A Borchester Market layout appreciation topic

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

I would love to see those plans, Roy.  I've never seen New Annington or any of Franks's other ideas.

[Combe Martin]

Does anyone know what happened to Frank's rolling stock?

 

The Cardiff club, of which Frank was a member and who now have and occasionally exhibit his Hardwick Grange layout, also have at  least some of his locos and stock, ie what is needed for Hardwick Grange.  I don't know whether they have the rest.

[gordon s]

Having had the pleasure of Frank Dyer's company at The Model Railway Club for a number of years, I make no excuses for repeating what I may have posted on other threads. Frank was a regular at the MRC in the late 1970s, early 1980s and was in on the discussions for what was to replace the original MRC OO layout, the Longridge, Brampton Sands and Calshot layout, built in the early 1960s and showing signs of wear.

 

Frank offered to draw a number of plans for us which I still have in my possession. We drew up a list of what the layout should contain, and we eventually chose the plan that was to become New Annington. The original plan was to quite a small scale, so Frank re-drew it larger (before the days when everyone had a photocopier) with immense detail on it, siding and loop lengths, radius of curves, signals, the lot, and a Borchester style fiddle yard! Frank offered to build the track for Dyers End, the branch terminus.

 

A few weeks later he rolled up at the MRC with an armful of track and points, all built to 16.2mm gauge. He explained that stock to BRMSB standards would happily run on it the difference being narrower flangeways on the points which gave a more realistic appearance. His track certainly worked without fault during the life of that layout. In fact one of the buildings, a country pub that had been on the LBSCR layout was deemed to be good enough to be used on New Annington.

 

Remember Frank was in the architecture business and would have used Perspex in architectural modelling, this may explain why he used that for his platforms. Frank certainly had an eye for detail, and this showed in his workmanship, achieving a visual and operational  standard that many of us could only dream of. the only thing that let Borchester down was the huge girder across the buffers on his stock, his version of the tension lock couplings, but as he pointed out, with the sharp radii he used he couldn't afford buffer locking in hidden sidings.

 

In his hidden sidings he used something called "the Bug" to shunt stock. This was a Kitmaster motor bogie just fitted with the bar across the buffers couplers, so it would never actuially couple to anything; it was only used to push stock out!

 

I've actually built another of Frank's "New Annington collection" layouts at home, though it's far from finished yet! I tried using DOOGAF-fine standards, but it doesn't work properly; I'm having to rebuild the pointwork to 16.2mm gauge to save pushing any more wheels out on their axles!

 

Does anyone know what happened to Frank's rolling stock? And yes, I remember his original layout at the 1962 Central Hall show; it was a roundy-roundy but never operated as such. I wish the present custodians of Borchester well and hope they get the layout back to the operating standards that Frank insisted on.

 

Edited to add that most of the plans Frank done for the MRC included a centre loco release road with a 3-way point and a ladder of diamond crossings and slips! The fiddle yards were also full of slips and 3 ways and a loco turntable or two.

 

It was great to open this thread this morning and finally see in print that Frank was planning to use 16.2mm gauge and 1mm flangeways in his pointwork for New Annington.  Martin Wynne told me about 00-SF or EM minus 2 several years ago and now I build all my pointwork for my own layouts to those dimensions.  Martin has always claimed that Frank Dyer had build pointwork to those dimensions before, so it was great to see that confirmed in print from an independent source today.  

 

I use the word independent as those of us building pointwork in 00-SF have become embroiled in a whole series of negative comments over the years and had one of us made that claim it would have been treated as hearsay...

 

Many thanks Roy....

[roythebus]

Frank only built the track for Dyers End, the branch station. all proprietary stock of the day (1980's) ran alright on it apart from Lima with the cheese cutter wheels whose flanges were so deep they ran along the sleepers. Frank explained how 16.2 would work and indeed it did.

 

The rest of New Annington was built to 16.5mm to BRMSB standards by myself using Jones Bros TT flat bottom rail. We also used Kings Cross bullhead rail for some of the layout. I suspect Frank used the Jones Bros rail too.

 

Meanwhile I'll take a trip to Stales to get the plans scanned to disc.

 

There was an article in a model railway mag in about 1982 of New Annington in its original form, can't remember which mag, but it stopped publication quite a while ago. Len Weal done the photos for it.

