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I'll show you mine. Tram layouts of the past.


wagonbasher
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 Like you, I am not purley a Tram modeller.  Most of my activities over the last 20 years have been railways. Feeling  really stupid...  Fd?  I'm I missing something.

 

intrested in the Riply Road event if we are ever allowed out

 

Andy

 

 

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2 minutes ago, wagonbasher said:

 Like you, I am not purley a Tram modeller.  Most of my activities over the last 20 years have been railways. Feeling  really stupid...  Fd?  I'm I missing something.

 

intrested in the Riply Road event if we are ever allowed out

 

Andy

 

 

Facebook....2 groups Tramway Modelling and Model Tramways.

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4 minutes ago, Red Devil said:

Facebook....2 groups Tramway Modelling and Model Tramways.

Thank you FB..l. Face book obvs.  Need to swot up.

 

shame about the London located festival maybe the high London cost prohibited the ability to pay expenses.  Running  the layout at your own cost is going to limit what you can run and fir how long

 

Andy

 

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Believe it or not, I am not only a tram modeller (in OO, OOn14, H0, H0m) but cover 4mm scale modelling PLA, L&BR, 009, military and china clay railways.   Yes, I do have buses and trolleybuses together with a host of road vehicles to support.   With my life time running out, I recently reduced my tram modelling to Black Country and London Transport (principally cars on Croydon services).   On to the market went my large bus and trolleybus collection covering Leeds and those systems using the four-foot gauge.   From 1949, Leeds has been my second favourite after London Transport when it comes to UK.

 

The Festival of Model Tramways although privately operated but promoted by TLRS, was shared north and south alternatively.   Manchester being seen as equal to London.   Unfortunately, London is hellishly expensive for an exhibition of any type centrally.   The organisers' involvement with the Kew Steam museum was reciprocated by offering their facilities.   With the coming of Croydon Tramlink the opportunity was taken to use the Arnhem Gallery of Fairfield Halls but at a price!   Unfortunately that price did not remain static and so the two day south show was forced to become one day and unattractive for both exhibitors and traders.   With the forthcoming closure of the Fairfield Halls for reconstruction, the organisers reviewed the whole future of the Festival.    Despite the stress of financial shortcomings falling on them, age for them was also increasing and without anyone coming forward to bear the burden for both north and south shows, the fatal decision was taken.   (Well, the Fairfield has kind of reopened at enormous extra cost and is mentioned as one of the very many reasons why Croydon Council has declared bankruptcy.   Enough said.)   So we have returned to local shows run by the model railway fraternity.   Alas all good things always seem to come to an end at some time.   Colin.   

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9 hours ago, coline33 said:

Believe it or not, I am not only a tram modeller (in OO, OOn14, H0, H0m) but cover 4mm scale modelling PLA, L&BR, 009, military and china clay railways.   Yes, I do have buses and trolleybuses together with a host of road vehicles to support.   With my life time running out, I recently reduced my tram modelling to Black Country and London Transport (principally cars on Croydon services).   On to the market went my large bus and trolleybus collection covering Leeds and those systems using the four-foot gauge.   From 1949, Leeds has been my second favourite after London Transport when it comes to UK.

 

The Festival of Model Tramways although privately operated but promoted by TLRS, was shared north and south alternatively.   Manchester being seen as equal to London.   Unfortunately, London is hellishly expensive for an exhibition of any type centrally.   The organisers' involvement with the Kew Steam museum was reciprocated by offering their facilities.   With the coming of Croydon Tramlink the opportunity was taken to use the Arnhem Gallery of Fairfield Halls but at a price!   Unfortunately that price did not remain static and so the two day south show was forced to become one day and unattractive for both exhibitors and traders.   With the forthcoming closure of the Fairfield Halls for reconstruction, the organisers reviewed the whole future of the Festival.    Despite the stress of financial shortcomings falling on them, age for them was also increasing and without anyone coming forward to bear the burden for both north and south shows, the fatal decision was taken.   (Well, the Fairfield has kind of reopened at enormous extra cost and is mentioned as one of the very many reasons why Croydon Council has declared bankruptcy.   Enough said.)   So we have returned to local shows run by the model railway fraternity.   Alas all good things always seem to come to an end at some time.   Colin.   

