mikemeg

Gilbert, What a great joy this thread has been, throughout this year. May I wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and properous New Year. Finally, may I thank you for creating a model of a railway which, quite simply, just 'tells it like it was' for those of us who were fortunate enough to see it and for the many more who never saw those halcyon days. Days when steam reigned supreme and when the railway was a truly wondrous thing to behold. Very best regards Mike

As a child, living as I did within reach of the mid point of the ECML, albeit by a train ride, I can still remember the thrill of seeing a Haymarket 'streak' on the summer timetable up Elizabethan - the Lizzie - in the late fifties and early 60's. And they were almost always in lovely external condition, unlike those of Gateshead. I was lucky enough to 'do' the Edinburgh sheds on a summer Sunday, in 1961, and Haymarket was just memorable. Watching this model develop brings back the memories of that day, now more than fifty years ago, yet, like so many of those days, still fresh and clear in the memory. I suspect that this model will join Peterborough North, Leaman Road, Grantham, etc. in achieving that rarest of results from the building of a model. It will simply 'tell it just like it was' and it doesn't get better than that. Cheers Mike

My but the East Coast Pacifics - all of them - were lovely. Oh to be able to spend one of those lazy summer Saturdays - way back in 1958 - once again; just watching that seemingly never ending procession of trains. Alas we shall not see days the like of those, ever again. Which is why this layout is so evocative and such a wonderful reminder of those days now long gone and so sadly missed. Cheers Mike

Almost a quarter of a million views! Utterly amazing; but then this entire project, and its result, is utterly amazing. Cheers Mike

Ian, I do have about fifteen fish and fruit vans which you could borrow, for the show. Save you some time in making them. Cheers Mike

Simon, They had black and white funnels and many, even in the sixties, were coal burners. One of them 'Yorkshireman' would disappear, every summer, to give pleasure boat trips from Bridlington. Cheers Mike

I think the fella you mention in the above comment will be more than happy to run them on the refurbished layout. Can't remember using the word 'awful' to describe the trackwork, though perhaps uneven! I remember the T1 had a few problems negotiating the curves and the lifting bridge :- "Where's that T1 gone, it was there a minute ago?" "Oh, it's fallen in the water, little Jim." Or was it little Jim that's fallen in the water? And the Minerva Pub, within which you once ventured at your peril, is now quite smart, though still largely unchanged from the era portrayed on this lovely recreation of Hull's Town Docks. Cheers Mike

Aye, lad, I told you this was a rivetting thread. I'll get me coat after that one! Cheers Mike

Thanks, Mick. One other question; whose paint and colour (assuming that there may be more than one apple green) have you used on the A3. Cheers Mike

Mick, That A3 does look mighty fine. Have you ever re-done the lining on the driving and bogie wheels for apple green livery, the fine white line? If so, did you use a lining pen or are there any 'little white circles' transfers available for the purpose? Cheers Mike

Mick, Does that mean that there is a UK or European stockist? You'll have gathered that I fancy trying these out! Regards Mike

Thanks Jonathan. Looking at the page for Surface 'Things', which of the rivet sheets is 4mm applicable (yes, I know, I'm just lazy!) Cheers Mike

Mick, I know it's not your intention but as an advert for these Archer rivets, your O4/8 certainly does show them off to tremendous effect. If you have already can you direct us to a posting which shows where from and how much for these products. Cheers Mike

Gilbert, That photograph, above, is lovely. Suddenly, we are all back; there on a summer's day in 1958, when the railway was a wondrous place and steam still reigned supreme. Just keep posting em, Gilbert. Cheers Mike

Oh locoholism and a penchant for digital manipulation? Yon fella's doomed: aye, he's doomed, Cheers Mike

Gilbert, You might get so many requests for folk to be represented as 4mm facsimiles, waiting on the platform, that you'll have to lay on relief trains, to carry em all. Seriously though, isn't this just one hell of a thread? If not 'All our Yesterdays', perhaps some of the best of them. Cheers Mike

Gilbert, Watching this layout, as it progresses, is a great joy. Peter (Gravy Train), whose work we are all in awe of, has done you proud; those buildings and that roof are a work of art. The photographs, also, just get better and better. When you set out on this project, to build Peterborough North, did you expect it to turn out this well, for it is just superb? Cheers Mike