[kevinlms]

Frank only built the track for Dyers End, the branch station. all proprietary stock of the day (1980's) ran alright on it apart from Lima with the cheese cutter wheels whose flanges were so deep they ran along the sleepers. Frank explained how 16.2 would work and indeed it did.

 

The rest of New Annington was built to 16.5mm to BRMSB standards by myself using Jones Bros TT flat bottom rail. We also used Kings Cross bullhead rail for some of the layout. I suspect Frank used the Jones Bros rail too.

 

Meanwhile I'll take a trip to Stales to get the plans scanned to disc.

 

There was an article in a model railway mag in about 1982 of New Annington in its original form, can't remember which mag, but it stopped publication quite a while ago. Len Weal done the photos for it.

Practical Model Railways 1986 December?

 

Edit FWIW (not much by the tone of differing memories)!

 

1986 December page 13 states

 

Trackwork

The track was entirely handbuilt using Code 65 finescale bull-head rail soldered to copper clad glass fibre printed circuit board sleepers. These are stronger than the usual paxolin type and the copper does not lift as easily when being soldered.

 

...

 

I built all the pointwork at home using full sized plans initially laid out at the club.

For plain track members made half track at home, which was later laid in place & the other running rail soldered to gauge.

 

 

More info follows

 

on painting & details, also point motors.

 

Point rodding is to be installed at a later date.

 

Hard to know for sure what the story is, doesn't help that no track plan is provided, in this issue!

 

 

 

 

 

 

If 1982, probably Model Railways.

Edited October 12, 2015 by kevinlms

[Brian Kirby]

 

 

The rest of New Annington was built to 16.5mm to BRMSB standards by myself using Jones Bros TT flat bottom rail. We also used Kings Cross bullhead rail for some of the layout. 

Oh really Roy? I seem to recall building long lengths of the main line along with other MRC members, using roller and triangular gauges, including my infamous canted curve (that was a bit too canted!) and concrete-painted paxolin sleepers, but if you want to take all the credit, you go right ahead? Also, if you remember, there were two trackplans drawn, my one and Frank's one, the product of several late nights up at Frank's house in Hazelwood Lane (up to 3am one night, and i cycled home!). Come decision day, you looked at mine first for a few minutes, which featured modern single-lead pointwork (cos we wanted to go modern image) and my version of the branch continued back to, and across the hidden fiddle yard, making an overlapping circuit. Frank's plan was more traditional with steam age double junctions, with a very short terminating double-track branch (which looked very odd IMHO), but his plan was better drawn, clearly showing all the gradients and radii that he'd carefully calculated, and his plan won the day. I moved on from the club a year or so later, and went P4, but was amused to find that within a few years, you and the rest of the team had converted the trackwork to single-lead junctions and had extended the branch across and back around the fiddle yard! Ah well, never mind.     

                                                                                Cheers, Brian.

[roythebus]

01-151012-0002.pdf01-151012-0003.pdf

 

Thanks for reminding me Brian, after all I'm trying to think back about 37 years! Whilst I made all the paintwork at home for the main station, New Annington, the plain half track was made by others maybe at their places or at the club. I certainly cut all the sleepers myself. And yes, you're right about using Kings Cross bullhead rail as Jones Brothers had probably closed down by that time and it was easier to file bullhead rail for points than flat bottom.

 

Frank, as I said earlier, had designed a number of plans and I'm not sure who else contributed to the ideas, I know your good self and John Hewitt had a hand in them, along with the wishes of the club committee who of course held the purse strings! Also at that time there was very little "modern image" stock available, in fact virtually nothing except the Tri-ang Brush type 2, English electric type 3, a diesel shunter and Metro-Cammell DMU. Whilst the layout was being discussed, Lima came along with their offerings and Tri-ang (by then renamed Hornby) with the HST and the Joueff class 40. So we were not over-supplied with diesel-era models.

 

Yes, Practical Model Railways was the magazine, I've got a copy of it somewhere, along with pieces of the track being built at home in my place in Mitcham Lane. Anyway, the layout was built, it ran, and as Brian says, was modernised after about 10 years with colour light signals, modernised track plan and overhead.