London centric...... Croyden centric it seams.

 

I knew you would have the inside story.

 

Andy

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No, Andy, it was not London/Croydon centric.   The organisers appealed for younger people to take over but no one from the north responded to continue the Manchester festival in the same way no one responded to do something in the south.   Although I was never involved, other than supporting an exhibitor and a trader, I found it hard to believe that with the greater concentration of tramway modellers in the north that the Manchester one was not taken up and thus survive.   Colin.

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Leeds City -- a rainy day...

 

image.png.7a0ffb93fee61bb9ab87dd62d940e576.png

 

photo and layout Andy Ross.. a proper tram layout.. it picked up from the overhead ...and you could easily tie yourself in knots!

 

Baz

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Nice photo, Baz.   Middleton Bogie hiding behind the 4 windowed Kipper Box, then left to right another with a Southampton (Bargate to some) in front, then the Horsfield (Showboat to some) and a Feltham.   Reminds me of the Corn Exchange in bow collector era!

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Having been a member of Stafford Railway Circle for a very long time I remember the tram layout really well.  I think I did my first bit of scratch building for the layout, a roof in the back corner that can be seen in one of your photos.  The thing I remember the most about the layout, other than the fun in operating it, was the first meeting of the group when a certain member (DJH) turned up with a piece of track bent in a really tight circle and running a tram round it. After all these years it is probably the only Club layout I have been really involved with:o

Another thing I remember about the layout was the use of Relco units to keep the track clean and if you lent on the track at the back you got a nice shock!!!!

Maybe one day I will build a tram layout!!!!

 

Richard Hill

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On 20/11/2020 at 09:55, coline33 said:

The final part of "The Toop Tramway" story to date.   Club members produced several more buildings as the layout area had expanded to provide a second loop to create a depot area - our fiddle yard!!!   A club member had also with the opening of Croydon Tramlink built a smaller straight line layout based on the Wellesley Road stop.   He constructed a superb model of a CR4000 and it operated automatically so permitting the operator complete time for 'marketing' second generation tramways - it even went on operational display in the Houses of Parliament. 

 

 

 

 

This was exhibited only a few days before the Croydon tram crash in 2016. I didn't upload it at the time as it seemed a bit inappropriate. The tram is on the move so it is blurred.

N&DMRC 2016 Croydon MRC Tramlinkwith  tram.jpg

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10 hours ago, phil_sutters said:

This was exhibited only a few days before the Croydon tram crash in 2016. I didn't upload it at the time as it seemed a bit inappropriate. The tram is on the move so it is blurred.

N&DMRC 2016 Croydon MRC Tramlinkwith  tram.jpg

 

An excellent use of perspective in the back scene.  one point I like here is that the tramway is clearly a tram laid on a roadway (well having come off some reserved track), Tram layouts (and I include the one I was involved with) can be roads built around tram tracks.  

 

The same exists in railway modelling, many modelers design the track plan and then add the scenery, contours etc to suite the railway.  In reality, the land was there first and the track should ideally be planned to suite a landscape.  

 

When I look on the town scene on the Stafford Tram layout (page 1 of this thread) I can see we were being governed by the radius of the set track turnouts.  Yes Richard remembers us try to see just how tight a turn a poor little 4 wheeler could manage but a 90 degrees bend into a street was not possible.  We never even thought about stuff like that.

 

Andy

 

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Wirh48feetof the Leeds Trams there was always plenty of things happening.  We took it all to a show in Bremen. They were amazed by the double dockers and also the buildings...

Baz

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15 hours ago, Barry O said:

Wirh48feetof the Leeds Trams there was always plenty of things happening.  We took it all to a show in Bremen. They were amazed by the double dockers and also the buildings...

