YORK for York Show 2023 and beyond

[RichardT]

32 minutes ago, iands said:

And not forgetting the regular coal trains to service the York Power Station via the Foss Island's branch - always assuming that YPS sourced its coal from West Riding pits

Plus the coal/coke in and out of the York gasworks, coal to Rowntree’s factory boiler house, coal to the LNER hotels laundry, and land sale coal to the coal depots at Foss Islands goods station (Walkers Coal Merchants IIRC) and for the coal yards at Layerthorpe Station and the other DVLR stations  - all again via the Foss Islands branch.  Pictures I’ve seen of the pre-war DVLR Layerthorpe goods yard show a plethora of West Riding private owner coal wagons, and none of the DVLR wayside stations had coal drops, so that’s the likely traffic flow.
 

Foss Island goods I *think* had coal drops: it certainly did in the 1960s and 1970s.  When observing that coal traffic in BR days (and that to Rowntree’s) before the branch closed I recollect it being delivered in 1940s ex-LNER design steel hoppers. So pre-war presumably NER-style wooden hoppers?

 

All the above workings would, I guess, have been tripped from Dringhouses yard through the station?

The whole issue of coal flows on the NER is interesting - it certainly isn’t the case that there were “no private owner coal wagons on the NER and it was all carried in NER hoppers” as is sometimes said.

 

RichardT

 

 

Edited February 10, 2023 by RichardT
Clarifying bits.

[iands]

1 hour ago, RichardT said:

Plus the coal/coke in and out of the York gasworks, coal to Rowntree’s factory boiler house, coal to the LNER hotels laundry, and land sale coal to the coal depots at Foss Islands goods station (Walkers Coal Merchants IIRC) and for the coal yards at Layerthorpe Station and the other DVLR stations  - all again via the Foss Islands branch.  Pictures I’ve seen of the pre-war DVLR Layerthorpe goods yard show a plethora of West Riding private owner coal wagons, and none of the DVLR wayside stations had coal drops, so that’s the likely traffic flow.
 

Foss Island goods I *think* had coal drops: it certainly did in the 1960s and 1970s.  When observing that coal traffic in BR days (and that to Rowntree’s) before the branch closed I recollect it being delivered in 1940s ex-LNER design steel hoppers. So pre-war presumably NER-style wooden hoppers?

 

All the above workings would, I guess, have been tripped from Dringhouses yard through the station?

The whole issue of coal flows on the NER is interesting - it certainly isn’t the case that there were “no private owner coal wagons on the NER and it was all carried in NER hoppers” as is sometimes said.

 

RichardT

 

 

Yes @RichardT, Foss Islands goods did have coal drops.

 

Re the hoppers, sand was also delivered to Foss Island's in steel hoppers, for the Redfearn Glass works on Fishergate.

[RichardT]

21 hours ago, iands said:

Yes @RichardT, Foss Islands goods did have coal drops.

 

Re the hoppers, sand was also delivered to Foss Island's in steel hoppers, for the Redfearn Glass works on Fishergate.

Thanks Ian. I’ve now done what I should have done before posting, and checked the 25 inch OS map on the NLS site. The earliest map shows what I suspect are intended to be box-like representations of coal cells on two elevated sidings. Later maps don’t bother with these, just showing the sidings as elevated.  We regularly used to pass the yard on the way to my grandparents in the 1960s and 1970s and I remember seeing hoppers on the drops.  
 

Also, of course, the rows of cattle pens along the base of the city walls for when the cattle market was on Paragon Street, just round the corner from Foss Islands Goods.  I should have remembered the Redfern’s sand hoppers too as my uncle was an electrician there.  That whole part of York was such a gritty workaday industrial and commercial area right up against the city walls and the Castle Museum - now all sanitised out of existence in the last thirty years.  Foss Islands Goods Station platforms are now buried under a Waitrose!

 

Apologies for all the reminiscensing.  Without realising it I suddenly appear to have become an old bloke!  But a multi-platformed goods-only  terminus station hard up against a backdrop of mediaeval city walls and a mediaeval gateway would be a model to see…

 

RT

Edited February 11, 2023 by RichardT
More old fart maunderings, and spelling mediaeval correctly

[CF MRC]

Are you referring to this yard, Richard?

 

On a different topic, is the layout DC or DCC Peter?

 

Tim

[Andy_C]

19 hours ago, 65179 said:

There's even a cheeky Notts coalfield one in there too.

 

Named wagons used to get a bit mixed up, didn't they? I have some photos of Notts wagons in strange places in the UK.

 

@kirmiesI love the slow running speeds you have achieved. I've finally got my loco's out of their boxes, to find they all need a varying amounts of running in. Some need a little oil, but I'm being very careful with that so as not to overdo it. It's also forced me into basic servicing of kit at an early stage in my return to this hobby. Gulp!

[65179]

24 minutes ago, Andy_C said:

 

Named wagons used to get a bit mixed up, didn't they? I have some photos of Notts wagons in strange places in the UK.