 

ISTR mentioning the elevated curve that Brian mentions; he built it very nicely but we then found that stock collided as we'd forgotten to allow for gauge widening between track centres! But the sight of John Hewitt's HST tilting round that curve made a lovely sight. Thanks Brian for your input to the layout. 

 

Hopefully I've attached 2 PDF files of Frank's track plans, they're scanned form the pencil drawn originals so might be a bit difficult to follow.

Edited October 12, 2015 by roythebus

[Brian Kirby]

Hi Roy,

   I hope you're keeping well, it's amazing how long ago all that happened at the MRC. There was another problem with that canted track, namely that some stock didn't like the transition from flat to canted. and back to flat again, no matter how gentle we made it. John Hewitt did a lovely job on the suburban station  and tunnel mouth, i believe he based the latter on one of the Watford portals, what became of those models? When the new club layout was first mooted (as a replacement for the old Brampton Sands layout) it was going to be a typical 1950s/60s steam layout, but when it came to construction and helping hands, we soon realized that the half dozen or so of us actually doing the work, were more in favour of more modern 1970s style operation, hence the later changes.

   I was lucky enough to be a member of Frank Dyer's operating team circa 1977-82, everything was very well organized and rather disciplined, all train movements were strictly governed by card index timetable, most stock had their own particular place in the two fiddle yards and shelving. Before every operating session, and after every couple of hours at shows, the track had to be cleaned, i can't remember using abrasives, more like a rag and a bottle of meths, but it's all a very long time ago now. Every move had to be correctly bell coded "from box to box" and then signalled, we even had to change the destinations on his two DMUs, which Frank had cleverly made using Kitmaster Mk1 sides. It used to get rather hot in that spare bedroom during the summer in Palmers Green, half-a-dozen people and electrical equipment emit plenty of heat, relieved by cold orange juice, hot cups of tea in winter. Frank did allow me to occasionally try out my own kit-built locos on Borchester, but you had to add a temporary wire bar across the buffers, so as to couple to Frank's stock, another snag was he built his point frogs tighter than most (as mentioned above), so regular unturned Romfords could hesitate slightly in a few places, just look at the tolerances quoted above in a previous post! I used to take Frank to task over his couplings, the curved bars were rather conspicuous, although with very fine wire hooks, he acknowledged this, but argued that he wanted high reliability and smooth running, there was no denying that they certainly worked well. BTW, from inside the layout we could see little secret marks (a dab of white paint), showing us exactly where the uncoupling magnets were located.

   When Frank and Margaret moved to just north-west of Caerphilly, the new shed allowed a bit more room and ventilation, although of course the fiddle yard boards still maintained the gap where the Palmers Green house chimney would have been. I remember arriving at Aber Jct. station (it still had sidings and a junction back then) with Frank waiting patiently on the platform, then we'd catch the bus for the short trip up the road, going past the Rhymney Railway viaduct that still stood in the early 1980s, but now covered by the new by-pass road. Happy memories.

 

                                                                                        Cheers, Brian.

[Combe Martin]

Were you one of the operators I saw being chastised by Frank at a packed early 80s exhibition in central London for not changing the lamps on the front of a loco before it departed Borchester ?  

Edited October 13, 2015 by Combe Martin

[Brian Kirby]

Not me guv'nor, although i know such errors did happen, Frank (who was the nicest person in the world) was very particular about that kind of thing, he did have his moments if people didn't stick to the plan, although we were all more scared of Margaret (including Frank!). We were all issued with our own tweezers for placing and removing the blessed lamps, heaven help anyone who got the codes wrong. Frank was a bit of a showman, he was forever getting us operators to execute parallel running and shunt moves in the station throat for visual effect, for example the Robinson O4 (a beautiful slow runner) would arrive anti-clockwise with coal empties, whilst another train would depart from the station. A lot of the station shunting was planned to keep the audience entertained between timed trains, Frank would spend a lot of time standing back supervising, doing running repairs above or below the baseboards, or else standing amongst the spectators keeping a watchful eye on proceedings. Running trains down to the lower level could be tricky, it was quite a steep incline by the little through station, you had to keep the speed down, then over the double junction into the dead end under the main terminus. Then from the lower fiddle yard , we sometimes used a weighted doodlebug motor bogie to pull trains back into the sidings, or else just drove the train back, hoping that it wouldn't derail, which was rare. I'm sure i'll think of plenty more anecdotes later, but this was over thirty years ago!

