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NO PLACE


Les1952
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NO PLACE.

 

No place is a real place (honest).  At least Northern General thought so, because they used to run buses to it.  NO PLACE via TWIZELL, not very often from Chester-le-Street.   Have I passed through- a few times on the bus to Consett.  Did I ever get off the bus and look round?  No.   The REAL No Place was adjacent to another small village, called Co-operative Villas.  When No Place was knocked down Co-operative Villas renamed itself- to No Place, though the village direction  sign says both.

 

post-13358-0-66554500-1429559025.jpg  The road sign at the turn-off from the main road.  The main road once passed through but nowadays No Place is on a loop off it.

 

 OK- the layout.   I'm checking with old maps and things carefully but I'm fairly sure that No Place DIDN'T have its own colliery- not easy to veryify in that part of County Durham.  If it had I believe it would have been connected to the Beamish Railway, perhaps by rope-worked incline.  For the purposes of the layout it was!

 

I've a main board of five feet by two, making it a bit large for a micro-layout.  Does this mean it is a mini-layout?  The frame kit arrived a couple of months ago and frame and top were built then.  I've been getting together a selection of mainly shorter points since then.   Hawthorn Dene returned from exhibition last night needing no major work before it goes out again in November.  Furtwangen Ost will only need a week to check over and service before going out again in mid-June, so I have a window to get on and get something done.

 

post-13358-0-96527300-1429559027_thumb.jpg

 

Version one of the track plan- it will develop from here.  The headshunt at the left will just take a K1 (so I can run my K1).  On the right is a two road shed- a laser-cut kit , and on the right a coal loader.  This is connecterd to an offstage washer/screening plant handling coal brought in from even smaller locations by lorry for screening.

 

post-13358-0-41402400-1429559026_thumb.jpg

 

An overview of the arrangement so far ( more pics later), showing my rather primitive method of laying things out full-size and shuffling them about until I'm happy.

 

Enough for now, time to feed the cat, who is on the table with an attitude which is the feline equivalent of tapping her wrist watch......

 

Les

 

Edited by Les1952
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One thing I missed is the apparent dimensions of the two extensions.  These will be fold-up, hinged to the main board.

 

The one on the left will be about a  foot long, just big enough for a couple of wagons to disappear under the loader and be filled offstage.

 

The one on the right is the fiddle yard (probably cassettes) and will be two feet long.  This will have a board attached to the front to hide what is going on behind.

 

 

More to follow, including some more pics.

Les

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Second go at trackplan.

 

I called in at Access Models this afternoon and bought two more points, a short Y and a short left.  These might be enough, but I'm still playing.

 

post-13358-0-32295500-1429626834_thumb.jpg

 

The second attempt at a track plan involves making a second run-round and shortening the entrance to the shed.  I'm not entirely convinced.

 

post-13358-0-31519600-1429626829_thumb.jpg

 

Using the K1 to get the length of the headshunt- just long enough for a K1 (or Q6) so I'm not tempted to buy any bigger locos. .

 

post-13358-0-93022100-1429626831_thumb.jpg

 

Looking along the length towards the shed (the four small locos show its position)- with the L1 marking out the length of the headshunt at the other end.  The cement mixer is Darlington's "Flying Sevens", 67777- anothe "must have" loco that would otherwise sit in the showcase.

 

As I now have the 9mm plywood for the end extensions and the hinges and things to do it I'll start by installing the fiddle yard extension then laying in the main line and getting it powered.  That much is just about fixed.

 

Les

Edited by Les1952
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5 minutes from my house...

 

There was a colliery at No Place, map here:

 

https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/Map/421293/553040/12/101200

 

At least one of the abutments for a bridge that took the line to Beamish still stands next to the Beamish Mary pub - somewhat overgrown now, it can be seen on Google Street View here:

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.873027,-1.664098,3a,75y,117.24h,83.42t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sdkOtz1TFVeWqYDjIb5rx1g!2e0

 

You can just about see the embankment that the waggonway ran on.

 

John

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Many thanks for that.  The map shows No Place as having consisted of one row of four dwellings.  Comparing it with the details in the Industrial Railway Society books gives the following.

