Derby Museum Midland Railway model

[ejstubbs]

It was also "Railway of the Month" in the Modeller way back when.....

 

October 1968 (already discussed in posts 16-23 of this thread).

[John_Miles]

Hum, the 5th November for the layouts final outing.

 

Now what happens to bits of wood/card etc on the evening of 5th Nov?

From memory, most of the supporting structure is dexion and there is enough wiring to drive any electrician to distraction. It was built so it would run automatically, so I am told, but the system never worked.

[Poor Old Bruce]

I think the Celanese loco went to Swanwick - see http://www.flickriver.com/photos/dc-7c/6840931616/

 

The loco from the Silk Mill has moved to Swanwick but it was a Peckett 'VICTORY' IIRC.

 

It was also "Railway of the Month" in the Modeller way back when.....

 

Also featured in MRN for June 1964 (I may have said this before).

 

Edit: Yup. See posts 16-23 as above.

Edited October 29, 2016 by Poor Old Bruce

[Mike Bellamy]

As mentioned previously, there is to be a final event this Saturday and there will be supporting displays from the local Mickleover Club.

Details here on the calendar page

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/calendar/event/1673-derby-silk-mills-model-railway/

 

By coincidence, here at Derby University, we have our Volunteering Fair today where numerous organisations have displays to encourage the students to give up some of their time for the benefit of others. Guess what - one of those organisations is Derby Museums which is an independent trust with a £16.4m redevelopment programme funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, The Arts Council and Derby City Council. I was assured by their representative that the model railway is a much loved and historically important part of the museum and it will be returned bigger and better than before. The Silk Mill is to become a Museum of Making with 100% of all exhibits being fully accessible to visitors including the railway and so the storage roads will no longer be hidden away and visitors will be able to operate parts of the layout.

 

main museum site here - this  covers much of the information that was in the brochure I was given

http://www.derbymuseums.org/hlf2016/#.WBn1a01pqUl

 

It all sounded rather positive and I wish them well.

 

 

.

[John_Miles]

Having visitors operate sounds a bit like the Thomas layouts at exhibitions but with beautiful scale models. I dread to think what will happen.

Edited November 3, 2016 by John_Miles

[Mike Bellamy]

Following my posting on Tuesday I have received a very nice reply from Gemma at the Derby Museum Trust copied below.

 

Please support the final event tomorrow and why not volunteer to be part of the dismantling and rebuild team - contact details on their website below

 

 

 

Thanks so much for chatting to me on Wednesday and, of course, for posting such an informative and helpful post on the notice board. It’s so nice of you and really helpful to others wondering and worrying about our beautiful railway. 

 

I hope you’ll be able to make it to the Silk Mill tomorrow for our celebration day.  It should be really fun. 

 

Please don’t hesitate to contact me should you have any further questions about the Silk Mill project and, in particular of course, our amazing model railway.  And please feel free to pass my details on to anyone else who might have questions or who might like to volunteer their time for the railway.  We have a lot to do so any support will always be hugely welcome and gratefully received. 

 

With thanks once again and kindest regards,

Gemma

 

Gemma Hopkins 

 

Coproduction Volunteer and Programme Coordinator  

MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY | THE STRAND | DERBY | DE1 1BS
TELEPHONE +44 (0)1332 642268
www.derbymuseums.org

Follow us: @derbymuseums

Like us: facebook.com/derbymuseums

 

 

.

[John_Miles]

Midland Railway Society members have today received an email from the secretary, Dave Harris, giving the reasons for the model railway having to be moved and how it is intended to deal with the problems that will arise. The basic problem is that the floors in the building are not up to 21stC fire regulations and were a fire to break out, there would be no way to stop smoke quickly spreading through the whole building. So all the floors have to be replaced. There is also a lot more asbestos to be removed. It sounds like the building frame is covered in this.

 

The baseboard tops are modular, as is the scenery so things can be removed without too much damage. The thing that is not modular is the wiring, so when the layout is put back, there will have to be new wiring and there is talk of DCC. The layout will be put back in such a way that everything is visible, including the fiddle yard so that visitors can see how a typical model railway works. The footprint of the layout will be exactly as it is now so no reduction or increase in size and the trackplan will be the same. Also the dexion supporting structure will go so there will have to be new frames to hold up the scenery modules.

 

Arrangements have been made for the volunteers to carry on working on the layout while it is in storage - and they are looking for volunteers. Not me though, I moved to Cardiff over 30 years ago.

[Mike Bellamy]

News item from Derby Telegraph

 

http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/derby-museums-model-railway-at-silk-mill-to-be-packed-away-for-four-years-after-weekend-goodbye/story-29868659-detail/story.html

 

 

.

[Mike Bellamy]

From the Derby Telegraph again . . . . . .

 

A video (7.5 mins) and interviews with staff, volunteers and visitors - just ignore the comments of the interviewer (!!), listen to the answers and watch the trains go by.

 

Several members of the Mickleover group can be seen lurking in the background and operating the layout - good to see behind the scenes.

