jamie92208

At last some real progress. The first three baseboards went to the clubroom last night and I managed to get quite a bit of cork trackbase laid before I ran out of weights. The next step is to lay the Templot printouts on the cork before starting actual tracklaying. This will start with the bridge over the river from the fiddle yard joint then work round through the station area. No pictures yet possibly in a week or two when there are some rails to show. Jamie

Some bits of old hacksaw blade sharpened to a point with a grind stone make great scrapers for excess solder. Iy you can do that make them in various shapes eg round, pointed and straight. I've got a set that a friend at work made for me each is about 3" long obviously with the teeth ground off as well and the top rounded to make a handle. jamie

Just as an aside the route restriction on the Cumbrian coast was due to restricted clearances on the Maryport and Carlisle section at the northern end. The bridges were very narrow and the 1st generation dmu's used to ahve bars over the windows. Jamie

With regard to the Parliamentary Bills, copies of all these are lodged at the local county record office/archive. \the only thin g to be aware of is that the title will be that of the promoting railway company. These were often small independent lines that were either promoted by or absorbed into the later main line company. If your station is in Lancashire then google 'MARIO' which is an excellent mapping system run by the county council that also has historic aeriel photographs indexed onto the maps. The originals of these can been seen at the county Archive in preston. If the station is in Merseyside then they may have something similar. Jamie

I'm not sure. Try someone like Nick Tozer books or Bill Hudson. When you get it let me know and I'll send you a correctyion list for some of the photo captions. About 10 of the captions are muddled up but they don't relate to the lancaster area, mainly around Giggleswickj and Clapham where I grew up. Donald Binns has published a lot of books and the one you wnat is the one with the yellow cover. If you have trouble I'll get you the ISBN. Mine is very well thumbed as I used it to get info for Long Preston. Cheers Jamie

This looks great. I've got a turntable to build for my Lancaster Green Ayre Loco shed and this looks like suitable way forward. What exactly is the slotted opto unit. I presume it's a photoelectric cell that the wire interupts. Cheers Jamie

Well RM Web being down did have unforeseen consequences. There was nothing better to do on Sunny afternoons than to go outside in the snow and build baseboards. This is the board that will have Greyhound Bridge on it. What you can see are the two levels of ply, the river and the track base separated by 6 spacers. these are placed where the bridge piers will be and the bridge will be built round them. Once the track bed has been properly marked out then most of the top layer of ply will be cut away leaving just the track bed. The bridge girders will then be attached to the side of the track bed. There are two more pieces of 5 x 1 to go in between the ply layers which will form the basis for the river bank retaining walls. As you can see there was snow on the ground.

Thanks for that Simon I,ve got that one I was worried that there was another source of info that I hadn't tapped into. You can never have enough photos. Jamie

Hi Simon. I am always interested in new sources of info. Is the book you are talking about the one by Donald Binns or the one by Martin Bairstow, both of which are useful or is it another one. Jamie

At last some real progress. Three fine, if cold, afternoon's enabled me to make a start on the baseboards. This is the result.. These are the main station area boards. They have proved to be very light weight and just need the cross bracing finishing underneath and the final layer of 3mm ply adding where the tracks are going to go. The end plate held on by the G cramp is where the board with Greyhound bridge will start. The design for the bridge is coming on well now the plans have arrived. These have now been photoreduced to 7mm scale and the detail of how we are going to make all the rivetted girders and piers is being worked on. At last some real progress. Only another 16 boards to go. Jamie

Thanks for that Steve. yes I've got a copy of the Pioneer line and am in regular touch with the retired vicar who filmed it all. He has been a mine of useful information. Anyway physical progress with the layout for the last month has been minimal due to my absence in El Salvador (Charity Project), California (Train spotting) and then 2 weeks in tenerife to keep SHWMBO happy.(No trains there yet). However some research and planning has continued and an email has told me that I can now get access to the orginal plans for Greyhound Bridge over the Lune. As this will be a major feature of the layout (Over 5' long and 9" wide with overhead on it) it will be good to have the plans and get it right. Also when I was in california I called at Sunset Models and a pair of Pennsylvania O1A boxcab electrics (2-B-2's) each with 2 pantographs, fell into my hand baggage. These will look great running round thge new layout and will no doubt annoy the rivet counters as much as running a Union Pacific 4-8-4 round Long Preston. Hopefully now that these various trips away are out of the way progress will now be rapid. More updates in due course. Jamie