 

The colliery at East Tanfield Stanley was owned by James Joicey, which is probably why the more obvious solution of linking it to the Pontop and Shields branch a hundred or so yards to the South wasn't taken- it predated the railway and would have its own railway established by the time that was built.  The Beamish Waggonway was certainly there by 1832 when the Stanhope & Tyne failed in a bid to buy it.  The line marked as Stanley Waggonway (the surviving embankments) was a self-acting rope-worked incline- fulls going down pulling the empties up.  There is no mention of any of the Beamish Railway locos getting to the colliery so presumably it was worked by horses.  It closed in the Summer of 1939.

 

That gives me an ideal location to build a back-story beginning with a fictional reopening by the Ministry of Fuel and Power during World War 2.....     I'll work on that.

 

All the very best

Les

Edited by Les1952
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I look forward to seeing your progress - my next layout is to be based on Pelton Level, a little further down the Pontop & Shields from No Place...

 

John

 

Talking about a next layout already! Your existing project would keep most of us going for a lifetime.

 

Co Durham seems to specialise in odd place names. SWMBO has just come back from a visit up there with her mother. They stayed two of the nights at a place called Pity Me.

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Talking about a next layout already! Your existing project would keep most of us going for a lifetime.

 

 

I'm still negotiating a location to build the South Pelaw layout so a new, small, layout seemed the way to go :)

 

John

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Hi Les, Just found this thread but have a friend who grew up in that area and worked in the pits near Beamish. According to him the nearest pit was Beamish Mary pit, where Ray worked which was about quarter of a mile away from No Place and the other one close by, within half a mile, was Beamish No2. Both of them were owned by the Lambton Hetton and Joicey company prior to nationalisation. Apparently there was a passing loop on the Beamish Wagonway which ran past No Place. The wagonway was below the village.

 

Jamie

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Thanks for that- Beamish Mary Colliery was North of No Place/Co-operative Villas and survived to the sixties. The site I'm looking at is to the South-East and was East Stanley Colliery, which closed in 1939.   Why I put East tanfield in the earlier post I don't know.

 

The story of the LH&JCCo was a bit convoluted, but basically the pits on the Beamish Waggonway (later Beamish Railway) were originally sunk by James Joicey.  He later acquired the Lambton & Hetton group (I'm not sure which version of the Lambton company it had reached at the time) and merged the companies together.  These days it would be called a reverse takeover, as the L&H part was vastly the larger but Joicey (and partners?) owned the lot up to Nationalisation.

 

Hence the name Lambton, Hetton & Joicey.

 

More later when I've time to look it up.  Also today's progress.

Les

Edited by Les1952
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Looking at the history of the Joicey group I see where I'm getting East Tanfield and East Stanley collieries conflated- the Joicey Family owned EAST STANLEY Colliery just to the South of No Place (closed 1939, and also EAST TANFIELD Colliery, at Tanfield, which closed in 1913.  Whether the latter was the same site as East Tanfield Colliery at Tantobie (opened 1844 and closed 9 Jan 1966, site now occupied by East Tanfield Station) I don't know.

 

Difficult, this history bit.....

 

I've tried to make a composite from the different maps I've found- the one in the link from John (which only partially worked as I'm not a subscriber to the site), plus the one on P18 of "Private Railways of CountyDurham" and Map G of the current Industrial Railway Society handbook (vol 2).  I think I may have got Beamish Second Pit (Beamish No.2) and the Beamish engine works a little to the Werst of where they actually were, which would be about 400 yards West of Beamish Station (or where it was).  The Stanley Waggonway is shown on one map joining the Beamish Waggonway West of Beamish Engine Works, and on the other slighttly East- the maps are dated differently.

 

post-13358-0-09819400-1429730058_thumb.jpg

 

Nothing like to scale, and positions a bit approximate, but it gives the general idea.  The Beamish waggonway was worked by rope in 1870, and later by locos, going down to meet the Pelaw Main Railway near Urpeth bank foot, known as Beamish Junction.   In 1954-1955 a new link was built to Handen Hold Colliery (West Pelton) and the Beamish Railway.  Handen Hold Colliery had an outlet to the Pontop and Shields branch (which appears to have been truncated just beyond the colliery).  As a result the section East of West Pelton was closed.  Beamish Second Colliery closed in 1962, Beamish Works and Engine Shed in August 1963 and the railway West of Handen Hold was closed and lifted when Beamish Mary Closed on 26th March 1966.