 

http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/packing-away-of-silk-mill-model-railway-terrible-loss-to-derby/story-29870774-detail/story.html

 

.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Thanks for the heads up Mike.

Is that Richard wearing the bright yellow jacket?

 

My memories are of the original "Kirtley" when it was at The Wardwick.

 

Wonder if any of the buildings from that layout survive in the current one? A couple of the bridges look familiar.

[kevinlms]

Midland Railway Society members have today received an email from the secretary, Dave Harris, giving the reasons for the model railway having to be moved and how it is intended to deal with the problems that will arise. The basic problem is that the floors in the building are not up to 21stC fire regulations and were a fire to break out, there would be no way to stop smoke quickly spreading through the whole building. So all the floors have to be replaced. There is also a lot more asbestos to be removed. It sounds like the building frame is covered in this.

 

The baseboard tops are modular, as is the scenery so things can be removed without too much damage. The thing that is not modular is the wiring, so when the layout is put back, there will have to be new wiring and there is talk of DCC. The layout will be put back in such a way that everything is visible, including the fiddle yard so that visitors can see how a typical model railway works. The footprint of the layout will be exactly as it is now so no reduction or increase in size and the trackplan will be the same. Also the dexion supporting structure will go so there will have to be new frames to hold up the scenery modules.

 

Arrangements have been made for the volunteers to carry on working on the layout while it is in storage - and they are looking for volunteers. Not me though, I moved to Cardiff over 30 years ago.

Great to hear that this layout is to survive, more or less as is. Much more positive than the impression given at post 58.

[Penlan]

Having visitors operate sounds a bit like the Thomas layouts at exhibitions but with beautiful scale models. I dread to think what will happen.

John everything's going inter-active, or whatever it's called these days, and seems to be dumbed down to school children level, and as you state (in a post or two ago) you live in Cardiff, you will be aware of the History Display place near St David's Shopping Centre, is of no real interest to adults at all, unless it's somewhere for their children, out of the rain.

Nearly all the interesting industrial things that were in the 'Industrial & Maritime Museum' at Cardiff (and I attended the original opening party ceremony, back in, oh was it 1980?), has been shipped away into storage, though I understand some bits and pieces have been allocated to Swansea Museum. 

Edited November 6, 2016 by Penlan

[Poor Old Bruce]

Is that Richard wearing the bright yellow jacket?

 

My memories are of the original "Kirtley" when it was at The Wardwick.

 

Wonder if any of the buildings from that layout survive in the current one? A couple of the bridges look familiar.

 

Guilty as charged Peter, perhaps I should have worn something more muted.

 

I too remember the layout in the Wardwick (is that where the old guy's 'K' series came from?). From earwigging what he was saying, he seems to have been involved with the layout at some time, probably before my time which was about 50 years ago, operating it as best as I could on a Saturday afternoon.

[ejstubbs]

Holy thread resurrection, Batman!  After a gap of four and a half years, it seems that there is at last good-ish news about the Derby Museum model railway: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/may/24/museum-of-making-derby

 

For train set enthusiasts there’s a treat in store on the next floor, where an entire room is devoted to a 1951 model railway landscape, built to commemorate Midland Railway when the network was nationalised after the second world war. Set in the fictional Derbyshire village of Kirtley, but featuring real local landmarks, the model is known for its obsessive technical detail, with modellers building the locomotives from scratch according to the original engineers’ drawings. Restorers will carry on working away, their bodies incongruously poking up through the landscape of Lilliputian hillocks, and hobbyists will be on hand to show the behind-the-scenes workings of the model.

 

"Train set enthusiasts"?  Bah.  And, as my Mum pointed out, those somewhat unlikely looking "Lilliputian hillocks" (at least as they were in the 1970s) actually bore a fair resemblance to the scenery around the B5023 as it approaches Wirksworth from the south.

 

At least the new name for the place isn't a cringe-provoking as Birmingham's "ThinkTank".  And, to be fair, "The Silk Mill" didn't really give much of a clue as to what a prospective visitor might find there.  I feel that I might yet be persuaded to swing by the city where I spent my adolescence and check the place out when I next venture down in to Englandshire.

Edited May 24, 2021 by ejstubbs

[Mike Bellamy]

 

Local newspaper report here - sorry about all the adverts . . . . . . . . . 

 

Click Here for Derby Telegraph Report

.

 

EDIT the video in link above would not play properly on my PC but it looks like there are shots of the model railway about 1 minute in but my screen froze at that point . . . . . !!

 

Also another news report with a number of photos of the museum including two of the model railway

 

Click Here for link to several photos of the Museum

.

Edited May 25, 2021 by Mike Bellamy

[ejstubbs]

Great stuff, thanks Mike.  Glad to see the railway is back on site, though it looks like there's a bit of cosmetic work still to do.  I'll have a look at the booking site and see if I can somehow fit in a visit as part of our trip to see relations in Gloucestershire this summer.

