to varying degrees along its length.  The scale mock up helped to some extent, but it wasn't until I had the track plan printed full size that it really became clear.

IMG_20200117_142905.jpg.be1273386cd3a60c7d32081f12b82118.jpg

 

The second issue was the back scene.  I'd already decided on the open "view from the end" approach for the left end, but at the right I was undecided about the division between scenic and fiddle yard.  In my original design the back scene extended along the back of the fiddle yard and there was no "end sky" above the scenic break into the fiddle yard.  Excuse the rubbish drawings...

IMG_20200118_111755.jpg.8ae232c332090d2f8b3975e22ca8906e.jpg

In both cases, I'd have some sort of front fascia.  Having thought it through, I think I'll be going with enclosed the with end sky design in the top drawing.

 

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38 minutes ago, Stubby47 said:

Search out 'Shell Island'. Although it's EM and the reverse design, it has a similar open ended viewpoint.

Cheers Stu.  I’m aware of Shell Island, although having mainly seen it in photos rather than in real life, I’d forgotten/overlooked that it had the curved end on view point; that might be where I (subconsciously) got the inspiration from.  My dilemma is more to do with how to treat the other end.  Having previously convinced myself that I need an “end sky” above the scenic break (like on Fryers Lane), I’m now wondering if I’d still think that if I’d included the front fascia in the drawings above.

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7 hours ago, Stubby47 said:

Shell Island just has a hole in the sky.

No overbridge,  but it just works.

Ah, I see what you’re saying; you don’t like my bridge :P

TBH I’m not sure about it myself, on Fryers Lane I deliberately avoided using a bridge as a scenic break and am a bit reluctant to use something so obvious here.

 

6 minutes ago, sb67 said:

Hi Mark,

I remember seeing a layout called Neptune St Yard that has no "end sky" and is a fully scenic traverser. I've seen it at a couple of show's and works pretty well. 

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/97332-neptune-street-yard-2015/

Thanks for that Steve, yes, that’s the sort of thing I had in mind, although in my case I’d use a “back sky” running full length and some sort of fascia at the front to frame the view.  Think that would hide background distractions and focus the viewer on the scene.

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