 

If someone or a business decided that a particular colliery's coal was the coal for them and ordered some then one of their wagons could end up anywhere! 

[65179]

6 hours ago, CF MRC said:

Are you referring to this yard, Richard?

 

On a different topic, is the layout DC or DCC Peter?

 

Tim

That's York old station Tim. Just the other side of the city walls from the present York station.  Foss Islands Goods as described above was the other side of the River Ouse at the end of a branch off the Scarborough line which also served Rowntrees.

 

Old station:

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=15.5&lat=53.95972&lon=-1.09023&layers=168&right=ESRIWorld

 

Foss Islands Goods:

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=14.8&lat=53.96081&lon=-1.06986&layers=168&right=ESRIWorld

 

Simon

Edited February 11, 2023 by 65179
Spelling of Foss corrected

[St Enodoc]

25 minutes ago, 65179 said:

That's York old station Tim. Just the other side of the city walls from the present York station.  Fosse Islands Goods as described above was the other side of the River Ouse at the end of a branch off the Scarborough line which also served Rowntrees.

 

Old station:

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=15.5&lat=53.95972&lon=-1.09023&layers=168&right=ESRIWorld

 

Fosse Islands Goods:

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=14.8&lat=53.96081&lon=-1.06986&layers=168&right=ESRIWorld

 

Simon

Interesting that the "old" maps there pre-date the Derwent Valley Railway.

[bécasse]

47 minutes ago, 65179 said:

 

If someone or a business decided that a particular colliery's coal was the coal for them and ordered some then one of their wagons could end up anywhere! 

A primary reason for single named-colliery wagons ending up in odd places was delivering coal for the "big house" (of which there may well have been more than one served by a single yard). Prior to the Great War colliery shares were a not uncommon wedding present among the landed gentry, and while they often offered the possibility of a reasonable income or even capital gain, their real value was that they offered a supply of free or heavily discounted coal which was obviously delivered in the colliery's own wagons.

[65179]

7 minutes ago, bécasse said:

A primary reason for single named-colliery wagons ending up in odd places was delivering coal for the "big house" (of which there may well have been more than one served by a single yard). Prior to the Great War colliery shares were a not uncommon wedding present among the landed gentry, and while they often offered the possibility of a reasonable income or even capital gain, their real value was that they offered a supply of free or heavily discounted coal which was obviously delivered in the colliery's own wagons.

 Oh dear I think we've well and truly highjacked Peter's thread! Sorry Peter!

 

Simon 

[kirmies]

To answer various peoples' queries:

• The J39 is a Farish model with a milled replacement 2mm finescale chassis. One of the key mods I do to the N-gauge bodies (many of which are excellent) is the handrails. The 6 thou top E steel guitar wire I use makes a huge difference to the appearance.
• Tim: it's DCC - not sure it would be easy to achieve such excellent slow stopping and starting if there was a fraction of a volt between track and loco wheels,  particularly in 2mm.
• The good slow running is a big part of the plan for YORK (as it was for Laramie). I used Maxon 4:1 in line gearmotors and 25:1 gearboxes in Laramie's Big Boys. For YORK I'm using cheap and cheerful Chinese gearmotors (see page 4 of this blog) and 21:1 or 30:1 gearboxes to give a similar massive reduction. They are quite noisy (though do get quieter when after a few hours' running) but are a couple of quid each whereas Maxon gearmotors are now frighteningly expensive (though much quieter). Also, I have DCC speed set to a maximum of about 20mph and VERY long acceleration and deceleration times so, stopping a train at the station is simply a matter of knocking the 'regulator' from max. to zero as the it enters the roof area and then back to max. when it's time to leave.
• The coal train would be slightly more representative if it included some NER hoppers: they're definitely on the list of things to do but not particularly near the top of that list at the moment! A Q6 would also be good!

[RichardT]

5 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Interesting that the "old" maps there pre-date the Derwent Valley Railway.

Thanks all for answering Tim’s question about his picture of the old station. That too would be a model to see.  And thanks for the J39 info.

 

Yes, the Derwent Valley Rly was a twentieth century creation, so doesn’t appear until the later OS maps.

 

Tiny point from a Yorkie - it’s Foss Islands, not Fosse as in Fosse Way. Same root word obviously (fossa Latin, “ditch”), but York has no truck with the surplus “e” - probably a reaction to all the “Olde Worlde Tea Roomes” signs you used to see in the city before York tourism got all sophisticated…

 

Richard
 

OT Oddly, two different jobs (archivist for Railtrack and, twelve years later, City Archivist) saw me based in the old station building you can see in Tim’s picture.
 

Some railway departments kept their old files in the wartime control office that was dug into the city walls embankment on the left to protect it from bombing…

 

By the time of my latter job the station had been (very sensitively) converted to council offices, with the remains of the overall roof moved to the platform end to form the world’s oldest bike shed. Worth a look if you’re in York.