Arthur refers, above, to the availability of the LNER Q5/2 kit - these locos were never North Eastern in their Q5/2 state. This was/is the test build for this kit, 'dressed' more or less ex-works, in the final style of LNER lettering and numbering. Lovely kit to build and makes up into a fine model. Cheers Mike

James, I'm presuming that you have or have seen photographs of Gilberdyke - Staddlethorpe Junction when we knew it - as it was in the 1960's; it too had some fine examples of McKenzie & Holland iron signal bridges. As this is intended to be a Signal Box thread, then it might not be the most appropriate place to post some of these pictures, or is it? The thread may have digressed, a little, but it does make for a very interesting read. Cheers Mike

Is that all that was left of the Hessle Haven lever frame, Mick? Far cry from the 60 levers of the 1950's though even then I think there were spares. If there is a garden wall bond brick sheet available, then it'll save me having to scribe out some. I'll have a hunt around on t'internet. Thanks for the info, Mick. Cheers Mike

Yep, the old North Eastern didn't stint when it came to signalling. Thankfully, this signalling arrangement had been considerably rationalised by the LNER by the time of my model - 1950. Now to plan the build of Hessle Haven signal box, regretably too early to include a 4mm model of Mick, busily pulling off that distant. Cheers Mike

Just to prove that it's not just McKenzie & Holland lattice structures which I build, these are the first two signal models that I ever built, now more than four years ago. They stood a few yards to the east side of Hessle Station, until the late sixties. These were very much the prototypes for the construction techniques on all of the rest; many of the techniques 'borrowed' from Peter Squibb and, of course, Mick Nicholson. Easy to see that these are not yet in use; no down wires to the track formation! Cheers Mike

Indeed there were four; two brackets and two bridges, so for completeness and at the risk of boring readers of this thread to death with pictures of these model structures, here's the fourth. This was the Hessle Haven down signal bridge and was at the easternmost limit of Hessle Haven's block? Again, this model fell foul of the loco building fest which I embarked on last year and which I am still involved with. This will be revisited and completed later this year - honest guv! Here I should once more thank my old mate, Mick Nicholson, without whose photographs and plans none of these could have been done. So the part completed down signal bridge as it was just before its re-equiping with upper quadrants in the summer of 1950. With their NER slotted posts, lower quadrants and those beautiful finials these were just very elegant things; yet just to keep the trains safe. Mick, while those little wheels work well on upper quadrants, they're not up to driving lower quadrants. So I'll abandon that technique on lower quadrants and use angle cranks. What is it you say about scaling gravity - it won't scale? As I understand it, Mick, the Harrogate signal bridge is the last of the M&H brackets and bridges. When that goes then they are all gone, save for the listed and preserved Falsgrave bridge, soon to be re-erected at Grosmont. I hear that they plan to equip it with lower quadrants so that should be a sight when finished! McKenzie & Holland, Engineers, Worcester. Once the largest signal equipment manufacturer in the world. Cheers Mike

I'm actually photographing these models for an article intended for one of the modelling magazines so, while I've got the old digital camera out and photoshop up and loaded, may as well update this thread too. Earlier, I referred to a third large signal structure which stood at Hessle Haven, located between the two shown above. This was the Hessle Haven signal bridge, almost the same span as the Scarborough Falsgrave bridge, both around 60 - 64 feet. This was the second of the models which I made for the railway, even though the section on which this and the easternmost gantry above were situated, is not yet built. The signals, on this short section of the Hull - Selby and Doncaster main line, were such a striking feature that I decided to build them as central features rather than as incidental model railway 'furniture', hence the scratch building rather than adapting available etches. So the Hessle Haven up signal bridge, as it was when we were lads. Cheers Mike

Thanks, Jim. Yes the railway has changed a great deal since I started watching trains and I can't think it has become any more interesting, aesthetically. There was something about Victorian and Edwardian design (and most of our great stations and many of the great McKenzie & Holland signal installations emanated from those eras) which, though functional was just so elegant. Sadly, we seem now to have lost any affinity with aesthetics on some of the functional design on the railway. If you're talking 'pretty roofs' then take a look at what Gravy Train did for Peterborough North, just out of this world. Recently we seem to be seeing some incredible model architecture being built yet it is still sturdy. For me, these great arrays of semaphore signals just embodied everything which was wonderful about the railways of the 1950's - just coloured boards of wood or metal, with coloured glass over a lamp, which changed their angle and colour and then changed it back again. Simple technology but such lovely structures. Cheers Mike