 

Enough of reality- what happened to make No Place Disposal Point?  The layout backstory (pure fiction but hopefully possible).

 

East Stanley Colliery closed in 1939, but was reopened by the Ministry of Fuel and Power as a washery and screens only. Immediately after the war it was decided that the motley selection of MFP locos in the area needed a repair centre so a new two-road shed was built on the site.  The MFP duly passed the site to the Opencast Executive in 1952, and the OE then appointed a contractor to run it.  The self-acting incline had been converted to loco use years ago.  When the new line to Handen Hold opened in 1955 this allowed BR locos to work to No Place (just imagine that on the wagon labels).  The closure of Beamish Mary Colliery transferred the line down to Handen Hold to the Opencast Executive, and closure of Handen Hold in 1968 meant the line to Pelton sidings also transferred to the OE.   In the meantime a society looking for accommodation restored a few locos in the engine shed.  The site and railway down to Pelton closed in 1984, leaving the preservationists landlocked.  They moved away by 1990.

 

This would allow a range of dates in the sixties and seventies to be modelled with mainly a change of loco- the WD saddletank of the sixties being helped by a Sentinel diesel later.

 

Hope this drivel makes sense.

Les

Edited by Les1952
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More progress on the actual layout.

 

OK, the fact that the line up to the site had been rope-worked originally means it is steep.  Given that the maximum load for a J27 up to Consett was six loaded hoppers I think it reasonable that only a few would arrive at No Place Washery at once.  Similarly trains going out would be short as they would be going DOWN said banks.

 

post-13358-0-35577600-1429732086_thumb.jpg

 

The final length of the layout is 5 feet scenic plus twenty inches fold-up fiddle yard, making 6 foot 8 inches in total.  I'm not having a fold-up extention to the coal loader and will have to figure a way of loading wagons on-scene.  Insanity looms rather quickly, I fancy.   The green rectangle is the footprint of the locoshed, full-size.  Bits of balsa show where track is going to be (mostly).

 

post-13358-0-08883200-1429732088_thumb.jpg

 

The fold-up bit is currently supported by a hinged piece that swings out underneath it.  This isn't strong enough to keep it level so I'm going to have to brace it vertically with some form of leg.  That is made more difficult by the layout sitting on trestles- thinking cap time.

 

The only piece of track with location set in stone is the three-way, which needs to line its middle with the turnout at the far end of the loop and give a headshunt just long enough for the K1, the biggest loco I've got. A K1 is about the same size as a Q6, with a slightly longer wheelbase so that might give DJM another sale.

 

post-13358-0-95173200-1429732089_thumb.jpg

 

This length of headshunt also allows a saddletank to take ONE wagon only.  I'm not sure if my forthcoming Ruston 88DS is small enough to take two.  No problems with the largest Industrial and one wagon. 

 

post-13358-0-35306800-1429732573_thumb.jpg

 

No.42 was from David Temple's own showcase collection, built in 2005, and converted to DCC by me.  As the real No.42 had a Lambton cab I'll probably renumber it either as South Hetton's 67 or as a ficticious ex- GWR tank using the GW sales list to find an unsold one of the right type.

 

post-13358-0-78536200-1429732856_thumb.jpg

 

The box containing the loco shed- a double-track laser-cut kit by LCut Creative- looking at the number of parts I must be some form of masochist.  However I did say I wanted the challenge of building a small layout in a different scale.....  The shed is just big enough to hold four small tank engines ( or a K1 on one road...)

 

More than enough for now.  Off to Nottingham tomorrow for soe more track etc.

Les

Edited by Les1952
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Co Durham seems to specialise in odd place names. SWMBO has just come back from a visit up there with her mother. They stayed two of the nights at a place called Pity Me.

 

Not forgetting Wide Open and Longbenton further north of course....

 

Pity Me is apparently a corruption of Petit Mere, or so I was told.

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Not forgetting Wide Open and Longbenton further north of course....

 

Pity Me is apparently a corruption of Petit Mere, or so I was told.

 

That's interesting. Looking at the map that Les has drawn, I realise that this is very close to where SWMBOs mother was born and raised because she has mentioned the Beamish Mary pub (the old one).

