National Coal Board - Royd Hall Drift & Royal Oak Sidings.

[Ruston]

Corrugated iron workshop added to the loco shed area, plus other details. The water tank now has a bag and operating mechanism. The mechanism consists of a couple of cast whitemetal valves, an etched brass spoked wheel and a chain. The coaling facilities consist of a gaffer with a shovel and some buckets.

 

 

Water tap and hose made from a piece of wood, a cast whitemetal tap and a length of insulated wire.

Edited February 15, 2023 by Ruston

[wagonbasher]

Corrugated iron workshop added to the loco shed area, plus other details. The water tank now has a bag and operating mechanism. The mechanism consists of a couple of cast whitemetal valves, an etched brass spoked wheel and a chain. The coaling facilities consist of a gaffer with a shovel and some buckets.

 

 

 

Water tap and hose made from a piece of wood, a cast whitemetal tap and a length of insulated wire.

The shadow of the windows in the shed looks good

 

Andy

Edited July 25, 2017 by Ruston

[Ruston]

Benches and clutter for the inside of the locomotive shed. Benches based on those at Marley Hill shed on the Tanfield Railway. This is the part of building a layout that I really like and why 7mm scores over the smaller scales.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by Ruston

[wagonbasher]

so the benches are from scratch?

 

Andy

[Osgood]

Your choice if colours for the walls has not gone unnoticed - are they intended to represent ceramic tiles?  Looks great!

 

The reason I ask is that I believe tiles were on occasion used in colliery workshops.

 

Off topic:

 

We used to have our Clark Michigan loading shovels repaired by SLD Olding.

 

Their fitter Ron spent a lot of time at collieries (NCB were big Clark Michigan users), and told a tale about one north Midlands colliery where the workshop was tiled out from top to bottom including the pits.

 

This in itself would have been fine, but they employed an old miner to keep the place clean.  Ron said that every time he laid down a spanner or hammer or anything else, the old chap would methodically pick it up, clean it with a rag and carefully lay it down.  Used to drive Ron bonkers apparently!!

 

I can imagine (but have no evidence) that some NCB locomotive sheds were decked out with tiling in a similar way.  Most photos available show a sea of dirt and grime, but there must have been some immaculate sheds too.

Edited April 11, 2016 by Osgood

[wagonbasher]

I like the tools on the workbench.

 

Have you seen the tools and tool boxes made in a variety of scales by Severn models (sorry, cant do links)..  They are superb, I am struggling to justify buying some.

 

Andy

[Ruston]

Osgod - The walls were just supposed to be painted but you're right, they do look like glazed tiles.

 

Wagonbasher - The benches are scratch-built from card with plasticard drawer fronts and brass wire handles. I have some of those Severn Models etched tools. One of the spanners is from Severn and I have the toolbox, step ladder and sweeping brush to add.

 

The other items are all things that I have stored away since beginning to build my last 7mm layout and I can't remember the sources.

[toplink@()1989))((]

Hi Dave, I have just recently found this particular part of the forum and I,ve just read through your topic from the beginning and I am very impressed with the topic and the modelling of it, my personal interest is industrial and iron working in particular but I have picked up on several things you,ve done and mentally filed them away for use on my own layout, Wheeldon Mill, which I will start a topic on soon.

 

 

Cheers, Pete.  

[Ruston]

I look forward to seeing it, Pete.

 

Back to the other end of the layout.

 

 

 

The dry stone walls are now weathered to give the appearance of green algae (or whatever it is) that tends to grow on the stone walls round these parts. Hedgerows have popped up and long grass and ballast at track level.

 

The house now has a garden, with flowers, and the Fiat 500 was considered too exotic so has been traded in for an Austin A35.

Testing the lighting in the engine shed.

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by Ruston

[Ruston]

More shed detailing.

 

There is now a forge and tools (Phoenix castings) Other items includ a clocking on machine, inspired by the one at Marley Hill, which uses the clock face from the Severn models etches with the rest of the machine made from plasticard. The card rack is painted plasticard and pieces of paper.

 

Paint pots are plastic rod suitably painted. The safety poster was found on the interweb as was the Factories Act 1961 poster.

Edited February 15, 2023 by Ruston

[Ruston]

History of Royd Hall Drift Mine (from The Industrial Railway Record No.30a of 1970)*

 

The National Coal Board’s Royd Hall Drift Mine was near the site of early mine workings in the vicinity of High Hoyland, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. As early as 1815 a horse and gravity-worked tramway was in use taking coals from pits, on land owned by The Earl Of Scarborough, to the Barnsley branch of the Aire And Calder Navigation.

 

By the 1850s the small pits were worked out and closed one by one with the tramway falling into disuse. In 1879 a new pit was sunk and connected to the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway’s line that ran from Sheffield via Barnsley to Horbury Junction. Messrs. Stringer & Jaggar, a company with existing coal interests in the local area, operated this new pit, which they named Royd Hall. The owners not only had the mainline connection but also laid a railway to the canal, using the track bed of the old tramway.

 

Vesting Day, the formation of the National Coal Board on the 1^st of January 1947, saw Royd Hall’s shafts, winding gear and other equipment in a parlous state but with reserves of coal estimated to last another 30 years, and a still high demand in post-war Britain, a decision was taken to invest in the mine but instead of repairing the shafts, or sinking new ones, a drift was to be driven. The drift would allow the use of underground locomotives and new mine cars with a higher capacity than the mine tubs, which were worked by cable and horse haulage. A new coal washing plant and screens were also installed on the surface.

