York Gasworks Railway Diorama

[Dunalastair]

Keeping up my 'micro a day' postings, today's contribution is a depiction of one of the narrow gauge overhead electric coke railways which were a feature of several medium size gasworks in the UK, this one being York. Information on these can be hard to come by, with the odd photograph and old OS mapping from NLS being as much as you can hope for - and some do not even have those. The railways were often as simple as an end-to-end line on a gantry, taking coke from the retorts to 'landsale' yards. Locos were very simple, sometimes appearing to be home-concocted, often with a wire for each polarity.

 

In this case the rolling stock, gantry and wire standards are 3D printed, the York backscene is 2D printed and the lorry is a diecast toy bought cheaply from ebay, suitably weathered to cover up play damage. The wheelsets are 16.5mm and the scale is about 1:43.

 

 

Looking through my Flickr and Imgur accounts, I have perhaps another dozen or more railway-themed dioramas which I could post here. Overall, I seem to have rather more of these than I had thought ...

[Dunalastair]

Found my copy of the IRS Record special edition on the railways of York which describes and illustrates this obscure railway. The article on York Gasworks majors on the SG locos, but includes a photograph taken through the gate showing the NG electric loco with its two wagons on the gantry. The gauge was 2' 3" and the power was 500V from an overhead cable. It lasted from about 1915 to 1959 when the works were demolished. As this was a simple end-to-end line with one train and no points, it would make a rather minimal layout with limited operating potential! 

 

Reference is IRS Record number 139.