Thanks for that Rob, I was up there 2 weeks ago and though they were very helpful there wasn't anyone who could let me look at the photographic collections. I am particularly interested in any photos taken on Parliament Street that show the North side of the street and the station entrance. From the maps it appears to have been tree lined with the horse tram route along the middle and the station boundary (Which hid the coal yard and cattle dock) either a fence or a wall with 2 or 3 gates and at least one building. On the other side of the station entrance (I think it becomes Cable Street there) there was the stationmasters house which I don't have any photos of and some stables. The shed waas actually hidden by various buildings including the public baths but I have had to make compromises in this area and the shed will actually front onto Cable Street. Anything that you can come up with would be very helpful. The station buildings shown above have been done from a mixture of photos, the 1:500 plan and details taken from the old station at Morecambe which was in a very similar style (Derby Gothic apparently). They ha ve now been confirmed as accurate from the electrification drawings which show various bits of the station building. Thanks again. Jamie

From what I've found out there were 2 boxes named Lancaster North and Lancaster South at (rather confusingly) the West and East ends of the platform respectively. Both were standard Midland boxes. South was located on the riverbanl near the end of the by platform. The area was resignalled in the 30's at eh same time as the slip at the entrance to the castle branch was altered to a double slip froma single. The signalling aleterations allowed electric from castle to come into the down platform to reverse before going to Morecambe, and also allowed trains from Morecambe to reverse in the Up platform. The model will be before this resignalling and the elctrics will all have to go east of the station to reverse on the trailing rossover before setting oof to either castle or Morecambe. this should provide plenty of interest to the observer on the layout along with through trains, pick up freights and light engine movements on and off the shed. It appears from the ignalling diagram for North box (The West end) that light engines were allowed to reverse in the down platform. At some point in the future I will ahve to dvie a proper operating sequence for the layout. There will be 4 opeating positions. 1. The main fiddle yard (rebuitl from 3.5 boards of Long Preston) 2. The main Line station area 3. The loco shed and goods yard 4. the castle Branch fiddle yard which will reverse the electrics and send and receive light engines from the LNWR area and trasnfer freights. Thus should keep me from getting bored on holiday. Keep the information coming. What I would really like are some photos of Parliament Street showing what the station and coal yard boundary wall looked like. I'm working on trying to get a proper ddrawing of Greyhound Bridge that now carris the A6 north. Netwrok Rail won't tell me if they ahve any plans for 'security reasons'. Lancashire County Council Highways department don't answer emails. My next port of call is the consutlting engineers who did the conversion to road trafic in 1970. Someone I spoke to there can remember seeing a plan chest lbelled Greyhound Bridge when he joined the firm in 1973. I am living in hope. Cheers Jamie

Well a flash of inspiration did come and the dowels were in the pocket of my camera bag (Don't ask but a long story involving collecting a new set of full size tram wheels from a foundry see http://leedshorsecar...squarespace.com). The first ones are now installed and baseboard B5 has been built as a prototype. This is useful as it's only half the size of the other ones in that row. This has shown up one or two minor glitches. and also that I need to make a step in the back of the board where the river bank/sea wall was, so that viewers see a drop. However it seems strong and solid. the next step is to make the step and then the two boards either side. However the main news is that I have come across a treasure trove of information. A phone call from a friend told me that a set of engineering drawings for the overhead equipment (ordered in 1907) had surfaced after being in a garage for 40 years since being rescued from a skip. I changed my plans for the coming days and set off to look at them. They are 2 A1 size folders, leather bound with 'Midland railway, Llancaster Morecambe Heysham Electrification' embossed on the covers. They are the contract drawings for the manufacture of every overhead structure for the scheme together with amendments from 1911 and the 1920's when alterations were made. As well as sorting out the steelwork they give a lot of fascinating detail and contain a partial signalling diagram that I hadn't been able to source. I have custody of them for a few months and then hopefully they will go to a museum. In the meantime they have answered all sorts of other questions such as how the platform awnings, footbridge etc are made. They also contain enough drawings of other footbridges for me to construct the 3 scenic breaks for the fiddle yard leads. There is so much I can't get any modelling done. I've also used them to redraw parts of the track plan and also include the horsedrawn tramway along the front of the layout that lasted until 1926. All grist to the mill. Jamie

