Scarborough North Bay Railway - scale?

[009 micro modeller]

Does anyone know roughly what scale the Hudswell Clarke locos at this line are? When I visited earlier in the year I was impressed by the size of them, even compared to equivalent 15 inch gauge locos. If in proportion to the 20 inch gauge they could be around 1/3 scale but I’m not so sure. Obviously they may not necessarily be particularly ‘to scale’ but I was wondering if anyone had any ideas?

[jamie.dunn]

The track gauge is 20 inch and I believe it is very roughly 1/3 scale as you mentioned.

 

It’s pretty hard to tell due to the unusual track gauge ( quite an interesting story behind that).

 

If you want any pictures I work at the railway ( on the skytrail @the peasholm end of the line)

Edited December 17, 2018 by jamie.dunn

[SGJ]

The track gauge is 20 inch and I believe it is very roughly 1/3 scale as you mentioned.

 

It’s pretty hard to tell due to the unusual track gauge ( quite an interesting story behind that).

 

If you want any pictures I work at the railway ( on the skytrail @the peasholm end of the line)

2AA2472C-96E7-4F6B-B95E-3D206D1611BF.jpeg

 

Hi Jamie,

whats the interesting story behind the unusual track ?

Regards

Simon

[009 micro modeller]

The track gauge is 20 inch and I believe it is very roughly 1/3 scale as you mentioned.

 

It’s pretty hard to tell due to the unusual track gauge ( quite an interesting story behind that).

 

If you want any pictures I work at the railway ( on the skytrail @the peasholm end of the line)

2AA2472C-96E7-4F6B-B95E-3D206D1611BF.jpeg

Thank you. I was just wondering as I was thinking vaguely about a project loosely inspired by this in 1:32. I think it would (roughly) equate to TT scale but on 00 track, which seems a bit odd.

 

Hi Jamie,

whats the interesting story behind the unusual track ?

Regards

Simon

Is it in relation to Hudswell Clarke beating Bassett Lowke when competitive tenders were submitted for construction, and the line therefore not being a more usual 15 inch gauge? Edited December 17, 2018 by 009 micro modeller

[jamie.dunn]

well from what I've learned Hudswell Clarke had made the Locos 20 inch so that if the locos needed repairing then you couldn't just get a replacement loco to run on the railway while you either repaired the loco on site. this basically meant that you had to send the loco to Hudswell to get repaired . ( I'm not sure if they had a spare loco to send out to the railway while Neptune was under repair).

in !932 Triton was brought to the railway so it probably eradicated the issue above. 

it is also the reason the railway in Blackpool pleasure beach (also by Hudswell clarke) is 21inch.

stopped you loaning in an engine if anything went wrong.

Currently BlackPool Pleasure beach and the 2 Princess royals at the princess royal locomotive preservation society(?) at the Butterly railway centre.

 

And the NBR along with posidion and robin hood are 20inch.
And Georgina which is the NBR's steam loco finished in 2016.

 

jamie 

Edited December 17, 2018 by jamie.dunn

[stewartingram]

But surely it can't be true scale anyway? It is not a model of a prototype loco reduced in size, but a real loco built to reduced dimensions? Pedantically, you might say is a 1/3 full size loco (or whatever the dimension might be), but that would just be an approximation. And the track gauge, as regards scale, is arbitrary, as explained above.

Not being critical here, just trying to understand the true meaning of scale.

 

Stewart

[BernardTPM]

The North Bay locos are clearly based on the Gresley A1 but the relative dimensions have been played around with quite a bit, especially round the firebox cab area as well as overall width. The Princess Royals on the other hand are more accurate as scale models than the Rovex version ever was.

Edited December 17, 2018 by BernardTPM

[009 micro modeller]

But surely it can't be true scale anyway? It is not a model of a prototype loco reduced in size, but a real loco built to reduced dimensions? Pedantically, you might say is a 1/3 full size loco (or whatever the dimension might be), but that would just be an approximation. And the track gauge, as regards scale, is arbitrary, as explained above.

Not being critical here, just trying to understand the true meaning of scale.

 

Stewart

I was just trying to get a rough idea to see if something vaguely similar could be modelled in 1:32 scale, possibly using an 00 loco as a starting point, but I had a feeling it would not look quite right. There was a Gn15 (iirc) layout a few years ago of the RHDR which similarly used 00 chassis for some locos but the bodies were completely scratchbuilt, since the locos there are effectively 1/3 scale but on 1/4 scale track.