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Odd that. Hawthorn Dene has a following from the Easington Diaspora.  Is there a Co-operative Villas Diaspora that is going to follow and chip in with this one?

 

I do hope so....

 

As an appetite whetter- taken further up the bank- No.10 at Morrison Busty Colliery, Annfield Plain, just after I got out of the cab.....

 

post-13358-0-40414100-1429824542_thumb.jpg

 

Cat fed so it must be nearly bed time.

All the very best

Les

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Insomnia O'Clock

 

Again, a view taken in the area.

 

post-13358-0-00017100-1429834898_thumb.jpg

 

696DPT of OK Motor Services waits patiently outside South Stanley Primary School for four weary but enthusiastic student teachers (including me) to get off and rush eagerly into school ready to inflict their enthusiam on the unsuspecting pupils  The date- the Somethingth of May 1971.

 

Les

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On the subject of daft place names in the NE there is Crackpot in Swaledale.

 

But then again that is South of the end of civilisation as we know it (the River Tees) and into bandit territory.   

 

Les

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Thursday in the workshop

 

Music played loud to repel visitors- Quo today followed by Russ Conway (also very effective...)

 

I got the leg for the end of the fiddle yard done first- I went for a simple piece of wood secured at the top to the fold-out support with an M8 bolt and wing nut - the bolr and wingnut will also keep the fold-out support in place when the layout is travelling.

 

post-13358-0-33387400-1429900002_thumb.jpg

 

On to track laying.  You guys modelling in OO have it comparatively easy- errors in cutting that would scrap an N-gauge length don't even trouble OO wheels.  I decided to use 1.5mm balsa to raise the track rather than making a special trip into Newark to get the cork I forgot to buy yesterday.  I've only pinned the track into place, partly as I'll have to do some adjusting to get the point mechanisms in - I'm using wire in PTFE tube with Mercontrol levers, the same as on the last two layouts.  It works for me and saves the cost of eleven point motors and the bits to make them work.

 

post-13358-0-56719800-1429900000_thumb.jpg

 

Looking West along the layout,.  The bit of track under the wagons was reclaimed from the scrap pile when Bingham MRC moved clubroom late last year (and looks it with parts of sleepers missing).  However, once painted, ballasted and covered in grot and weeds it will look the part just like the rest.  There are actually four separate feeds to go in that bit, one at each end, one to the main line between the Y and the three way, and one to the loop where the wagons are astanding.  All separated by insulting  insulating fishplates.

 

Rather than wire it today (Saturday is pegged in for that) I had a go at fitting Sprat and Winkle couplings to the first two wagons. 

 

post-13358-0-78480600-1429900003_thumb.jpg

 

Looking at these I think I need to cut the underside of the Hornby hopper back a bit more as the loop is about a millimetre further forward than I want it.  I'll see if I can do better with the next pair (probably the other ends of the same two wagons).

 

post-13358-0-15755600-1429899999_thumb.jpg

 

Then on to locos.  This one is ARIAL, a Dapol/Hornby Mag Sentinel.  I got the Irish one for two reasons- firstly it was the last at the lower price and secondly with no markings other than No.281 on both sides and both bufferbeams I don't have to repaint it.  The nameplate covers the numbers on the side, and those on the bufferbeams can stay to remind me of the loco's DCC address.   Fitting it with DCC was a nightmare- there isn't enough clearance above the DCC socket to get a Zen direct-fit chip in and still get the body back on.  As a result it has a Zen chip with an 8-pin interface on a lead, and also has Stay-alive.  Winding all that lot into the cab to get the body back on took five times as long as soldering in the Stay Alive and testing the loco.

 

The last pic also shows where I'm going to need to add dummy sleepers.

 

Masterchef Final tonight.  I may even watch some telly for once!

Les

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Hi Les, it's coming along nicely. I had a call from my fried ray who worked at Beamish Mary pit, which he thinks was the closest to No Place. He says the pit used to be called Beamish Ayr pit and was very run down at the time of nationalisation and the NCB invested quite heavily in it but the coal came up Beamish Mary shaft.

 

He says that the loco that worked the line most regularly was called 'Twizzle' or something similar which was an NCB loco that looked something like a Jinty 3F.

 

Cheers

 

Jamie

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Thanks for that.

