The layout that BR(EL) built

[TheSignalEngineer]

................4 weeks at Derby School did wonders for my snooker skill......

 

Likewise, also afternoons on the bowling green and evenings on the Malt.

[Bob Reid]

at the railway club prices...!

[Dan Griffin]

a couple more shots of the 'london end' station area.

 

this view shpes the points in the foreground. theres another identical set just behind where i stood to take picture. i presume they were for training purposes. ive also just noticed the signal is facing the wrong way around. i intent to remove the points from behind where i stood and slew the ones in the picture from down fast to down slow to service the station.

 

my intention is to remove the overhead line in the further siding. this will become an area where i will install a low relief grain warehouse or some sort of small rail distribution terminal, or i could build a new platform for mail traffic and use the bay for terminating DMU's off the branch line.

 

the signal controls in the field will be covered by barns or small out buildings. the points furthest from the camera will be removed. the wires to the old motors teminated and blanked off. the Hornby OHL masts will be repainted grey and repaired.

 

all the signal controls and point motors are electrically linked to the gaugemaster controller. can anyone tell me how easy this layout will be to convert to digital using my dynamis. can it be as easy as removing the controllers dc wires to the rails and replacing them with a dcc bus wire from my dynamis. leaving the dc controller to control the signals and points, being electrically isolated from the running rails?

 

cheers

 

dan

[kintbury jon]

Great layout. Glad you found it. When you get it running, i'd love to see a video of a 91+ mark 4 or HST flying (not literally!) through the station.

[d winpenny]

that would be how i would do it as regards to the dcc'ing the layout

 

david

[Dan Griffin]

Great layout. Glad you found it. When you get it running, i'd love to see a video of a 91+ mark 4 or HST flying (not literally!) through the station.

What about my 89 with a rake of mk3ks and HST dvt? Or would that be teasing? Lol ;-)

[kintbury jon]

That would be great, I look forward to seeing it!

[The Stationmaster]

at the railway club prices...!

Definitely the best bar on the LMR (by which I mean that it was a much better bar than the other LMR based training schools - Webb House at Crewe and The Grove at Watford)

[New Haven Neil]

There's an interesting comment above about regions being left to do their own thing - my old club, the South Shields Model Railway Society, built a similar layout in the mid 80's for the ER.

 

It had to have certain features, such as cutting, embankment, OHE, etc... we all worked on parts of it (well the active members - you know how it is!) I have a distinct memory of being bored silly painting a verdigis colour on the overhead. The ER were apperently well pleased with it, but had an issue with acually maikng payment for it, so an agreement was made for the entire club to be gicen rail tickets to a destination of our choice, we wnet to Glasgow for the show i think, if memory serves.

 

When I saw this thread my heart skipped for a moment in the hope this was 'our' old layout, but it was not to be.

[lmsforever]

Some of you see to have enjoyed yourselves when on training courses ,was any training undertaken?

[The Stationmaster]

Some of you see to have enjoyed yourselves when on training courses ,was any training undertaken?

Masses of it. One course I went on at Derby included a speaker from the M&EE Dept or Tech Centre - he showed some fascinating slides including a new type of freight loco in the early stages of development which would have a US style body with a cab at each end but it didn't emerge for years afterwards (Class 58) but even better was the experiment for dealing with insect problems on the nose ends of diesels which was obscuring the yellow warning panels - thus consisted of an electrostatically applied coating of what were in effect small bristles all over the nose of an EE Type 1/Class 20 - the idea being that insects would get caught on the bristles and not get through to the paintwork; amazingly (hah ha) on test the bristles got clogged with impaled insects and obscured the paint so it was decided to make the yellow area bigger instead.

 

And in later years on a course session (on the TrainPlanning Courses at Crewe) which I used to run the attendees learnt plenty from an exercise which I devised about moving coal from a coastal import terminal to an inland power station, trainloads, loco loads, running times, Route Availability and a whole lot more but it was quite a difficult exercise.

[peanuts]

Don't know about anything Dublo, but the large L&YR one from Hunts Bank Offices at Manchester Victoria is at the NRM

was lucky enough to see it in place before it moved to york thier was an old guy from the S&T busy restoring it to its former glory so unfortunatley we trainee signalmen were unable to use it during our studies much to our anoyance .The " crusty old room " was in fact the manchester school of signaling at that time pre christmas 1989

[Oldddudders]

Some of you see to have enjoyed yourselves when on training courses ,was any training undertaken?