 

Ah, the good old Derby Evening Telegraph, as it was when I were a lad.  Presumably they dropped the "evening" bit when it went online and became accessible and updatable 24x7?  It was notorious in our household for always seeming to manage to find a "Derby man" (and it did always seem to be a man) involved in some way - albeit most often in an extremely peripheral way - with the big national or global news stories of the day.  My brother got a mention as "Derby man stuck on Cyprus" when the Turks invaded the north of the island in 1974 while he was there on a diving expedition.  Which was bit rich considering he himself had lived in Derby for little more than a year before going off to college, and certainly considered himself much more a Kentish Man (in the strict sense) than a "Derby man".  The rest of the family lived in Derby* though, so that was probably enough for the DET.

 

* Strictly, 100m outside the city boundary, in Quarndon.

[Enterprisingwestern]

1 minute ago, ejstubbs said:

Great stuff, thanks Mike.  Glad to see the railway is back on site, though it looks like there's a bit of cosmetic work still to do.  I'll have a look at the booking site and see if I can somehow fit in a visit as part of our trip to see relations in Gloucestershire this summer.

 

Ah, the good old Derby Evening Telegraph, as it was when I were a lad.  Presumably they dropped the "evening" bit when it went online and became accessible and updatable 24x7?  It was notorious in our household for always seeming to manage to find a "Derby man" (and it did always seem to be a man) involved in some way - albeit most often in an extremely peripheral way - with the big national or global news stories of the day.  My brother got a mention as "Derby man stuck on Cyprus" when the Turks invaded the north of the island in 1974 while he was there on a diving expedition.  Which was bit rich considering he himself had lived in Derby for little more than a year before going off to college, and certainly considered himself much more a Kentish Man (in the strict sense) than a "Derby man".  The rest of the family lived in Derby* though, so that was probably enough for the DET.

 

* Strictly, 100m outside the city boundary, in Quarndon.

 

Regrettably it's similar to local media hoping for a local murder/explosion/disaster, doesn't half do a lot for ratings.

 

Mike.

[pete_mcfarlane]

I hope the lack of a backscene on the layout is only temporary. Without a backscene it  seems to have lost its sense of place and looks like a generic model railway rather than part of the old MR route through the peaks.  

[Bill Radford]

Ah...

 

Memories of Saturday mornings more than 60 years ago...

[Penlan]

I still have my guide from 1959. (Dated, 1957 edition)
The four adverts at the back are for W&H Models, K's, CCW and Douglas Models (Halifax).
1s 3d, a lot of money in those days, uhmn, Pint of Mild was about a shilling, Rough Cider was 9p, in 1959 - memories of a misspent youth .

 

Edited May 27, 2021 by Penlan

[Poor Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, Bill Radford said:

Ah...

 

Memories of Saturday mornings more than 60 years ago...

 

Yes indeed. I thought the old layout in the Wardwick was very nicely done scenically although it did have some mechanical limitations on the low level parts which were extremely difficult to get at if or when anything needed doing.

[pete_mcfarlane]

I finally went to the reopened 'The Museum of Making' today. 

 

Firstly, the new museum is pretty dire. The building looks great after the renovation, but here's very little actual content.

 

Just a random selection of artefacts carefully displayed with minimal labels, in that virtually empty fashion of modern museums. In some cases they are arranged by material, for no obvious reason (because the curators didn't know anything about the objects but could see what they were made of?). 

 

There's a tiny little bit of information about local industry - for example Rolls Royce has half a dozen wall panels with a short paragraph on each, and single jet engine on display (the previous museum had loads). 

 

The railway gallery contains the rebuilt model. It's not very well presented, with poor lighting and no backscene. But it's there, and running twice daily (at 11:00 and 2:00, for about half an hour). I say running - a succession of trains did circuits, train set style, without stopping at the station. 

 

 

 

The poor lighting makes my photos look like something Brian Monaghan shot for the Railway Modeller in 1974. 

 

Gone is the stock on display in cases - these are the only non-operating stuff on display. These are some of the few things in the museum with decent labels. 

 

 

The other good not utterly terrible bit of the museum is a kind of open store, with various random items jammed in. Lots of railway stuff, including endless block instruments, an early APT model, and a mock up of the Fell. No idea what it was used for - as I can't image they wind tunnel tested it...

 

 

So the railway is back, working regularly (unlike before) but in a very poor museum.

[31A]

An item on the BBC News last night showed the centre of Derby near the River Derwent flooded, including the Museum of Making inundated!  If the model railway is on the ground floor, I fear it could be bad news for it....

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-derbyshire-67168494

 

[Beechnut]

It’s not on the ground floor, that’s the cafe.

 

Brendan

[Buhar]

1 hour ago, Beechnut said:

It’s not on the ground floor, that’s the cafe.

 

Brendan

Thank goodness for that. I hope the other artifacts are similarly safe. And the Society Study Centre. 

 

The cakes and flans are likely to suffer from soggy bottoms.

Alan