Lancaster Green Ayre - The Barn Owls have returned.

[jamie92208]

The team have had a good de brief over a few drinks and a meal at the hotel. I've been leant at lease 30 new photos to scan and use and have heard many good tales about life on the railway in the area. Also memories of duchesses coming through the station on diversions when Carlisle Bridge was being rebuilt. The sound of a Coronation storming up the Castle Branch with a long train must have been amazing.

 

Jamie

[45156]

Lots of the Non RMWeb members are posting their photos and videos on the FB pages of the show, here

 

https://www.facebook.com/greenayrerises/

 

See you later

Stewart

[bike2steam]

Lots of the Non RMWeb members are posting their photos and videos on the FB pages of the show, here

 

https://www.facebook.com/greenayrerises/

 

See you later

Stewart

By the look of it an excellent layout, and display, wish I could have been there to see it - well done.

[45156]

The show went very well indeed, but I won't steal Jamie's thunder, and he can tell you himself about what happened, and all the rest of it - he might even post some photos once he gets home and gets the layout unloaded.

 

From my point of view, it was a great event, and I was pleased and proud to be part of it, and wore that "Crew" t-shirt with pride.  I'm sure that Geoff will endorse that.

[5BarVT]

Dropped in for 1/2 hour on my way south today. Well worth the visit - you have a superb layout there. Not being into scenic modelling myself, I found it interesting to see the scribed cobbles beside the tramway on the bridge and the ground in the loco yard. I'm going to have to learn not to be frightened of plaster/polyfiller/paint! Looking in the fiddle yard, you have some seriously long curved pway - no wonder the 12"/ft track engineers shy away from them too. Once again thanks to the whole team and well done.

 

Paul.

[terryjenk]

It was really good to get the chance to see the layout 'in the flesh' . I have been following it on here for a long time as I have a 00 layout in the very early stages of construction based on Green Ayre'

I have started it and dismantled it twice - once in the attic but decided I didn't have enough room and then in the barn but it was too dusty and the odd young starling that managed to get in caused chaos ! I am at the moment plasterboarding the walls .of the barn to try to reduce the dust . Maybe third time lucky !

 

My grandparents lived in Lancaster throughout the 1950's and we used to get the train from Green Ayre to Morecambe almost every weekend.

 

The layout is excellent and looks like I remember Green Ayre station and the surrounding area .

Edited May 3, 2016 by terryjenk

[45156]

Despite sad news elsewhere on RMWeb this morning, I'll just post my personal memories and high spots of Green Ayre RIses here, and I'll leave Jamie to post when he's able to.  He (and his team) must be pretty tired this morning, as when I left the library last evening at 7, the team had just about loaded the layout, and were tucking into pizzas to fortify them for the trip back to Yorkshire where they had to unload before getting some well earned kip.

 

So:

Acting as pilotman to help navigate a 7.5 tonner through a tortuous one way system, into a pedestrian precinct while the street market was still being dismantled - made harder as the easier route in has been blocked for a month due to a bulding fire.

Meeting a team who were keen on what they were doing, and friendly, and also welcomed a couple of rookies to the layout.

Seeing how quickly the team got the layout unloaded and set up - I was very surprised that it was less than three hours from arrival.

Going in on day 1 of the show, to see that all the seats in the tea bar were taken, and that there was a great buzz and atmosphere in the main library.

Getting my crew t-shirt on, and almost immediately being handed a controller and a quick brief on how the panel worked - and being trusted to operate some of the nicest model locos I ever saw.

On Day 2, getting out of the car in a car park, and the lady in the car next to me seeing my t-shirt, and asking if I was involved, and when I affirmed, she said that her husband couldn't stay away from the show, and was back in the library again, having spent ages there the day before.

The looks of surprise when ex-colleagues and railway friends and acquaintances who were expecting to see me but on the other side of the layout!

The enthusiasm of the organiser of the show, and the support of the library staff throughout the event.

And again, the teamwork of getting it all packed up - didn't start to remove any stock from the layout until about 4.15 as there were still people watching, and it was almost all packed on the lorry and ready to go by 7.

 

I'll leave Jamie to fill in the details and so on, and I won't give away anything about numbers, or how much the event raised for the local hospice - that's really for him to do when he's able.

Edited May 3, 2016 by 45156

[45156]

ps

 

Thanks for the invite to do it all again, sometime.  I must have done something right, and now await management permission.

 

And I just was on YouTube, and found this had just appeared

[jamie92208]

Morning all from a bright sunny village. Today will be spent moving bits of layout round the village and getting them to their various homes. I will then have the stock and tool crates to sort. There a some jobs to do and certain boards will have to remain accessible.