Baz

Baz, coming from a port transport background, I loved the spelling mistake!!!   I suppose those in Bremen who were amazed worked in Bremenhaven!   Colin.

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One further point to add to Phil's photo of the CMRC 'Tramlink' model.   The Wellesley Road tramline is one-way so in the model when the tram you see reaches the right hand end, it automatically reverses but a biased facing point directs it to the track that runs behind the backscene to the left hand end.   The car then automatically reverses and the next biased facing point directs it back along the front again.   And I have never seen it fail!   So all the destination blinds (as it was in the 'red era') both sides and ends are correctly set.   

 

On John Clarke's "West Croydon" layout, the same applied to the Tramlink cars as their run was circular.   However, the first generation cars on it always looked wrong when viewed/photographed from behind them because all their services were end-to-end.   No I don't see KW Trams producing working destination blind boxes in 4mm. or under!!!   Nor even Terry Russell in 7mm. but in this scale why not?????     

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17 hours ago, stewartingram said:

Not wishing to hijack the thread, but as I posted a pic of the Blackpool car earlier, here are a few more lovely models of the other illuminated cars, taken at Blackpool's Totally Transport events a few years ago.

30_5078_Totally Transport Blackpool 28-06-2009.jpg

30_5079_Totally Transport Blackpool 28-06-2009.jpg

30_5080_Totally Transport Blackpool 28-06-2009.jpg

30_5081_Totally Transport Blackpool 28-06-2009.jpg

30_5082_Totally Transport Blackpool 28-06-2009.jpg

 

Its not been hijacked, this is what we want to see..

 

Andy

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22 hours ago, stewartingram said:

Not wishing to hijack the thread, but as I posted a pic of the Blackpool car earlier, here are a few more lovely models of the other illuminated cars, taken at Blackpool's Totally Transport events a few years ago.

30_5078_Totally Transport Blackpool 28-06-2009.jpg

30_5079_Totally Transport Blackpool 28-06-2009.jpg

30_5080_Totally Transport Blackpool 28-06-2009.jpg

30_5081_Totally Transport Blackpool 28-06-2009.jpg

30_5082_Totally Transport Blackpool 28-06-2009.jpg

That's Pete Whiteley's layout, as far as I know it doesn't have a name other than Pete Whitley's layout.... Pete is heavily involved at Crich and manages to get some of the more difficult electrical bits to operate as they were intended to....explains how he can do illuminated 4mm stuff too, lots of leds and lots of soldering, I may be wrong on this but I think he had some involvement with the 7mm  illuminated  car on Chesfield shown earlier. 

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  • 3 months later...

This is a small layout that I built and exhibited with my, then, 11 year old son, Adam, about 20 years ago  around the Norfolk and Suffolk area. It had live overhead collection with cuts in the track which allowed automatic running, stopping and starting for 3 trams in each direction.  All the trams were 4 wheelers powered by BEC trucks.

 

I think its biggest attraction was that it was mainly operated by Adam and we encouraged children to come and have a go driving a tram.

 

 

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3878332826_6884b364a8_o.jpg

3879669832_7ab003f0e4_o.jpg

3877535969_c6015f372c_o.jpg

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Thanks coline33. I still have the baseboards but in a rather delapidated state having been used as benches in my shed for many years.  The buildings disintigrated over time. I still have a few trams and mechanisms.

 

I did think about restoring the layout a couple of years ago, but it would be a major project and more than I want to tackle now.

 

Regards, Lloyd

Edited by Lloyd.L
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I just read the comments about the Festival of Model Tramways on this thread.

 

We visited the festival at Kew Bridge several times and I remember how hot it used to get in there! We went to the Manchester event once but I do not remember much about it apart from the fine display of large scale model trams.

I loved the atmosphere of the model days at Crich, by far our favourite exhibition to visit.

 

We exhibited at both Carlton Colville and the Ipswich transport museum, where it was fun to be part of the attractions.

 

Sadly I do not travel to exhibitions much now, but still enjoy reading about them.

 

Regards, Lloyd.

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