jamie92208

I don't know enough about the tankers to give an accurate reply but the suggestion of TTA's sounds right. They were certainly the big 50t 4 wheelers. The 9F's would almost certainly have been from Carnforth so finding out which ones were around should be quite easy to identify. The tanks were certainly dirty but I don't know whther they were black bitumen ones or lighter oil ones that had just got dirty. I could just see this working from my brothers bedroom window but often saw the train whilst out on a cross country from school that took us roughly parallel to the current Settle bypass so we used to see the oil train which ran in the afternoon and the pick up freight that used to take coal to Giggleswick for the Gigglewick quarry limeworks and pick up wagons of lime from the sidings at the rear of Giggleswick station that were on the north side of where the bypass runs through. Watching the shunt, usually a small standard mogul from distant memory, was a good excuse for dawdling on the run. Jamie

There were also quite often steam/diesel pairings around at that time. In 66/67 the oil trains from Heysham to Leeds were initially hauled by 2 9f's then it became one 9F and a class 25. There didn't seem to be any rule as to which went at the front. As an aside this used to be one of the last steam hauled freights that went through Leeds City Station and the sight and sound of 2 9f's going through crowded platforms whilst pouring on the power to get up Marsh lane bank was a marvellous experience. Jamie

Hi Dave, that's fantastic. I was going to suggest that I come up to Lancaster and have a chat then realised that you were over a slightly larger stretch of water than the Lune. I will email you with things as I go on. What might be good is if I send you photos of various areas when we get onto the scenic work and then you can suggest corrections. Most of the stuff will be mocked up before we build the final version. The detail of the cattle dock area and Parliament Street frontage is very very helpful. The only diemensioned drawing of Gerhound bridge that I have in a form that I can send is a cross section showing the overhead portals. Any recollections that you can remember from your father would be good as I have been told that Gillows furnished the Midland's royal coach and there was a special shed that it was put in every so often for refurbishment. This was between the loco shed and the station. I believe that this was also adjacent to Gillow's wood yard which fronted onto Parliament Street and was between the Shed yard/offices and the station approach. It would be interesting to know if there was a direct link from a siding so that timber could be offloaded directly into the yard. The layout is progressing well with much tracklaying going on in the coal yard area. The dreaded double slip is under construction and we have started fitting a new design of point tie bars as shown by Derek Mundy in the GOG Gazette. They seem to work well and are very unobtrusive. I've also joined MERG and have discovered all sorts of goodies to help with the control of the layout. This weekend I asssembled my first servo controlled signal and got it working. This is one that is on Long Preston but it will be working at the Wakefield show this year on LP's last outing, which will help me prove the system in exhibnition conditions. I'm hoping to get some more of the LP signals converted for it's last show. Jamie

Just a quick update I have now managed to upload my fist videos to Yout Tube which show the running sessions in August at Gildersome Baptist Church. Thanks to dave Tanner for filming them. follow the links here:- The next one taken from the operators side of the layout shows the train going past the station onto Greyhound Bridge. . It's not much but it's a start and cosidering we only had croccodile clips across the dropper the running was smooth. Not much else to show at the moment as we are busy building the coal yard area and I'm in the middle of the double slip. Happy days. Jamie

Apparently there are also insurance problems nowadays compared with the 19th century. However in many towns and cities the odd rosette can still be seen on the sides of buildings from that era. Trolleybus oberhead, with the twin conductors is however a lot heavier and I don't personally know of any systems that used rosettes for Trolleybus overhead. Certainly in Bradford, (Which still isn't short of well built stone buildings) there were traction poles right through the city centre some of which had pull handles for changing the points in the OLE when a trolleybus had to swap routes. Jamie

As I am also into tram restoration I have had this conversation with my colleague who is a retured architect. Apparently a 'rosette' as it is known for supporting span wires on a building, needs to be able to withtand 700 ils of pull. Most modern buildingss only have thin skins mwith curtain walls. They can't stand the pull. That's why Croydon has lots of poles. Jamie