70004 has been on Midland Road Leeds all weekend tuked in a long line of 66's next to the main line. Jamie

At last some wood has been cut for baseboards. Four sets of baseboard ends have been cut and drilled for fixing bolts, then square plate washers fitted to protect the wood. This is major progress. I then couldn't find the pattern makers dowels that I bought 2 weeks ago and it was getting dark and cold outside so work ground to a halt. Hopefully I'll have a flash of inspiration tomorrow and remember where I put them.

The committe has met and permission has been granted for construction to start in April next year. In the meantime the first 4 basebaords will be built and further work done on the trackplan. The point on 3 boards has been sorted and some other boards shuffled around to avoid awkward joints(Templot is great but addictive). I've also added a trailing crossover on the east end of the layout so that the EMU's can reverse in the public area and will enable us to model Skerton Bridge in better detail. This will also solve various electrical and control problems if the EMU's are controilled by the station operator w=]rather than being reversed by the Fiddle yard op. A trip to Warley lightened the pocket with a bulk purchase of C & L components and also helped me to have some useful conversations with suppliers. I was particularly taken with one of the photo etching stands that had a very useful guide about making my own artwork. This should help with rivet detail and parts for the overhead. Hopefully some pictures next month after the Wakefield show. Jamie

Some progress to report and some pictures courtesy of 'Yankee Railroader' as I'd left my camera switched on and the battery had gone flat. Over the past 2 weeks I've been refining the traack plan to make room for the station building and that the platforms are the right length. I've also managd to get most of the points off baseboard joints, apart from one which is on 3 boards. (I will have to work on that) Timber for the first batch of basebaords has been bought and construction should commence today, once I'veprepared the veg for Sunday dinner for SWMBO. John has been working on the station building and the result is below. The central booking office is nearly complete and he has skecthed out the Southern walls of the East and West Wings. There are still the end pavilions to go on both wings and the gents to go on the East end of the east pavillion. The corbelling shows up well. This is a resin casting made in 3" strips from a master with cold casting rubber mould. We are going to experiment with using cascamite resin wood glue as it's cheaper and we need several feet of it. The wings are colour coded in watercolour to show John what depth of cover he needs to put on each area. We will probably use resin casting for the window surrounds as they ar a standard feature. these have been measurd from the surviving station at Morecambe promenade which is a similar style of 'Derby Gothic'. The whole station building will be about 5' long with another 6" for the gents. It will be modular for transport. Hope these are of interest. Jamie

That's brilliant. I wonder what they would have written after what i just watched in a foundry while some new tram wheels were being cast. The foreman told us that one of the crucibles needed 'Washing out' so they took 500kg of molten iron in ladle and poured it into the crucible, heated it up and then poured it back into the ladle before they used the metal to cast our new tram wheels. Apparently it cleansed some impurities from the crucible before its next load. The concept of using molten iron to 'wash' somthing made out minds boggle. I dread to think how many trees would ahve to be felled to provide the paper for the risk assessment. (If you are interested look at the pictures on http://leedshorsecar....com/latestnews Jamie

I will try to get some photos on as things progress. Main construction/track laying should start in February subject to getting planning permission at the club rooms. EMU construction is ongoing and we are looking hard at how to do the overhead in such a way that the layout can be easily dismantled for transport. It is intended to work in about 3 phases. the fiddle yard is going to come from my existing Long Preston layout after it's last show in November 2010. Then we will cut most of two boards out of that to shorten it and strip all the point motors/electrics off the scenic part. The first bit we build will be the station area and Greyhound bridge. Then we will either complete the main line circuit or move onto the shed area. The idea is that each phase can be connected to the fiddle yard for testing purposes. Various friends at the club are being pressganged into doing bits and someone has even volunteered to do the overhead. As to the 1950's stock if anyone wants to build some in 7mm they would be welcome to run it. I even know where a pantograph exists from one of them and can just remember travelling on them. Thanks to my late father's notebooks I even know which units we rode on on a visit to Heysham. The rest of the stock is going to be reused from Long Preston as it is all the right period and area. Jamie