A five week course at Derby to teach the entire BR Rule Book and Signalling Principles was quite hard going, actually. Bear in mind that the majority of the participants had been in the industry less than 6 months, albeit they were graduates. The remainder, including me, had been employees for longer periods, although my Control background did not help me to be a particular success on the course - the graduates were used to the learning process, and took things in well in most cases. Work hard - play hard. A necessary relief.

[peanuts]

A five week course at Derby to teach the entire BR Rule Book and Signalling Principles was quite hard going, actually. Bear in mind that the majority of the participants had been in the industry less than 6 months, albeit they were graduates. The remainder, including me, had been employees for longer periods, although my Control background did not help me to be a particular success on the course - the graduates were used to the learning process, and took things in well in most cases. Work hard - play hard. A necessary relief.

was pretty much the same at manchester some of the lads on our course were off the street and couldnt get there heads around AB untill we took them for an evening visit to greenfield then it clicked

[The Stationmaster]

A five week course at Derby to teach the entire BR Rule Book and Signalling Principles was quite hard going, actually. Bear in mind that the majority of the participants had been in the industry less than 6 months, albeit they were graduates. The remainder, including me, had been employees for longer periods, although my Control background did not help me to be a particular success on the course - the graduates were used to the learning process, and took things in well in most cases. Work hard - play hard. A necessary relief.

I loved almost every minute of the 'long' R&R course at Derby - definitely did my snooker a power of good did that course but I was not happy on the final exam when I was marked down for missing out commas in a couple of places where I was quoting parts of the Regulations and other folk weren't similarly marked down .

[Dan Griffin]

Chapter 2:- Getting Kinky!!!

 

Right then, first off, thanks for all your support. As the layout is packed away at the min. I hoping to get my teeth into one board and start on Saturday, I’ve been carefully examining the pictures I took of the boards when it was all still all together. My ‘stock’ photos as they’ve become known!! It is becoming evident that if trains ever did run on this layout, there may have been some stalling. I’ve located at least ten missing fishplates, the track being laid butted together. What shocked me more were the ‘kinks’, considering everyrthing else is made so professionally Highlighted below are some of the worst ive found. More are evident in pictures I’ve not published but looked at through my 50” TV screen, in HD. There was even a dent in one of the running rails. Which puzzled me, as if something had been dropped on the track it’d taken the wires down and they are intact and as far as I can ascertain original. I presume its and ancient ‘hammer blow’ from when the rails were laid.

 

this sections will be re-laid. with slight damage to the overhead masts, i am considering Dapol OHL masts as a replacment. time will tell.

 

the track has warped were this board joins the other, were the vertical arrows are. the horizontal arrows show where more kinks in the track that need removing. the gradient of the 'hill' section can clearly been seen.

 

the fast to slow line turn outs are not alinged properly. the points closest to the camera need moving back ever so slightly to make a more smooth transition between tracks. this board will be the first one i start work on at the weekend. more 'fresh' pictures at the weekend.

 

also worthy of note is that the baseboards are extremly well made, the cross beams underneath being dove tailed into each other making them extremly strong.

 

cheers

 

dan

[Guest Dave.C]

Good find, good luck with the restoration

[Bob Reid]

Some of you see to have enjoyed yourselves when on training courses ,was any training undertaken?

 

Plenty! (the M&EEs HST course was 3 x 3 week courses) and there was plenty time 9 weeks away from home at nights for visits to the Pink Coconut and all the pubs round Derby (can't remember the 70s pre-Pink Coconut name... but I do remember being set up as target for a Hen night - less said the better)., then there was the Mk2DEF course, POIS & RVRS courses, Air Conditioning.... etc. etc.... One of my mates woke up back at the Railway Engineering School in the morning with a Pink Coconut - no I really mean a pink painted coconut from the opening night. Happy days.

 

Anyway, sorry Dan for butting in on your thread!