From a conversation I had a few weeks ago with a man who was a councillor in Bradford, the main reason for the demise of a great system was the desire of the head town planner (Mr Wardley) not to have wires in his nice new city centre development, Petergate, in the early 60's. This effectively cut the system in two with a long length of non revenue wiring to get trolleybises to and from the works at Thornbury. This apparently happenned when the excellent and well respected Transport manager left for a better paid job and his replacement hadn't the clout to insist on wires in Petergate. The ironic thing is that Petergate was built on land that the Midland Railway bought in 1900 to build the West Riding Lines across the city that was later sold to the Council in 1920. Now all the 60's monstrosities have been demolished and the whole area is a vast hole as the proposed retail development has ground to a halt with the recession. If there was any sense in such things we could have retained trolleybuses and had a nice viaduct connecting the two stations. Even better now they could build one central station connected to both sets of lines, but when did sense ever come into such discussions. After all they' re busy demolishing railway bridges in Dunstable to replace them with another misGuided white elep[hant. Jamie PS this should probably be in the old gumpies column in wheeltappers.

Thanks, that's helpful. Unfortunately the layout doesn't strecth as far as the Lancaster Carriage and Wagon works. The best I can do is a 5 coach Leeds Clerestory suburban set of which I think 2 coaches were built at Lancaster. the other three were built in other factories in the grouping that became Metropolitan. Yes I would like to exhibit it in Lancaster in due course as not only would it be good but I would probably generate a lot of new information that would lead to a better model. The problem would be expense as it will need a 3.5ton lorry to transport the beast, plus a team of operators. However I would like to do it. I have been in touch with the museum but they haven't been very helpful. I looked through their box of railway photos and found some colour prints taken in the late 60's of the yard that lead from the Loco shed offices to the Stationmasters house. They wouldn't let me copy them and though I offerred to catalogue and identify the rest of the unidentified photos for them my subsequent emails have not been answered. I will try again in due course. Meantime I will keep building. The intention is to get all the tracklaying and electrics done and fully test run the layout before we start on the scenics and overhead. Cheers Jamie

Yes so am I, this is just the main line circuit. Next it's the coal yard and then the Loco shed complex. The sweping curves are all down to Templot. Thanks for the comments. Jamie

I've just sat down after 3 days humping baseboards around as I've had the use of my church since Thursday. As well as putting up part of Long Preston for a bit of fettling before it's final outing it was mainly to put up all the baseboards that exist for Green Ayre. This has been a very useful exercise and we have learnt several lessons. The first day was mainly taken up with joining the first three boards of the front run of boards, Row A) onto the main line boards (Row B.) Then on Friday The station buildings arrived and we started a surveying exercise to plot exactly where they were going to fit in relation to the track so that I can start work on the awnings, which will be fixed to the baseboards. I wasn't sure how we could produce a template for the platforms and a roll of lining paper was suggested. However we discovered a large roll of Label stock paper that had been donated and not used and spread 12' of that out over the station area. Wax crayons (courtesy of the church toddlers group) were used to produce a brass rubbing of the track plan and then John Patrick's magnificent station buildings were unpacked and placed carefully in position. Here you can see what I mean. In the background the mock up for the platforms together with the prototype awning can be seen. sitting across the tracks. The brass rubbing can also ben seen together withe the board joints. The idea is to draw the platforms and building well's etc onto the label stock. then cut it up into individual pieces for the boards, then peel the backing off and stick it onto 3mm ply which can then be cut out as the platforms. Here is the station viewed from the platform side which the public won't see. After we'd finished brass rubbing and positioning the station we marked in the platforms, awning pillars, the buildings on the Up pltform and the station forecourt. I also went round the layout and surveyed in all the Overhead line stanchions, making sure that I'd got the wire stagger correct. After doing all the surveying we couldn't resist playing trains so connected up all the droppers on 4 boards with crocodile clips attached to the end of the 1" brass screws and ran a mixed cattle train together with an inspection saloon. I(It was the first loco and stock crate that I could reach in the wardrobe. Dave Tanner took some video and the results are now on facebook (Jamie Guest if you want to look). All in all a very good few days work. No back to the grindstone of tracklaying in the coal yard on the new boards. While it was up we attached 7 of the 9 boards from the Long Preston Fiddle Yard as it was my intention to reuse it. The boards felt very old and heavy and after discussion I took the decision that I am going to dismantle them and build a new fiddle yard. It will be made using the same methods as the rest of the layout and will incorporate several quirks in the track plan to cope with the various traffics on Lancaster. Jamie

