Armchair Modeller

There are some interesting screen shots there - someone has obviously put a lot of work into reproducing the GC in all its glory.

I did notice though that a lot of artistic licence has been used in the Linby scene, in particular - the GN and Midland stations were nothing like those drawn. Presumably that s just a case of concentrating all their efforts on getting the GC bit right.

Are you thinking of using concrete or wooden sleepers? Concrete sleepers on the main line and wooden on the sidings would look nice.

For concrete on plain track, I would be OK with Peco. It is not too bad and can be helped by a bit of deep ballasting. For wooden sleepers, there is no contest for me - Finetrax. 

For pointwork, a lot depends on how you have planned the layout. Real FB pointwork should generally look longer than anything PECO produce, so I would personally scratchbuild. If you are using shorter points to fit everything in, you might as well use Peco, but disguise the "concrete" ones with a few cosmetic touches. The Finetrax points should be available sometime for bullhead.

The difference between code 55 and code 40 would be almost prototypical, when you see real bullhead next to modern FB rail.

I grew up in Hucknall/Linby, but Dad hails from Bulwell, I remember the GC viaduct well, used to have a "Home Ales" ad on it from memory. The embankments heading north from Bulwell were severed when the Hucknall bypass was built, but can still be seem as you travel on this road.

.........talking of which there are some really good pictures of the GC line on the RCTS Mystery Photographs site

http://www.rcts.org.uk/features/mysteryphotos/

You can browse earlier days by clicking NEXT at the bottom of each page, or do searches for individual locations. "Bulwell" (and variations), "Hucknall", Hucknall Central", Hucknall GC", "Hucknall Town" all highlight interesting shots (not all GC), never mind Annesley, Kirkby and places further north or south.

My knowledge mainly covers the area from Bulwell up to Beighton and the Chesterfield loop. If you need any help in that part of the world, I would be only too pleased to help if I can.

Nottingham railways are covered to some extent on the Nottstalgia site here http://nottstalgia.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7892

http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/epw020931?search=bulwell&ref=11

This image more or less shows the whole span of the viaduct. , with Hucknall Lane on the left. Morrisons store building is actually just north of the course of the viaduct. The main part of the car park is on the viaduct site. Very little in this shot is recognisable now, except perhaps the golf course, top right, and the course of the Robin Hood Line/NET, mid right top to bottom of the picture.

Bulwell viaduct was indeed where Morrisons now is - it started just on the Bulwell side of the railway social club on Bestwood Road and spanned the valley, ending next to the old baths/lido (now the Ken Martin Sports Centre) on the west side of Hucknall Lane. You can still see the blue brick of the base of the viaduct there, if I remember correctly.

If you think it is difficult to trace there, it is far harder to imagine where it once ran further north, beyond Hucknall. Huge lengths of it have been landscaped into oblivion. 

The New Basford and other photos in earlier installments show just how quickly flat-bottomed track was introduced, once it became the BR standard in 1948(?) - and not always on what we might today perceive as the most important lines either.

How often do we see it modelled even in the rail blue era, never mind the late 1940s and early 1950s?

More really great photos - sincere thanks again for sharing them!

Maybe you should think about what else might be different on the railway map if Millers Dale were still open. Possibilities for retention include the north to east curve at Ambergate and the Codnor Park/Pye Bridge to Ambergate line.

If I remember correctly, Dr Beeching's closure proposals were rather different to what actually happened in the Peak District. Maybe the Hope Valley line was closed in favour of Woodhead, which was Dr Beeching's plan, I believe.

That way, freight from Rotherham and Sheffield might easily run via Chesterfield, Clay Cross and Ambergate to avoid congestion, engineering works or whatever on the Woodhead line.

Those bridges look like they would make a fantastic diorama!

Thanks again for sharing all these wonderful photos with us. They deserve to go in a publication, so we can all treasure them at will.

It could be Stockport - one of Manchester's other big clubs - playing FC United soon. Depending on how results go this evening, SCFC could be in Conference North next year.

Brilliant photos - many thanks for showing them!

