pod909

I've seen what you've taken on with This is Euston. Now that IS bonkers.

Keith Armes rather generously ran a scale Templot plan up for me and I'm probably going to ask him to do the point work. Certainly the 2 3-ways.

This isn't the first time but I've been pondering getting into railway modelling and looking into Hayfield station as a prototype (I know the site well). It turns out that a 2mm scale model of Hayfield would fit the space I have available. Given my preferences to take on a challenge for the sake of accuracy, the space available, the lack of anything RTR everything is drawing me to attempt 2FS.

The question is, as essentially a beginner, am I bonkers?

I was thinking of leaving the general info here for anyone who happens to look for it and start a new thread in the 2mm subforum for the layout its self

Turns out a 2FS layout to scale fits the 2000 x 460mm base board that's now propped up in the spare room. Here's the Templot kindly produced by Keith Armes.

Some useful photos showing the buildings and track layout. Mostly circa 1950/60 but older photos show the same track plan for rest of the 20th century.

Between the double track serving the platform and the northern sidings is a ramp. The Kinder Railway ran up this and over Station Street

hayfield railway phot notes.pdf

Some general notes:

Lines

·         Hayfield branch line

·         Great Central and Midland Joint Committee (GC&MJC) connection at New Mills Central

·         Kinder Railway

All standard gauge

Interesting Dates

1)      1868 - 1897 – MS&LR and Midland main line era

2)      1908 – 1911 - pre-merger era - during construction of Kinder Damn

3)      April 1932 big 4 era – The Mass Trespass

Operators

Hayfield branch – 1) MS&LR, 2) Great Central Railway, 3) LNER

GC&MJC – 1) MS&LR and Midland Railway (Manchester – London main line), 2) Great Central Railway and Midland Railways (local and trans-Pennine service), 3) Joint LMS and LNER

Kinder Railway – Private

Timeline for Railway Development in the area

1861 – Agreement between MS&LR and Midland Railway to form GC&MJC (known as the Marple, New Mills and Hayfield Junction Line prior to 1897)

1865 – Midland joins the Cheshire Lines Committee

1867 – Midland main line from Millers Dale via the Dove Holes tunnel and Chinley connects with the GC&MJR at New Mills Central, GC&MJR joins the MS&LR mainline at Hyde Junction.

1868 – Branch line to Hayfield opens

1875 – Direct route into Manchester London Road from Romley via Bredbury opens

1880 – Midland switches to Manchester Central for its main line service, initially diverts on the Manchester side of Romley to connect through Stockport Tiviot Dale.

1894 – Dore to Chinely line opened by Midland Railway to provide a direct connection from Sheffield to Manchester

1^st August 1897 – MS&LR changes name to Great Central Railway.

1902 – Midland diverts its main line service to Manchester at the New Mills South junction switching it away from New Mills Central.

1908 –Kinder Railway starts operation, change of GCR coach livery from brown and cream to teak

1911 – Kinder Railway stops operation

1^st January 1923 – Great Central Railway grouped into LNER, Midland Railway grouped into LMS

1930 – Hourly Sunday service carrying upward of 5,000 hikers a weekend into Hayfield to access the moors

c. 1935 – Bogey coaches become operational on LNER local services

1948 – Nationalisation

1968 – Goods service withdrawn from Hayfield

1970 – Hayfield branch line closes

Local Industry

Craft woollen weaving

Cotton weaving - calico

Fabric dying and printing

Paper printing

Rail operations

1 & 2) Coal and raw cotton to local industry, mixed freight finished goods to markets

Each goods siding shown in photographs carrying mixed freight on 15-20 cars

3) Post WWI large numbers of tourist passengers accessing the moors for walking at weekends

Passenger trains 4 standard coaches and a break. 4-6 wheel close coupled coaches

Kinder Railway operations show short mixed freight sets and a 4 car 4 wheel carriage set hauled by 0-6-0ST locomotives

Revised track plan based on some photos I found earlier today...

2FS? Now that's a question.

My parents is round the corner, my toddler years where spent in Bugsworth. I went to school in Chinley and New Mills. But there's no way I have room for a 5 platform exchange so Hayfield makes sense to me size wise. No idea if I have the skill to pull it off -- buildings, scenery, wagons and coaches I think so, track laying and locos? we'll see -- but how ever long it takes to get there I like to have an eventual target in mind and enjoy the research for it's own sake.

Looks like hardly any of the loco and stock mentioned above are available in n-gauge RTR (or even kit form??), so the only way to get there will be with kit bashing and scratch building.

So I think I'm going to start by laying the track in Pico 55 Finescale and late LNER and what ever approximate tank loco's I can find. Scratch building the scenery in 2mm and then work my way back to the GCR and 1908 - 1911.

... then the Kinder Railway .... and finally New Mills Central, the Midland and LMS

The layout above isn't prototypical anyway as it's squashed into 18inches and the entry and exit points are aligned as the whole modular thing sounds a giggle.

...

Turn table I'm not sure about. There's one shown late 1890s but by the 1922 OS it's gone. Not sure about size?

...just made an enquiry about 2fs point work. Lets see...

Thanks for the tip off on the book. I'll definitely have to hunt that down.

Scale: 2mm/N-Gauge due to space constraints

From photo and 1922 ordinance survey it looks like the track plan is something like this.

Thanks for the speedy reply. That was really helpful.

So...

Loco's - it looks like the same 0-6-2 tanks providing the bulk of service gradually changing livery from MS&LR to GCR, LNER and finally black when BR

Wagons - cold be a mix of pretty much anything demanded locally (calico and paper printing, coal, livestock)

Coaches - looks like a set of 4 commuter with a break wagon

On the coaches cold you help with livery. I have seen it mentioned that the GCR change coach livery form brown and cream to wooden around 1914?

Station colors: Midland crimson lake even though the service is GCR?

I'm doing some research on the Hayfield branch line with a view to creating a simple shelf layout.

My research is throwing up conflicting information on who operated service on the branch. Ownership of the line also seems to be confused.

Was it formally part of the CG&MJR or just in MS&JR/GCR ownership and operation?

I'm looking at 3 era's before settling on one.

1) 1868 - 1897 : MS&&LR merging with Midland express main line services at Mew Mils Central

2) 1908 - 1911 : covering the existence of the Kinder Railway, Great Central Railway, unsure of what Midland service would of remained on the New Mills Central line after express passenger services where switched to the line through the Dissley tunnel

3) April 1932 : LNER/LMS ownership, but who ran service?

Any help greatly appreciated.