A very good evening. After marvelling that my ancient brain could get itself roind CAD and producing tghe artwork for an etch I finally sat down and started to make something from the etch, namely a warren truss that will support the platform awnings. The first job was to punch out the rivet heads. Tony Bond's patent rivet punch worked a trat and here are some of the first bits done. The longditudinals will fold into L girders, four of which were rivetted to the lattice work to form an H girder. The next tricky bit was how to solder the 5 pieces together. I decided to use solder paste and wooden clothes pegs. The first two girders were just held with the pegs but when i came to the second set I needed to put two bits of strip wood down the centre and then clamp it all together with the pegs. Next time I'll do all four L girders at one go using this method. At last the first truss. It still needs cleaning up but is incredibly strong and light (presumably like the original. I didn't put a scale in nthe photos but the original was 12" high, 6" wide and 22' long. This is 7mm high and 154 long. It is a very satisfying feeling to see my furst bit of etched brass work complete, just 21 more like this, and 20 shorter ones for the front of the awnings to go as well as the brackets and OHLE attachments. Time for a beer.

Finally after seven attempts I managed to get the artwork right for a test etch and Grainge and Hodder (No connection) have been very patient an helpful. I was really chuffed when the forst test etch came htrough the post today. Now comes the hard part, punching out the rivets and soldering it all together. This test etch is 9" by 6" and if everything works then a full 18" by 12" production etch will be done with all the other parts needed for the various Overhead line structures, the loco shed windows and the main bridge girder rivet detail. I've got a lot of those bits drawn but am still working out the quantities and how many of each to pack onto the etch. The pillars for the awnings are being cast in resin from a brass master. The first two have been successfully cast witha length of M2 threaded rod though them. This gives them strength and makes them easy to bolt down to the baseboard. Tracklaying continued tonight and my Pennsy O2a ran right rhough the pointwork at the east end on both main lines wothout trouble. We used a load of leads with croccodile clips to connect the 1" brass screws which are acting as droppers. It ws good to see the loco go well through the diamond crossing.

Hendaye Irun is interesting s there are 3 gauges and 3 voltages. 1. Standard Gauge SNCF which runs right through from Hendaye in France to the south side of Irun statio in Spain (about 2km) (1500vDC) 2. Broad Gauge which comes up through Irun but not into France. The freiht transhipment takes place in the yards on the Spanish side of the border. (300v DC) 3. Metre Guage on the Euskotren system which runs alongside the south side of the renfe/sncf lines and actually terminates in Hendays after crossing the river. I'm not sure of the voltage. All this takes place on a fairly flat area between the sea and the motorway. French TGV's runright through to Irun. Somewhere in the middle of the complex is a gauge changer for the Talgo's that run through from Paris to Madirid. Jamie

I have memories of watching 4 Cor's rattling through Ashford (Middlesex) en route to reading when I lived there in 1971. I was fascinated watching the gangways banging from side to side and I seem tgo remember that they were suspended from 2 outriggers either side of the top of the gangway. Were those the GW type. Jamie

If it ever does get opened I hope it lasts better than the York Road one in Leeds, the Concrete is starting to spall badly in the upper edges and apparently the buses are always breaking guide wheels. The sad thing is it's built on top of the old tramway up York Road and they lifted the long buried rails to bid the busway. Jamie

Great exitement, after several iterations to the artwork the platform canopies appeared this week courtesy of York Modelmaking. cut in 0.75mm romark they came very well packed. I couldn't wait to see if they went together as well as I hoped but here is the result. This is the first only another 19 to go , then add glazing and finials, flashing etc. Hopefully in the next couple of days the first test etches for teh supporting girders will appear from Birmingham. meanwhile the tracklaying is progressing well.