Since I put the above on work has continued but not too much to show. The main station building is being built by John Patrick. It will be over 5 feet long and in 5 main sections. At present the central section, the booking hall, is nearly complete and work is starting on the west wing. There are still, the east wing, east and west end pavillions, plus the loos on the east end to go. The corbelling is fiendish but a master has been made and it is now being cast in resin in 3" lengths. The chimneys are also very complex and they will probably be resin cast as well. Hopefully a phot will follow soon. Meanwhile I am carrying on with refining the Templot diagram and general planning. I've done a trial printout of the station area and pasted it together to help in getting the angles correct on the station building. It is also being used to sort out te dimensions for the station awning and the placement of the overhead supprt gantries. The long curving bridge over the River Lune (Known as Greyhound Bridge) has also been printed out and that has helped us to plan the bridge area. This will be on its own board and be over 5' long. The side griders with rivet detail will probably be made up from resin castings as they are semi modular in appearance. The supporting piers will either be plasticard or resin. A lot of timber has been bought and hopefully the prototype baseboard will be produced in the next 2 weeks. Meanwhile work is still continuing on the electric units. these will consist of 2 3 car sets each witha 60' motor coach with a driving trailer either side of it. One of the trailers was a converted suburban coach so that has been made from a modified Slaters kit. The other 5 vehicles are to be scratchbuilt. The sides have been cut out and the motor bogies sourced. I have even got a pantograph from a rivarossi Italian electric, that is correct for the Westinhouse car. The Siemens motor has 2 bow collectors but fortunately I have a drawing for these that I found in the library at the National Tramway Museum at Crich. The station building and possibly the electric stock will be on the demonstrators stands at the Wakefield Show in just over 2 weeks time. Jamie

LANCASTER GREEN AYRE by jamie92208 original page on Old RMweb __________________________________________ ??? posted on Thu Oct 01, 2009 10:39 pm As a new member to the forum some of you may be interested in a new O Gauge layout that is being planned by some members of Wakefield Railway Modellers Society. It will be a replacement for my current layout 'Long Preston' which is nearing the end of its life. It will be set in the early 1920's at Lancaster Green Ayre which was the Midland Station in lancaster that closed in the mid 60's. Construction is likely to take several years and the layout will be about 39' by 19'. It will incorporate a mainline loop with a loco shed and branch line attached. In due course I will try and post a Templot track plan showing the layout. One of the main features will be overhead electrification which the Midland pioneered using high voltage AC. 2 3 car EMU's are under construction to represent the Midland Electric Stock. I will post some photos of the prototype in due course and will hope to keep readers updated on progress. In the meantime any photographs that readers have would be of interest. We have a lot that have never been published but any decent viewsd of the station buildings, stationmasters house and the platform area with the underside of the awnings showing would be of interest. __________________________________________ Comment posted by YankeeRailroader on Sat Oct 03, 2009 9:58 am Excellent! Do you have any plans or drawings you could post here? Any pix of rolling stock? __________________________________________ ??? posted on Sat Oct 03, 2009 8:30 pm I have managed to attach a scan of the OS map from 1910 which shows the station and shed area and also a scan of the templot plan for the trackplan. It shows the ideas that we are working on. I will try and get some pictures of the site as it is today and also a few historic ones uploaded in due course. We aim to build a trial baseboard in the next few weeks to test out various ideas and then start the main construction in a few months. The electric stock is under construction. 3 trailers and two motor cars which are scratchbuilt from plasticard and the 6th vehicle is a Slaters bogie arc roof 3rd that has been mnodified to act a a driving trailer. The electric units generally ran in the fomation, driving trailer 45' - Motor car 60' - Driving trailer 45'. There will be two units, 1 with a pantograph showing the Westinghouse equippped unit and one with bow collectors which shows the siemens unit. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/download/file.php?id=105997Here is the station frontage as seen from Parliament Street http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/download/file.php?id=105996 __________________________________________

My first thoughts are that is it a pre grouping design. It is si milar to several pre grouping horse boxes that I've got models of but I can't be sure without some research. Do you have any idea how long it is. Jamie