Edited February 11, 2023 by RichardT
Spellin’

[Nick Mitchell]

35 minutes ago, kirmies said:

• The coal train would be slightly more representative if it included some NER hoppers: they're definitely on the list of things to do but not particularly near the top of that list at the moment! A Q6 would also be good!

 

What you really need at York is a lovely red Stanier Jubilee... but not for the coal train!

[kirmies]

1 hour ago, Nick Mitchell said:

 

What you really need at York is a lovely red Stanier Jubilee... but not for the coal train!

Nick,

At least one LMS Jubilee is definitely part to the plan but won't make it to the top of the 'to do' list by this Easter, I'm afraid (unless you have a spare I can borrow)

[Michael Edge]

9 hours ago, CF MRC said:

Are you referring to this yard, Richard?

 

On a different topic, is the layout DC or DCC Peter?

 

Tim

Does that photo show No. 13 in North Eastern livery? I was always under the impression that it wasn’t painted until it got LNER livery.

[CF MRC]

It would have to be NER livery Michael, as the picture is pre-grouping. The 4-6-2 class is in works grey, albeit the front buffer beam has already been trimmed back. 
 

Tim

[Michael Edge]

Very interesting, all the photos of 13 are in works grey, the last one I built was painted in NER livery following the discovery of a painting diagram. We thought it was just a “might have been” but it seems it was accurate after all.

[Nick Mitchell]

2 hours ago, kirmies said:

Nick,

At least one LMS Jubilee is definitely part to the plan but won't make it to the top of the 'to do' list by this Easter, I'm afraid (unless you have a spare I can borrow)

As it happens, I have an N Gauge one which will hopefully have a new 2FS chassis and Fowler tender by Easter...

[65179]

22 minutes ago, Nick Mitchell said:

As it happens, I have an N Gauge one which will hopefully have a new 2FS chassis and Fowler tender by Easter...

 You do like a deadline Dr Nick!

[Sithlord75]

48 minutes ago, 65179 said:

 You do like a deadline Dr Nick!

He even admitted to same on the ZAG this evening/morning (delete as timezone requires!)

[signal eng]

Well, this is quite something Peter and no teddy bear fur anywhere!  I love the presentation which places you 'inside' the main feature.  What a great idea and reminds me of a museum diorama rather than a traditional model railway.  Are you modelling the Tea Rooms?  If so, do you have drawings?  Stunning and look forward to seeing it.

 

Jerry

PS what became of the St Ives project?

Edited February 21, 2023 by signal eng

[kirmies]

On 21/02/2023 at 15:28, signal eng said:

Well, this is quite something Peter and no teddy bear fur anywhere!  I love the presentation which places you 'inside' the main feature.  What a great idea and reminds me of a museum diorama rather than a traditional model railway.  Are you modelling the Tea Rooms?  If so, do you have drawings?  Stunning and look forward to seeing it.

 

Jerry

PS what became of the St Ives project?

Hi Jerry,

 

Thanks for the kind words about YORK and apologies for the delayed response to your questions: I've spent most if the last week taking my other current layout 'Laramie Engine Terminal' to Model Rail Scotland.

Although I have drawings for them the current plan is NOT to include the tea rooms on the layout largely because the footprint of the layout doesn't include where they are, they would act as rather too good a view blocker and the ornate front wouldn't be visible to viewers. That said, I suspect the real tea rooms (currently the York Tap real ale pub) will figure in YORK's trip to the York Show in a few weeks' time but only after hours!

St Ives is still part complete: much time and effort has gone into it but much still remains to be done and I keep having other ideas for layouts! So it may get finished one day but no promises.

 

Peter

[queensquare]

1 minute ago, kirmies said:

St Ives is still part complete: much time and effort has gone into it but much still remains to be done and I keep having other ideas for layouts! So it may get finished one day but no promises.

 

Peter

It’ll be finished ‘dreckly my handsome 😊

 

Jerry

[kirmies]

Avid and prompt readers of Railway Modeller will have already seen that YORK is April's Railway of the Month:

This is largely to promote the return of the much missed York Show but also shows the layout in quite a favourable light. I'm pretty pleased with the way the article has turned out and I hope it encourages a few more people to come along to the show.

Even the unobservant will notice that W H Smiths is looking a bit understocked:

The text of the article explains that this is a job yet to be done. Well, it was at the time I took the photos but, being right 'up front and centre' on the layout, it has been a priority task to complete before Easter.  The last few weeks have seen a considerable improvement in stock levels:

These are all custom decals drawn on CAD or images of contemporary newspapers, magazines and books manipulated in Photoshop etc.

The piles of these on the counter were built up from numerous tiny offcuts of 10 thou plastikard:

With decals of the front covers applied one by one:

I know everything in 2mm is tiny and fiddly but this was borderline ridiculous!

 

Decals for the actual W.H.Smith's signage are still awaited and toning down of the sheen and bedding down onto the platform surface will happen once they've been applied. The clock on this side of the signal box is still at the repairers!

[CF MRC]

Somebody has to do it…

 

Tim