 

The weekend has been a great success. To show a layout in it's home town is a privilege. The enthusiasm of the volunteers and library staff, along with the other exhibitors combined with the overall atmosphere was brilliant. We also got a lot of information from people. The first one was a lady who forcefully told me that the windows of the terraced houses on the backscene were wrong as they would have been sash windows. She then very kindly told me about her grandparents buying one of the houses when they were built. She's going to send me a photo showing the correct window style. Other people remembered being sent by they parents to pay the coal merchants. The cardboard mock ups proved invaluable in stimulating their memories and I know what material most of the offices were built from. Many retired Green Ayre staff came and shared their memories, including one who related how the old shed toilets were built over a stream and the lads used to float burning paraffin rags down the stream.

 

Stewart and Geoff proved to be very useful team members, with Stewart operating the down main and Geoff the Castle Branch.

 

Over 2000 people came through the doors and over £4000 was raised for the hospice. The Library staff who hosted us worked tirelessly and kept us supplied with tea, coffee and cakes and apparently due to budget cuts were doing it only for time owing. One brave girl from the hospice fundraisers pent the whole weekend on the door, despite rain and cold with a constant smile on her face.

 

Interacting with the public and explaining the heritage as well as the modelling aspects was very good. I even had a Chinese lady very interested in how the locos were controlled. She couldn't believe that nothing was digital and that it was all done by manually varying the voltage. Her eyes went wide when show was shown the wiring under one of the boards and the inside of a panel.

 

The layout performed well with no fatal faults though there were niggles. It can only improve.

 

Morecambe Railway Modellers were there and thanks very much to Gregory Anderson who took this Go Pro footage from the front of the Heysham Boat Express. Thanks also to Gregory for allowing me to put it on You Tube. And to Stewart for putting the link in the post above. A team of videographers from Morecambe took a lot of footage and aim to produce a DVD. One major drawback, there's an interview with me.

 

One Great feature was being able to use one of only two surviving totems from the station, BR rather than MR I now but it looked great.

 

 

Jamie

Edited July 25, 2022 by jamie92208

[45156]

Jamie - just a small correction to your typo = the attendance was I think over 2000.

 

Oh and a final comment that I'd love to share with RMWebbers, even it it fell on deaf ears at the show, and made by a fellow modeller seeing the layout being loaded

"It would have been easier in N Gauge" 

Edited May 3, 2016 by 45156

[Joseph_Pestell]

Jamie - just a small correction to your typo = the attendance was I think over 2000.

 

Oh and a final comment that I'd love to share with RMWebbers, even it it fell on deaf ears at the show, and made by a fellow modeller seeing the layout being loaded

"It would have been easier in N Gauge" 

Not when he puts the catenary up.

[sir douglas]

That was a very nice weekend, the fiddleyard behaved a bit better than it used to and thanks to that week at the chapel the stock behaved a lot better. It as very good to see so many of the local population took an interest and turned up to see us. the cake that was provided was delicious. Thanks to Stewert and Geoff for your help. driving by the station site was a rare chance for me to see it for myself as i rarely get outside of Yorkshire, And finally it became apparent that i have by chance become a bit of a front piece as i was always operating the on-scene rather than the fiddleyard and so many photos that people took have me in them. And in those facebook photos is also a candid shot of me looking through the cast brass and whitemetal parts on a stand

 

A few photos from me

https://www.flickr.com/photos/59562189@N03/albums/72157667281330760

Edited May 3, 2016 by sir douglas

[45156]

A strange thing happened in the bacon aisle at our local Aldi this morning, when I was stopped by a lady, who asked me if I was one of the people working "that lovely model railway in the library yesterday".  I said I was, and she said that she thought that she recognised me.  Sje was most complimentary about the layout and of the show in its entirety, and again as with many of the older Lancastrians, recalled travelling from Green Ayre to Morecambe to go dancing at the Floral Hall.  Yet another memory aroused by Green Ayre RIses....

Edited May 3, 2016 by 45156

[Ohmisterporter]

Had time to reflect on the weekend Green Ayre Rises exhibition. Thanks to Jamie for allowing Stewart and me to help out with the operation of this fantastic layout. It was the first time that I have operated a layout at a show and beforehand I wondered if I would become bored by six hours of it. The time flew by! Not only did the simple task I was given prove to be absorbing, I spent half the time chatting to visitors, several of whom were old Green Ayre engine men. I looked at some of them and thought "There are some old lads here", then I realised that I had been to school with some of them! What a wealth of knowledge they had between them, and I hope that somehow it can be saved for posterity. I didn't hear a single negative comment; there were more than a few who couldn't quite get the orientation of the area as it is today but when told they were standing in Sainsbury's and the sheds and buildings were the car park it dropped into place. Favourite moment? Probably the two little boys who asked very politely if they could run a train and in a quiet moment I showed them how the controller worked and they took turns to run the steam rail motor down the Castle branch and back. I don't know who looked more pleased, the boys or their mum!