 

                                                                                Cheers, Brian. 

[roythebus]

Hello Brian, seems you are keeping well too. I understand John Hewitt kept the Sandalmouth buildings, copies of those that appeared in the Railway Modeller in 1963 (I think) that first coined the term "modelling the Modern Image". It had plans for Ditton junction station, that's what that station was modelled on. 

 

I mentioned Frank's motor bogie used for hidden siding shunts in an earlier post, but it was so long ago I forgot exactly what moves it was used for. Frank was indeed a showman, and his layout always seemed to have something moving somewhere. there's a picture in an old Railway Modeller, 1962-ish showing a huge crowd round the original Borchester at Central Hall. 

 

I've just found some more of the proposed New Annington plans, another trip to Staples to get them scanned to memory stick!

[roythebus]

New Annington track plan attached. Maybe we should start a separate New Annington Appreciation thread? New Annington track plan.pdf

Edited October 14, 2015 by roythebus

[TonyW1960]

Come and see Borchester Market at the Wakefield Show - Friday 20th to Sunday 22nd November, Thornes Park Athletic Stadium

[31A]

Nice to see Borchester Market in action at Wakefield yesterday evening.  Took me right back to Central Hall!

[SwissRailPassion]

There was a display screen showing the train movements expected in the next 10 minutes or so. Very good idea.

[enginelane]

There was a display screen showing the train movements expected in the next 10 minutes or so. Very good idea.

Enjoyed watching the layout I knew only through the railway magazine pages. One of the first layouts I read about where trains went from and to somewhere. Train length was always at something I could achieve.

 

Good to see it in action !

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

1 minute into this super video, and there's Frank and Borchester Market!  Excellent footage.

 

Enjoy!

 

There are several videos in the series, featuring, among other great layouts, Wyndlesham Cove and a very young Barry Norman.  I'd not seen them before, they're like my youthful Railway Modeller brought to life.

[Pacific231G]

Frank only built the track for Dyers End, the branch station. all proprietary stock of the day (1980's) ran alright on it apart from Lima with the cheese cutter wheels whose flanges were so deep they ran along the sleepers. Frank explained how 16.2 would work and indeed it did.

 

The rest of New Annington was built to 16.5mm to BRMSB standards by myself using Jones Bros TT flat bottom rail. We also used Kings Cross bullhead rail for some of the layout. I suspect Frank used the Jones Bros rail too.

 

Meanwhile I'll take a trip to Stales to get the plans scanned to disc.

 

There was an article in a model railway mag in about 1982 of New Annington in its original form, can't remember which mag, but it stopped publication quite a while ago. Len Weal done the photos for it.

Is it my imagination or was Dyers End exhibited as a stand alone terminus to fiddle yard at Ally Pally a few years ago when Borchester Market was also there? If so, I had no idea it was 16.2mm gauge

[LNER4479]

1 minute into this super video, and there's Frank and Borchester Market!  Excellent footage.

 

Enjoy!

 

There are several videos in the series, featuring, among other great layouts, Wyndlesham Cove and a very young Barry Norman.  I'd not seen them before, they're like my youthful Railway Modeller brought to life.

I've got the original in VHS format somewhere! (I guess we'll have to explain to younger members what one of them is...)

[gr.king]

If you had it in Philips V2000 format you'd have to explain to many more.

[ForestPines]

I've got the original in VHS format somewhere! (I guess we'll have to explain to younger members what one of them is...)

When I was younger I had it in Betamax format...until my dad switched over to VHS! Taped off Channel 4 over Christmas 1984, I think.

[TonyW1960]

I think you may be thinking of Frank's last layout, Hardwick Grange, which is now in the care of the Cardiff Model Engineering Society

[Pacific231G]

I think you may be thinking of Frank's last layout, Hardwick Grange, which is now in the care of the Cardiff Model Engineering Society

 

Thanks Tony

I've just checked and yes it was Hardwick Grange. Does anyone know what track standards that was built to?

[60526]

The Frank Dyer track standard, no reason not to suggest the same one used for Borchester Market since a lot of the original stock would still be running on it. So 16.5mm gauge.

[60526]

Look back at post 139 in this topic.