August 1st 1960. That day my late father went from Gigglewsick to Manchester via Hellifield and Blackburn to watch cricket. He noted the follwoing observations:- London Road Stn. 42638 2-6-4T 4MT 42889 2-6-0 5MT M50508, M79177 D5083 M51964 M50456 Stockport M50487, M59143, M56091, M50135, 42316 2-6-4T 45079 4-6-0 M50423, M59135, M50427, M50455, M59163 E3047, London Road M50434, M59142, M50486 Central Stn, D5706 Jamie M

A friend of mi e built some brakevans for a Lancashire and Yorkshire based layout and the L&Y used to put the gaurds names on them. All the members of the team got their names one the various vans we also put the layout owners name on the mill chimney so the firm became known s Brearley's yarn spinners. Jamie

Thanks for that about ROGS I will need to read up about it for getting the horse tram that I am involbed in reswtoring, approved for public passenger carrying. Life is a learning curve though some bits are steeper than others. Jamie

I don't know about the coach parties but I believe that it;s to do with the new Railway Inspection regime that is due to come into force in nthe autumn which will be much more expensive than the current system. Several railways, including the Ecclesbourne Valley are trying their hardest to get new lines/trackage approved under the old system and I have heard that the CTRL on the WHL falls into this category. Jamie

The HST at Masboro would almost certainly be on test after final asssmbly at Derby. The route was the original Midland Main line to Altofts then to York and finally ECML to newcastle and back. they needed the strecth north of York for the High speed testing. Jamie

Members might be interested in the following photos of these early HST workings. I have scanned them and am sending decent copies to the original poster but here they are. The first production HST set 253001 going through Castleford in early 1976 on it's main line test run from Derby to Newcastle. Here it goes North towards York. It had come up the Midland Main Line from Derby and needed to get to the ECML for High Speed testing. It was still able to travel the direct route via Oakenshaw and Goose Hill in those days. Here is set 253021 at Bradford Interchange on display for the opening of the new Interchange station. Here 021 is climbing the bank through Laisterdyke near Hammerton Street DMU depot. My friend who was one of the HST development team remarked that it was a long time since anything had gone up the bank that fast. The sound from the screaming Valenta's was great to hear as the rear power car passed. Hope these are of interest. Jamie

That looks good. I'm not sure how the wagon was secured when it tippled but it must have gone past the horizontal and be going on towards vertical. There was a barge lift at Ferrybridge Power station that worked on exactly the same priciple but with 200 ton capacity barges. At the top there was a counterweight that the barge came into contact with as it started to swing past the horizontal. This then acted as a clamp to keep the barge in position as it tippled. Very simple with few moving parts. The counerweight was housed within the top of the mechanism and didn't travel up and down. I was able to photogrpah it when it was working from inside the building. (Quite scary when you see a barge that large being upended just in front of you.) If youa re interested I'll try and find the negatives and scan them and post them. The bargbe lift is no longer in use. Jamie

As well as the work on the baseboards and tracklaying, structure modelling is ongoing and the main station building is progressing well. It is now possible to see it's full extent. The whole structure is about 5'6" long and is being built by John Patrick. The basic dimensions were worked out by comparing it to a model of a Ford Cortina (Mk 1) , one of which appears in one of our photographs of the building before it was demolished. When I eventually obtained accurate drawings our dimensions were only out by about 2mm. At the east end of the building is a magnificent 'Gents' with attached coal store. The detailing is very good with here the corbelling and ridge tiles which are made from resin castings in 4" lengths. The chimney's are also castings, there are 7 of them in total on the up and down platform buildings. The buildings are mainly made from artists mounting card applied in various layers. Here is a view of the platform side which is not quite as advanced. Finally a shot with a Slater's Cattle wagon posed in front of the station to give some idea of relative size. One problem is storage and transport. the building naturally splits into 4 sections for transport and John has shown great dedication to his task of providing safe storage as the storage crates are made from wine boxes. His willingness to sacrifice his liver to the good of the layout is much appreciated. Jamie

Reading this thread brings back many happy memories of an 8 month exile in London in 1971. I loved watching the REP's which as well as having the same power as a deltic had a similarity in styling as there were those curved equipment covers under the underframe that reminded me of how a deltic's body curved outwards. The only units I like better were the 4 Cor's that were working the reading/guildford lines and I used to see them hurrying through Ashford (Middlesex) with the corridor connections banging from side to side. Clapham junction was great with the early 4 SUBs, the 5 Bel's the 4 Cor's the REP's and warship's on the Exeter's. It almost made up for beieng away from the North. Jamie