 

Royd Hall Drift closed in 1982.

 

Traffic over the NCB line currently consists of British Railways mineral wagons for coal traffic in and out, NCB internal use wagons to and from the canal and the occasional handling of tar tanks for the nearby Bury, Thorn & Sons tar distilling plant.

 

Locomotives known to have worked at both the colliery and the drift are:

 

Stringer & Jaggar No.4 Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0ST

Jervis Manning Wardle H-class 0-4-0ST

Pellew Manning Wardle H-class 0-4-0ST

Flockton Coal Co. No.3 Hudswell Clarke 0-4-0ST

Royd Hall No.1 Peckett class E 0-4-0ST

Royd Hall No.2 Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns 14" 0-4-0ST

NCB North Eastern Div. Area No.6 21 Hunslet 15" 0-6-0ST

NCB North Eastern Div. Area No.6 23 Hunslet 15" 0-6-0ST

 

Albert Ball V.C. Hudswell Clarke 204HP 0-6-0DM

Plant No. 405/225 Sentinel 0-4-0DH

 

* IRR No.30a was a very rare issue ;-)

Edited December 8, 2016 by Ruston

[steveNCB7754]

More shed detailing.

 

 

 

Excellent and very evocative.  Might I be so bold as to suggest that the forge also needs a quenching tank/tub of water, to go with it?  The detailer's work is never done :-)

 

Steve N

[Ruston]

Well spotted, Steve! There is one that comes with the Blacksmith but I have yet to paint him and the tank.

 

This evening I had a friend over to have a look at, and play with, the railway. He's never had any experience of DCC before and the look on his face, when I lifted the Hudswell diesel off the track and it kept up the engine sound and the wheels kept on going round, was priceless!

 

I'm completely sold on DCC sound and keep alives. The whole operating experience is so much better than without either one.

 

Once the points on the fiddle yard are wired up I will be able to run and shunt trains fully and plans are afoot for making the screens building using custom-made laser-cut parts.

From so many months (years?) of waffle and doing nothing I am now really into the build of this railway. So much that I haven't touched my partly-built  aircraft projects for months.

[Osgood]

History of Royd Hall Drift Mine ……………..

 

Brilliant.

 

 

I was surprised to find a Hall Royd Colliery though!!

[Ruston]

 

I was surprised to find a Hall Royd Colliery though!!

I'm not surprised at all. There was probably more than one colliery so named. Royd seems to be a word peculiar to the West Riding and, as far as I know, means a clearing in a wood, or forest.

[Ruston]

Hawthorn Leslie 14" 0-4-0ST Royd Hall No.2.

Edited July 25, 2017 by Ruston

[Ruston]

I have made a start on the screens. The building will be 51cm long x 30cm wide. Height up to 26cm. The frame is being made from 5x5mm brass H-section, which is quite expensive but it's strong and won't warp like plastruct can.

 

Three more 3-road and two more 4-road to be made. Then connect them up longitudinally before building the upper floors.

Edited July 25, 2017 by Ruston

[avonside1563]

 

Hawthorn Leslie 14" 0-4-0ST Royd Hall No.2.

The handrail on the tank looks just like someone tried to lift the tank off without removing all the bolts at some time in it's life.

Edited July 25, 2017 by Ruston

[Ruston]

The handrail on the tank looks just like someone tried to lift the tank off without removing all the bolts at some time in it's life.

I knew there was a reason that loco always faced the other way on Bury, Thorn & Sons. It was my first ever O gauge loco build though.

 

There isn't much to show in the way of layout progress. All I have done recently is make a bit more of the framing on the screens.

Edited July 25, 2017 by Ruston

[Ruston]

I have used up my stocks of milled brass H-section and my supplier won't have any in for a few weeks, so I have started work on another building.

 

The coal washer doesn't need to be strong as there will be no working mechanism inside it, nor any weight, so Plastruct and plasticard can cope well enough.

 

Here is the first part of the washery.

 

Photos not available thanks to the pirates at Photobucket

Edited July 25, 2017 by Ruston

[Neilgue]

 

Here is the first part of the washery.

 

 

I love the transformer...

[Ruston]

I love the transformer...

It's a Duncan Models kit. It's not finished yet and I'm going to have a fence around it and cabling etc.

 

I would have finished the transformer, and got the roof on the washery, but I ran out of glue, yesterday. So I spent an hour making more ballast.

 

Proprietary model ballast just doesn't look right for a colliery railway - it's too uniform in colour and size (that's obviously discounting the bright limestone and granite coloured types to begin with) so I make my own from locomotive and forge ash.

 

So far it's made from ash ballast from the trackbed of the NCB line at British Oak, loco ash from the Middleton, Tanfield and Rutland railways and ash from the forge at Tanfield. It's broken up with a pestle and mortar and is sieved before use.

Edited June 6, 2016 by Ruston

[Arthur]

 

...and the narrow gauge mining locomotive, looks interesting.

[Ruston]

...and the narrow gauge mining locomotive, looks interesting.

Hello Arthur. That's a 100HP Huwood Hudswell. A scratchbuilt body on a Mainline class 03 chassis. I'm undecided about leaving it on here. I have an old but unbuilt Roy C Link Ruston LAT that I may have as the narrow gauge surface shunter instead. A 100HP Hudswell is probably too big for a small colliery such as this, both on the surface or underground.

[Arthur]

 

Thanks Dave, well it certainly looks the part in the colliery setting.