Just one very small query - Calverton Colliery branch bridge over A606 near Burnt Stump c1951 JVol2235 is actually the A614 - the A606 is south of Nottingham?

 

 

P.s. there is often a stool in the 4'.

Not now they have retention tanks on the trains

I guess there ought to be some spare space on the embankment, beyond the catch points on the goods yard loop - otherwise wagons might fall straight down the bank after they left the rails.

there is an expansion of the track bed width directly after the viaduct in suggesting that there was some pointwork on the viaduct proper. 

Could this have been something to do with the diversion works when the original timber viaduct was replaced? - just a thought

One thing I notice is all the flat-bottomed rail in some of those shots. How many people model f/b in the steam era, or even think about using it?

Methinks the EF1s should have been used double-headed to run trains over the Woodhead route. It would have given modellers a bit more variety

Was there any difference in the power supply between the Woodhead route and the NER electrification to prevent this - without modifying the locos themselves? Also, I guess the EF1s weren't equipped for operating in multiple?

Am Baile has some railway drawings, plans etc. 

http://www.ambaile.org.uk

Thats exactly my plan Daniel. I would be routing all of the london to manchester hst services through there and also the cross country loco hauled services going west. Trains to Buxton will be local Derby to Buxton DMUs and the Millers Dale to Buxton shuttle for connection changes from the main line services.

 

Cav

I did consider something similar a while ago, but at a slightly later period.

If the Millers Dale-Buxton services had survived, it might have made sense for BR to build a new through station in Buxton, on the connecting curve, to allow the Manchester-Buxton services to run through to Millers Dale, or Derby-Manchester locals to run via Buxton.

I guess it would make little difference to most trains at Millers Dale, except that you might see a wider range of DMUs at Millers Dale, including Network Northwest, Merseyrail PTE and GM PTE liveried stock.

Two Wickham DMUs were sold secondhand from BR to Trinidad

I see there are working instructions for the electrified lines online here http://www.limitofshunt.org.uk/document-library/other-documents

Further to my last post, there is another archive of signalling notices here http://www.s-r-s.org.uk/archivesignals.html

Personal experience with DGs is very good. The only problem I have come across occasionally is when both loops on adjacent couplings push each other up when you are trying to couple up. The delayed action uncoupling is better than knuckle couplers as you don't normally have to set back when raising the loops over the uncoupling magnet.

Regarding signals, it might depend if BR had the cash to do a complete resignalling job with colour light signals in the late 1960s or beyond unless part of a big scheme to upgrade with a PSB, or where it enabled one or more boxes to be closed and all signalling concentrated on one box locally. Doing just a few signals here or there might require a lot of disproportionate investment when compared with semaphores, especially in a remote location like Millers Dale? 

One source for inspiration might be Signal Notices - see http://www.signallingnotices.org.uk/notices.php. This has examples of real sites that were rationalised, by region. Only a few seem to have been scanned for browsing online, but this one is kind of in the right area (Hazel Grove) http://www.signallingnotices.org.uk/scans/2248/hazel%20grove%20chord.pdf

Fifty of the outside framed Midland 0-6-0s were sold for use in Italy before the first world war.

A Webb compound 2-2-2-0 was sold to the Pennsylvania Railway in the USA and one for France

One of the Southwold Railway locos ended up in Colombia

No.18 was arguably the best looking of the lot. It was known as the Lambourn Valley car as it was built to haul a tail-load (mainly horseboxes) on the Newbury-Lambourn branch. I can understand why Dapol has chosen to model one of the early cars, because there's one at Swindon that can be scanned, but Nos. 1-4 were of limited usefulness, being only suitable for main line operation yet not having enough passenger capacity for it. Would have been much better to do 5-16 which were more widely useful (though still not ideal for some branch lines) and lasted longer (generally if they didn't get burned out by their own heating system). Unfortunately there's no surviving example to scan and they are very different from 1-4, having been built by Gloucester RC&W.

CHRIS LEIGH

Hopefully, they will follow the usual Dapol pattern of starting at the beginning and working through to the end, assuming early sales are good enough