So many things to reminisce about and great stories to tell but a big big thank you to Jamie for letting us do our bit to work as part of his crew with a really nice bunch of people. You can come back to Lancaster any time.

[lofty.ian]

Morning all from a bright sunny village. Today will be spent moving bits of layout round the village and getting them to their various homes. I will then have the stock and tool crates to sort. There a some jobs to do and certain boards will have to remain accessible.

 

The weekend has been a great success. To show a layout in it's home town is a privilege. The enthusiasm of the volunteers and library staff, along with the other exhibitors combined with the overall atmosphere was brilliant. We also got a lot of information from people. The first one was a lady who forcefully told me that the windows of the terraced houses on the backscene were wrong as they would have been sash windows. She then very kindly told me about her grandparents buying one of the houses when they were built. She's going to send me a photo showing the correct window style. Other people remembered being sent by they parents to pay the coal merchants. The cardboard mock ups proved invaluable in stimulating their memories and I know what material most of the offices were built from. Many retired Green Ayre staff came and shared their memories, including one who related how the old shed toilets were built over a stream and the lads used to float burning paraffin rags down the stream.

 

Stewart and Geoff proved to be very useful team members, with Stewart operating the down main and Geoff the Castle Branch.

 

Over 2000 people came through the doors and over £4000 was raised for the hospice. The Library staff who hosted us worked tirelessly and kept us supplied with tea, coffee and cakes and apparently due to budget cuts were doing it only for time owing. One brave girl from the hospice fundraisers pent the whole weekend on the door, despite rain and cold with a constant smile on her face.

 

Interacting with the public and explaining the heritage as well as the modelling aspects was very good. I even had a Chinese lady very interested in how the locos were controlled. She couldn't believe that nothing was digital and that it was all done by manually varying the voltage. Her eyes went wide when show was shown the wiring under one of the boards and the inside of a panel.

 

The layout performed well with no fatal faults though there were niggles. It can only improve.

 

Morecambe Railway Modellers were there and thanks very much to Gregory Anderson who took this Go Pro footage from the front of the Heysham Boat Express. Thanks also to Gregory for allowing me to put it on You Tube. And to Stewart for putting the link in the post above. A team of videographers from Morecambe took a lot of footage and aim to produce a DVD. One major drawback, there's an interview with me.

 

One Great feature was being able to use one of only two surviving totems from the station, BR rather than MR I now but it looked great.

160430-1.jpg

 

 

Jamie

Hi Jamie,

I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition. Glad it was successful - the publicity extended as far as Skipton station posters. It was good to see the layout progress since I last saw it 18 months ago.  The rest of it was great including the memorabilia display in the other part of the building.  The Virgin trains 'behind the scenes' tours at Castle station were a bonus, including going down to the dis-used platform 6 which used to serve the Green Ayre branch.  All together - a great day out.

[jamie92208]

Had time to reflect on the weekend Green Ayre Rises exhibition. Thanks to Jamie for allowing Stewart and me to help out with the operation of this fantastic layout. It was the first time that I have operated a layout at a show and beforehand I wondered if I would become bored by six hours of it. The time flew by! Not only did the simple task I was given prove to be absorbing, I spent half the time chatting to visitors, several of whom were old Green Ayre engine men. I looked at some of them and thought "There are some old lads here", then I realised that I had been to school with some of them! What a wealth of knowledge they had between them, and I hope that somehow it can be saved for posterity. I didn't hear a single negative comment; there were more than a few who couldn't quite get the orientation of the area as it is today but when told they were standing in Sainsbury's and the sheds and buildings were the car park it dropped into place. Favourite moment? Probably the two little boys who asked very politely if they could run a train and in a quiet moment I showed them how the controller worked and they took turns to run the steam rail motor down the Castle branch and back. I don't know who looked more pleased, the boys or their mum!

So many things to reminisce about and great stories to tell but a big big thank you to Jamie for letting us do our bit to work as part of his crew with a really nice bunch of people. You can come back to Lancaster any time.

Thanks for the comments Geoff. It was great to have you as one of the crew and I hope it's not the last. As you can probably tell we all like to chat to the punters and some of the old Green Ayre men had great stories to tell. Mel, who was on the fiddle yard, said that he loved having folk to talk to at the back of the layout. As to encouraging youngsters to have a drive that's exactly what we need to do and thanks for letting them have a go. I had one young lad 'driving' one of the locos I was fettling and he thought that was great.

