Ramsbottom Model Railway Club

[Eagle1711]

Ramsbottom 1950

 

 

Have you ever taken a steam train ride along the beautiful East Lancashire Railway?, and when the train pulls to a halt at a little station called Ramsbottom have you ever considered what it might of looked like in the 1950’s?

Well Ramsbottom Model Railway Club did ponder that question, taking it further by recreating the station and area in 4mm scale for that very period. Which through a mixture of personal memory and historical research proved to be very different to what you see today.

For those of you wondering where Ramsbottom is, it only a few miles from Bury and lies on the boarder of Greater Manchester and Lancashire in the North West of England which is also at the foot of the Pennine Mountains.

Ramsbottom Model Railway Club began in August 1978 with an idea from four local postmen with a mutual interest in model railways. A notice was displayed in Ramsbottom Library and in early September nine enthusiasts met at the house of one of the proposers. After a lengthy discussion it was decided to form the Ramsbottom Model Railway Club with a view to building a model layout of Ramsbottom and a Committee was duly elected.

At this stage we had a Club with a Committee and a purpose but no premises. Over the next few weeks a number of options were discussed and investigated but proved fruitless. Then it was discovered that a room was available at Stubbins Church, but unfortunately it was in the roof of the Church. However, after taking some measurements it was decided to accept and planning began.

The original idea of a model of Ramsbottom from Nuttall Tunnel to Stubbins was discovered to be rather an ambitious project. In fact to model this distance in the scale of 1 inch to 1 foot would require a length of some 40 feet (our room was roughly 18 feet at the most). However, by using a little "modellers licence", we were able to condense the layout and by making the model triangular we were able to fit in the major details. This enabled us to form storage sidings at the rear, giving us continuous running.

Fortunately, one of our members had a certain amount of experience in building model railways and was able to advise us as we proceeded to construct our layout.

Space in our loft was limited and access was difficult, so it was with relief that we discovered an alternative venue at Patmos Church Hall. A meeting was arranged with the Trustees and an agreement was reached on tenancy. Some work was necessary to make the building habitable and acceptable for our needs and finally, in December 1978, we moved premises and this has been the home of the model railway for the last 31years. The size of the building enabled us to enlarge our original plan and work began once again on the construction of the layout.

We appealed through the local press for photos and memories of the Railway and its adjoining buildings and area, but it was found that very little was available. Because little had changed in the area around Stubbins which we were to model, a start was made there from photos taken by members. Ramsbottom station and surrounding area proved more difficult, but with the help of some old photographs in the Ramsbottom booklets published by Tower Press, the recollections of some of our members and a cine film of the demolition of the station, gradually things began to take shape. It was not until 1980 that the first phase of the model was operational and since that date alterations and modifications have been continually taking place.

The layout was designed in sections with the long term view of exhibiting at other venues and in our earlier years we staged fund raising Open Days at St. Paul's school. We also went along to St. Andrew's Spring Fair in 1984 and on one memorable occasion we were invited to Bleakholt Spring Fair where we shared a stable with a braying donkey - what a hilarious experience that was! In 2010 we held another open evening for members of the East Lancashire Railway and proved to be a great success to which we plan to hold more in the future.

After long consultations with the Patmos Trustees over the next few years we were finally given the opportunity to purchase the building. In 1983 work ceased on the layout for some months whilst more repair and maintenance was done on the premises. During 2010 we had a complete rewire and repaint to the interior and exterior of the building to give a warmer welcome.

During the period of our existence we have had numerous members, sometimes as many as 30 adults and juniors together on one evening. Present membership stands at nine adults and one junior member. Three of the adults are founder members. Although we try to encourage juniors, many of them soon realise that joining the model railway club is not just a night out playing with trains.

There are many skills attached to railway modelling which some youngsters find boring and sometimes complicated. The skills which can be taught include design and planning for baseboard construction which also includes joinery and basic carpentry; electrics and simple electronics; modelling skills for making buldings and rolling stock; and artistic ability for painting and finishing the models.

Trains can be kept running by two people but need a minimum of five people to operate at Exhibition times. Trains are run to a programme which is a series of moves (43 in all) involving all locomotives on the layout at some time. This ensures something moving at all times on the tracks and typifies some of the standard moves which would normally have taken place. The whole operation takes 90 minutes from start to finish by which time each train is back to where it started and the whole process begins again.

At this time of writing this account we have not long finished our extension of the layout which now includes a more industrial area across the River Irwell which includes factories and industries on Kenyon Street, More buildings that form Ramsbottom Paper Mill, A larger Cricket field for Ramsbottom Cricket Club and some scenic areas including the River Irwell and grassy meadows.

With our fingers twitching for more modelling I came up with the idea of planning a new layout that was portable and able to take to shows. The reason for this is that Ramsbottom has been seperated for 20years would take a lot of members to move it.

We have therefore decided to build Bacup Shed layout based on the actual location which is in planning stage as we speak with our chairman building the shed.

Our website

Here are few photographs set as links due to the size of the pictures.

Ramsbottom Station looking North

Ramsbottom Station General

Bridge Street looking towards the station

Square Mill

Industrial building on Kenyon Street

Trinity Paper Mill

Ramsbottom Cricket Club

Nuttall Tunnel

Ramsbottom Station looking South

Stubbins Village and Station

If you would like to arrange a visit then contact me Eagle1711@hotmail.com

All comments welcome

Dan

 

[Eagle1711]

Model Rail Magazine OCT/NOV MR 621 Edition

 

 

Get this your diaries people….