[The Stationmaster]

Plenty! (the M&EEs HST course was 3 x 3 week courses) and there was plenty time 9 weeks away from home at nights for visits to the Pink Coconut and all the pubs round Derby (can't remember the 70s pre-Pink Coconut name... but I do remember being set up as target for a Hen night - less said the better)., then there was the Mk2DEF course, POIS & RVRS courses, Air Conditioning.... etc. etc.... One of my mates woke up back at the Railway Engineering School in the morning with a Pink Coconut - no I really mean a pink painted coconut from the opening night. Happy days.

 

Anyway, sorry Dan for butting in on your thread!

 

Further apologies to Dan but a question for Bob - didn't any of your courses manage a trip to The Cock Inn at Ripley

[Bob Reid]

Don't mind that one Mike - we seemed to spend quite time at the 5 Bell's(?) in the town, though in good Scottish fashion we more often or not enjoyed the bar prices in the School!

[Colin_McLeod]

Congratulations Dan on acquiring this historic and interesting piece of model railway. Best wishes with its restoration. I'll follow this thread with interest.

[The Stationmaster]

Don't mind that one Mike - we seemed to spend quite time at the 5 Bell's(?) in the town, though in good Scottish fashion we more often or not enjoyed the bar prices in the School!

I always thought that walking to the town would impinge too much on drinking snooker study time. Mind you unlike an evening at Webb House at least I was never asked to leave the bar at Derby (and I blame the Crewe incident entirely on three LMR Divisional Rules & Signalling Officers - we weren't at all like that on the Western).

[Oldddudders]

Not on my CV, but The Cock at Ripley certainly featured as a venue for the more outgoing members of our lot (1973 entry Management Trainees) who organised a coach party on at least one occasion. When the coach returned, the future Station Manager at Sanderstead decided he would streak all the way into the school (hint for younger members - streaking was naked running, v popular media sport in them thar days, maybe since). Judgement may not have been his forte, mind. He left BR abruptly one Xmas, having generously presented his late-turn signalman with a half bottle of Xmas Cheer - which said hero promptly drank, rendering him senseless, ditto the evening peak on the Oxted Line.....

 

Edited for idiot spelling!

[Sam*45110*SVR]

Very interesting to read about peoples experiences with training layouts such as this one, how things have changed. On my work experience during February 2011 I was lucky enough to visit the new Saltley signalling centre ( which is in effect a nuclear bunker inside a glass shell ! The bunker is a bit o.t.t. as the railway they would be controlling would have been destroyed anyway, but I digress !) and was given a go on their signalling simulator which was in effect a standard signallers work station (?) not connected to the real railway. It was a real challenge the supervisor on an adjacent computer could choose from various different places for you to control and could make anything happen, points failure, signal failure, broken down trains etc. The system itself was very elegant, a ball like mouse control and three buttons. The first would set a route when you clicked on a section between signals. The second would change points if they couldn't be automatically changed, but the function of the third eludes me. Going further off topic I also went to the incident control room in Birmingham, a track maintenance depot in Saltley, the PW control office for the chilterns at Banbury, the training centre at Walsall and finally the OLE control centre above Crewe EMPD and all in three days!

 

On a different note I am glad to see that you managed to save this layout before its demise and look forward to seeing it back in its former glory.

 

Sam

[Dan Griffin]

Back to the layout, do you have any idea about who actually built it? If BREL. was involved I suspect possibly Carpentry and Electrical Apprentices. Models were frequently built by Apprentices, usually in connection with orders for rolling stock. At the time of my first year, BREL Doncaster were engaged on an order building Battery Electric Locomotives for London Transport, two models, of which most of us had a small participation in, were built in the Sheet Metal Section of the Apprentice Training School, one for LT. and one for BREL. Ten years later BREL's. model had reached no further than the Training School's corridor. It looked well though, I pointed to the LT. Nameplates and said to my Wife "I did those".

 

a guy i work with, stewart, has told me that the layout was originally based in the Kings Cross offices. and was moved to Hitchin by memebers of BR staff, where the peterborough staff fetched it in BR vehicles and took it to the old offices at peterborough station, now the FCC and DBS signing on point.

 

i originally thought BREL had some involvement with it, but yesterday i was told that the Retford railway modellers clud built it. ive also learned that it did used to have stock, a few pullman coaches, wagons and a Hornby (old) HST. they did run on the layout and were used for rail dangerous goods emergency training. im going to speak to someone later today who actuall had this in his office. so ill update the thread and change the title later on.