 

Jamie

[roundhouse]

Jamie

 

Good to hear you do let the occasional youngster have ago. We often do the same although you have to be careful who and when otherwise there would be a queue waiting!

 

Wish we could have stopped off at Lancaster on our travels but wrong side of the country at that point.

 

Glad you all had a good time and the videos of those who worked at the station is very informative.

 

Ian

[45156]

 

Wish we could have stopped off at Lancaster on our travels but wrong side of the country at that point.

 

 

It would have been nice to see you Ian, but needs must - we could have combined our mutual interests of railways and beer quite effectively (though the lack of buses and need to use the car to get there and back would have meant only a half or two for me)

[jamie92208]

A big thank you to Morecambe Bay Movie Makers who filmed us setting up the layout ay Lancaster. 

They've done a timelapse on You Tube and here it is.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yduZfDcbz8&feature=youtu.be

 

That's 3 hours from when we pulled up with the lorry and then we decided to adjourn to the hotel for liquid refreshment.   The rest was done in the morning.

 

Jamie

[45156]

Made it look easy - well it was sort of, as the boards all fit together so easily - but they're a bit heavy.

[sir douglas]

a video by the Morecambe bay movie makers

 

https://vimeo.com/165630427

Edited May 7, 2016 by sir douglas

[edward66]

Thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition, great to see your layout in the flesh after following it on RMWeb so long. Good to meet you too Jamie. Some superb private owner wagons, do you know if the Claughton Brickworks livery was authentic? Also good to meet a couple of RMWebbers from Caton and Brookhouse.

 

Edward Meadowcroft

[jamie92208]

Hi Edward.

 

Thanks very much for the comments.  It was a great weekend and I've gathered a lot of new information that can be built into the model.   As to the Claughton Manor wagon that answer is that I've no idea.  I've talked to one of the owners of the brickworks and he had no idea.  The wagon belonged to the late David Jenkinson but he didn't paint it or commission it.  However I bought a batch of 10 wagons from his collection just to get it.  Sorry I can't be of more help.

 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

Good evening froma  rather damp village.  Things have settled down after Lancaster and some of the lessons learned are being applied.   One of the annoying things is that as the boards are moved around a few of the soldered joints are coming loose.  These don't cause fatal errors but could be done without.  Underneath the main boars are a few banks of relays with up to 14 wires soldered onto their plug in bases.  These have heatshrink around them and sometimes a dry joint will form inside the heatshrink and is very difficult to detect.  I inherited some rather more substantial relay bases from somewhere and bought a few more along with some crimp terminals.  I started work on board B3.   This shows the wiring of the banks of 6 relays that switch the track supplies and work the point motors.

The phrase a rats nest comes to mind but on the Monday morning at Lancaster one loose wire stopped us running on or off the shed and castle branch.  \

Anyway the are now looks like this.

A lot neater and also easier to fault find on as I can see the relays working and can get a test probe safely onto each terminal.

 

I finished board B7 tonight so that's two of the worst culprits done.   Possibly B2 next.

 

Jamie

Edited July 25, 2022 by jamie92208

[jamie92208]

No photos this time but things have still progressed.

 

I've not been able to find the folder with the wiring diagrams for the past few months so I bit the bullet this week and decided to recreate the 41 pin charts, that's my name for them, that track the wiring across each base board joint or lead.  I've now managed to recreate 36 of them and have typed them all into the machine so that they won't get lost again.   It's also been very useful as I've found a few loose wires and a couple of anomalies.  These have been sorted in the main.

 

Last night at the clubrooms we tested the newly rewired relays and there was a snag.  Moving one set of points made another reverse.  Dave and I took the boards down and stood them p and checked the wiring.  I tried various theories but none of them explained the anomaly.  I thought that I had managed to create a back feed somehow and faced rewiring 5 relays.  However in the end it was traced to a switch on the lever frame that had come loose.  A touch with a soldering iron sorted that and everything now works.

 

I've also had the chance to have several chats with the operators after Lancaster and various improvements are in hand.  One problem though is that I moved the scenic break at the East end and that now makes it difficult to see trains where they hand over from the front panel to the fiddle yard.  I've thought of various solutions such as mirrors on gimbal mounts.  However I thought of putting a window in the backscene.   I wasn't too happy about this but then the thought of one way glass came to mind.  A quick google and it seems that I can get a vinyl cover that will stick onto a piece of glass or acrylic.  This is the stuff that us used for adverts on the outside of buses.   The website quotes me £19.40 for one the size I need.  I think that that is worth a punt to see if it works.  I will now have to take a decent photo of the back scene in question.  If it doesn't work in an exhibition hall I just peel it off.  At least that's the theory.

 

Jamie