Rosedale

Thanks to everyone for their kind comments, information and encouragement, it is much appreciated! The Lion Inn is a great feature of the area and I have spent a few nights and many a lunchtime in there enjoying the huge meals, great ales and of course the photos of the railway. It must have been great fun G567281 watching the RC Rally up there and getting snowed in at the Lion! The walking up and around Rosedale and Farndale is great and I have always enjoyed the peace and quiet whilst imagining the hive of industrial activity in the area 100 years ago with all the mining and the railway. Fortunately, I have a few days off work next week and hope to do some more work on the layout boards and I will then post a few pictures of progress to date. Thanks again.

This is the openning blog to start explaining and illustrating progress on my new project, a 7mm model of Blakey Junction high up on top of the North Yorkshire Moors. The real railway ran from Battersby Junction to the foot of the North Yorskshire Moors escarpment then up an incline onto the moor top. It then ran across the moors to Blakey where a Junction saw it run to ironstone mines on both the East and West sides of Rosedale. A further line ran from near Blakey down into Farndale to service smaller ironstones. Blakey Junction was, and is, an isolated and beautiful spot high up on the Blakey Ridge (or Rigg) that seperates Rosedale from Farndale. It was a hard life for the miners and railwaymen and their familes who toiled in harsh conditions to extract and transport iron ore down to the furnaces in Teesside and beyond. In later blogs I will set out more of the history and give some links to interesting material. I first came across the region while a student at York University in the early 1980s. I had been driven up to area with some other friends for a bit of a lunchtime stroll and a few pints in Rosedale Abbey, the village in the heart of the valley. We were driving out of the valley up the incredibly steep Bank Top Road when I spotted some ruined kilns in the valley side. And that started a lifetime's obsession with the area and a determination to one day build a model. Most of my modelling to date has been of the Irish Broad Gauge in S Scale, a tad obsure I admit! I fancied a new project and wanted to build an NER model being a great admirer of that fine railway. And I always knew it was going to be of Blakey Junction. The problem was, what scale? I have therefore spent a few years now pondering about S and 7mm, boring my various friends in both scales. I will write again to explain why, after much soul searching, I finally plumped for 7mm scale. But for now, I can say that the scenic part of the layout is 12' by 2'6" and features Blakey Junction set high up on the valley side. The boards and trestles have been maden and basic scenery has now been sculpted in chicken wire and modroc. I have kept the weight down by using extruded polystyrene and 4mm ply, following many of the ideas set out by Gordon Gravett in MRJ. So, that's it for now. Future posts will show progress, trackplans and the history of the line.