Because Ramsbottom Model Railway Club will finally see their layout of Ramsbottom in 1950/1960 published.

 

A BIG thanks to Martyn Barnwell and Richard Foster of MODEL RAIL MAGAZINE for making it happen.

Just as i was to approach two other magazines….model rail got back in touch to say they will be publishing it in the OCT/NOV Edition.

 

I for one already have the magazine on direct post to my house each month so i dont miss out

 

Dan

[Eagle1711]

Ramsbottom MRC Open Evening 20-10-2011

 

 

Hello people,

 

Well it’s been a year maybe a bit longer since our last open evening

And have decided to have another due to requests from friends and

Working members and that the fact that we have completed some

New trackwork together with new control boards and other modifications.

 

This will be taking place on thursday the 20th October from 7.30pm

At our club rooms in ramsbottom, if you would like to come then please

Send me an email eagle1711@hotmail.com

 

Tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided all we ask in return is a donation

Towards the club, admission is free!

 

Also please check out our new website www.ramsbottommrc.org.uk , a very big thank you to Chris Morgan aka bluegoldfish on here for the website.

 

Any questions please feel free to ask

 

Thanks

 

Dan

[Eagle1711]

Website Progress and Club News.

 

 

 

Hello People…

 

Well now we have taken control of the website its time to give you an update on the club….

 

Firstly i must give a HUGE thank you to Chris Morgan of http://www.bluegoldfish.com/ who stepped in to help me in my time of need when i was looking for a new website/server provider. Please if you would like a website or more information about hosting etc then please contact him on chris.morgan@bluegoldfish.com

 

As for this website here is an update on what has been happening…

• I have updated all the links and reinstated all the links that i previously had from the last website. Hopefully these will not disappear every month like the last one.
  
• The now and then section has had most of its photographs returned with a few outstanding waiting for more photo’s required.
  
• Each section within the website has had writing added below each photograph to give an explanation of it.
  

Now for the layouts….

 

Ramsbottom

 

Since the last report on the old website, We have been busy nearly every week working on different things to improve the layout.

• A left hand curved point just behind Ramsbottom Signal Box on the level crossing has been replaced due to damage sustained over the years of running also it was discovered that the point in front of this one was causing a few problems after the previous was replaced caused by the nose of the point being slightly raised this was repaired by Mark Towers giving it a gentle persuasion knock was a toffee hammer. This seems to of sorted it out for now.
  
• Keith Cragg has remade the fence that once stood opposite the above point untill the point gave way and an engine derailed resulting in demolished fence. This new fence is made from small tubes of plastic painted brown.
  
• Roger Wilson has for a few weeks been working on Ramsbottom Cricket Club’s playing field that has needed an upgrade since the repaint of the building. Originally we wanted to use scatter material to relayout the ground but this is now hard to find as most companies have moved on to flock material instead. The previous was made from what looked like sand paper stuck down on plaster and painted a light shade of green. We have now recovered the playing field in some sourced scatter material with Roger laying the crease area this week. He has also started to repaint the crowd and benches around the ground.
  
• Keith Cragg has also sorted out the problems on the signalling front of the layout. After weeks of the signals operating in a spazam mode which itself was intermittent we finally solved it after carefully tracking it down and seperating the rest of the system from the front control board by its own plug. The fault was a down to a faulty rectifier which converts the the DC supply to AC for controlling the signals.
  
• Over the past couple of weeks me, Alex King and Keith Cragg have had to resolder the odd broken wires off the rear control board, replaced 2x push to make switches, replaced 4x point motors that have decided to give up on us, replaced 3x street lights with complete wiring, replaced one tender on 8F 48705, Trying our hand with Metcalfe Engine shed kit, denating some items of old stock to the East Lancashire Railway’s Bury Standard Four Group’s Shop, Replaced all the triang type wagons with new wheels.
  
• I had aquired a display board while ago but never got round to using it so for this years open evening (20-10-2011) i have decided to put it to use to give the history of a few of the buildings that we have modelled such as Ramsbottom and Stubbins Stations, Ramsbottom Paper Mill, Kays Soap Works and Ramsbottom Cricket Club.
  

 

Bacup

 

Bacup has come on leaps and bounds since the last real report on the previous website. As present the shed is almost made with the final roof sections being put in place, this will in the coming weeks be having lights fitted but will be dimmed down to look real rather than full brightness. No work on the current base boards has started yet due to other commitments on the Ramsbottom Layout.

 

Visits

 

We have had a number of visitors recently from different places :-

• Volunteers from the Sue Ryder Charity Shop paid us a visit lately and were rather impressed with what they saw at the club and had a good chin wag with the members about the good old days of Ramsbottom.
  
• The Landlord and Landlady of The Railway Hotel have been a few times to admire our layout (and their pub in 00 gauge) and to bring a few of their customers.
  
• Last week we had Peter and David Bootland who had come down to see what all the fuss of our layout was about after finding a link to us via the Summerseat Ward Family website so it helps to have links within the local community. They seemed really impressed and want to start a layout of Summerseat. They have opted to become members of our club and hopefully we can help each other.
  

Me and Alex in recent weeks have been down a few nights of the week to run trains around to the program to seem how the layout responds with the current program and new additions. Well the first start was not good having all of the Accrington lines full when your next move was a train up to Accrington but you live and learn.

 

We hope to have a group run soon for the openday with the layout being cleaned and looking well.

 

I will take some pictures of the updates this Thursday to show you how the layouts looking.

 

Cheers

 

Dan