 

Beamish Mary is the one to the North of Co-operative Villas, the layout is set on the site of the older East Stanley Colliery, to the South.  The book on the railway gives Beamish Air Colliery as closing in1911 with its underground workings being taken over by Beamish Mary.  The map isn't all that clear

 

 

 

TWIZELL was one of a pair of 0-6-0 tank locos supplied to the Beamish loco shed in 1891 and 1895.  TWIZELL was No.3 (Stephenson 2730 of 1891) and the second one was No.4 LINHOPE Stephenson 2822of 1895).  TWIZELL is now preserved by Beamish Museum, but at the time of typing this it is on loan to the Tanfield Railway.  LINHOPE was scrapped by Thomas W ward Ltd sometime after July 1963, possibly at Handen Hold Colliery.

 

I did come across another of the Beamish Railway's locomotives, No.5 MAJOR, built by Kitson in about 1905, at Derwenthaugh awaiting scrap in the early seventies.  MAJOR had sloping tanks and no bunker behind the cab.  TWIZELL finished up at Morrison Busty Colliery at Annfield Plain, but I don't remember seeing it on my visit.

 

All the very best

Les

Edited by Les1952
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I keep forgetting how to get a link embedded and working, but have found this on YouTube.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwCKo36Nn5o

 

 

Hope it works-

 

Beamish Railway No.3 TWIZELL at work on the Tanfield Railway earlier this year.  This is the loco Jamie's friend Ray remembers at Beamish Mary Pit.

 

All the very best

Les

 

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Many thanks for the compliment, Neil.

 

Like my two layouts in N what lies under the surface isn't necessarily all that nice, but hopefully it will morph into something worth the effort.

 

Postman has just arrived with a parcel from Germany- hopefully this is the kit for the loader- to be assembled in the wrong order as usual.

 

All the very best

Les

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Saturday again

 

I'd lost count of days this week, being thoroughly confused by the Friday shopping being moved back a day due to curtain installation (part 1) at my brother-in-law's yesterday.   Wiring will be completed tomorrow.

 

So what did Slade and Meatloaf repel visitors from interrupting today?

 

post-13358-0-62194000-1429988718_thumb.jpg

 

First on the agenda was looking at the parcel from Germany.  I'm not using all of this, but it gives me acres of wiggly tin sides with windows cut square, and a three-track option for the loader.  Some additional brickwork and a few other bits and the origins will never be spotted apart from by readers of this.

 

post-13358-0-67746600-1429988721_thumb.jpg

 

Next job was to lay the track in the fiddle yard- all one road of it.  If I'm loading wagons at one end of the layout they are going to have to be lifted off for emptying in the fiddle yard, so a single track will be enough.  I've got wooden strips on the end and one side so far to help stop things falling off.  The side facing the punters will have similar with a clip arrangement to hold a removable frontscene in place to hide a lot of the action.

 

post-13358-0-45977500-1429988720_thumb.jpg

 

The capacity of the yard is three wagons and a tank locos, or (just) four with the Sentinel or 88DS.

 

Final job for the day was to get the drop wires laid in and think of a way to get power past the hinges.  The latter has to be part-demountable as these hinges came from Boyes (big mistake) and are rubbish.  They will be replaced before I get to scenics at that corner.

 

post-13358-0-32263100-1429988723_thumb.jpg

 

The power leads are soldered to the underside of the rails on the fiddleyard board with a little slack built in.  They are then soldered to longer droppers which pass through holes in the main board to pick up the main power bus.  The join is then tacked to the hinge to keep it in place.  The solder to the hinge isn't a vital part of the electrical circuit but is just a way of keeping the wires clear of trains and ensuring the bit that needs to flex does so in an area where it won't catch on anything.

 

After bringing the camera back into the house I got back into the workshop just in time for the heavens to open.  While waiting for the rain to stop I added the four leads to the DCC circuit breaker and screwed this to the inside of the frame back.  I'm using the sme Kato Unitrack wiring inline plug-and-socket as on Hawthorn Dene.  Basically on that layout the four connectors that need setting up at the start of an exhibition are completely different (Kato inline, stereo jack, DIN and Scart) so they can't possibly be connected to the wrong thing.

 

I'll try to remember to photograph the connector tomorrow.  Meanwhile I have a roll of adhesive copper strip to find- this will be the main power bus.

 

More tomorrow.

Les

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