Eastcombe 2009

Home	COTSWOLD MODEL RAILWAY SHOW 31 OCTOBER & 1 NOVEMBER 2009

	INTRODUCTION



	This was the third annual Cotswold Model Railway Show, organised by Phoenix Model Railway Club, Gloucester Model Railway Club and Eastcombe Scout and Guide Group and held at Thomas Keble School, Eastcombe, Gloucestershire, GL6 7DY It was also the first such event to feature The Pat Arnold Cup. Pat Arnold, who sadly passed away in 2009, was very active in the railway modelling community and was an organising member of the first three Cotswold Model Railway Shows. He helped with the show's advertising and ran the very successful second hand stall during this period. He relishd his posts as Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer of the Gloucester Model Railway Club for many years and earned the respect of all members from not only his own club but from everyone who had the privilege of knowing him. He was a great ambassador for railway modelling, taking time to encourage others and helping them with advice and enthusiasm. From 2009 the Cotswold Model Railway Show Committee introduced a "Best in Show" trophy named The Pat Arnold Cup in respect of Pat and his widow Sue. It is to be awarded to celebrate the very best of design, operation and presentation with particular attention to layouts which display the enthusiasm in modelling that Pat Arnold promoted or many years. The first winner of The Pat Arnold Cup was Andi Dell's "Dagworth", although members of the Phoenix Model Railway Club also displayed the intriguing possibilities of N gauge modular layouts. Each module measured 4 feet by 18 inches, was identical in height from the floor and featured two full width through lines at pre-defined points of depth between front and back. This allowed several modules with compatible 12 volt electrics to be joined together end to end using short lengths of flexi track. This modular concept originated in the USA and allows modules to be built at home when space at a club does not permit a large baseboard to be constructed or erected. Similarly, the modular concept gives trains the maximum collective length of running track while each module owner can indulge his own tastes in British, Continental or American practice. The Phoenix Model Railway Club modular display at Eastcombe was in end-to-end format although extra fiddle yards and 90 degree corner modules may be built and owned collectively by the club in future. Such a system has already been embraced by Worcester Model Railway Club for its American themed Snake Bend modular layout, one distribution depot module of which is seen below.



	LAYOUT AND ATTRACTION REVIEW

	DARIUS WASHINTON STATE by Harvey Faulkner-Ashton On-30 Gauge 7mm Scale



	Set in the Pacific North West of the USA where the redwood is king, Darius was a backwoods engine facility for the Marten's Pine logging operation featuring detailed and weathered Bachmann Shay and Climax steam locomotives. All structures on the layout were scratch built from strip timber and kit bashed and scratch built freight cars were based on Cal / Mich logging lines. Peco trackwork was also combined with a Bachmann EZ DCC operating system.



	TEIGL TRAMWAY by Roland Binns O-14 Gauge 7mm Scale



	There is a valley called Cwn Teigl situated south east of Bleanau Ffestiniog which seemed a good place to set an imaginary narrow gauge railway that would have connected to the Festiniog Railway. There was a junction on the main line from which a tramway branch climbed steeply, partly following the road before entering a ledge on the rocky hillside. Passing a slate quarry it disappeared into a tunnel to serve the higher part of the valley. A slate works and a woollen mill were also served by the main line. Teigl Tramway was built to 7mm scale ( the same as for 0 gauge ) but used 14mm gauge track to give the correct representation of 1' 11 1/2" gauge track used on the Festiniog, Penrhyn and Welsh Highland Railways. This choice of gauge - rather than commercially available 00 gauge 16.5mm track with wide spaced sleepers -meant that all trackwork had to be scratchbuilt and all rolling stock modified to run on it.



	CAEAU UCHAF by Barnhill MRC 00 Gauge 4mm Scale



	Caeau Uchaf was a fictitious town on the South Wales coast some thirty miles west of Swansea depicted in the steam and green ( and maroon in the case of the Western hydraulic pictured above ) diesel era of 1952-1968. Although on Western Region, it was also served by London Midland Region freight and passenger trains via the direct line from Shrewsbury . A new deep-water oil terminal was being built nearby, currently linked by a small branch from the station. Other branches from the valleys and the coast also terminated at Caeau Uchaf's busy freight and passenger station. Track and pointwork on the 18'6" x 8' layout was Peco Code 100 with Seep point motors and electric uncouplers to ensure a minimum of handling. Barnhill Model Railway Club meets near Chipping Sodbury and full details can be found at www.barnhillmrc.co.uk.



	DAGWORTH by Andi Dell 00 Gauge 4mm Scale



	Winner of the 2009 Pat Arnold Cup, Dagworth represented British Rail Great Eastern practice in the mid 1980s when the 20 year old overall monastral blue was starting to yield to new sectorised liveries such as the Inter City seen on the Class 86 ac electric above. The trains represented what Andi remembered seeing in his youth at Ipswich, Stowmarket and Peterborough although the rules were bent to allow things like a Merry Go Round coal working. Passenger services alo recreated the period when electrification of the Great Western was underway and trains changed locomotives at Ipswich. Dagworth was built as an exercise in modelling working colour light signals on scratch built gantries and also to recreate Andi's time as BR train driver. Both aims required as long a main line as possible in the space of 18' x 9'6" - dictated by the dimensions of the living room where the layout was built. The continuous double track mainline travelled around the layout three times before returning to its starting point. The signalling featured working track circuits, approach controlled signals and flashing yellow aspects on the mainline. The overhead line equipment was scratchbuilt from brass section and guitar string while Digital Command Control (DCC) allowed the true driving of trains - including locomotive lighting - rather than the operation of isolating sections. An inspection saloon fitted with a very small camera was also able to broadcast a drivers eye view to the audience via a small layout-side TV monitor and Dagworth, like fellow modern image layout Rimenough, featured sound chipped trains. However, all this advanced technology only enhanced the excellent non-railway scenic side of Dagworth with its rows of terraced houses and rolling hills complete with a pillbox left over from the Second World War. In fact when editing my digital photographs close to Remembrance Sunday I was particularly taken with the shot below with the pillbox behind an English Electric Class 37 and its train of depressed-centre Blue Circle cement wagons passing under a newly installed electrification gantry. How much has changed between the building of the two structures and what a debt we all owe to those whose sacrifices made possible our free and abundant lifestyle.



	BURCOMBE by Peter Moore 00 Gauge 4mm Scale



	Peter is a student at Thomas Keble School and Burcombe was his project for the Duke of Edinburgh's Scheme Silver Award. Burcombe was Peter's first proper model railway, which had taken a year to build. It depicted the present day on a main line somewhere in the Midlands featuring a local station and goods yard. From hidden sidings at the rear a selection of diesel, electric and sometimes steam trains passed through or called at the station. Points at the rear of the layout were manually operated and those at the front by the stud and probe system.



	RIMENOUGH by Simon Evans 00 Gauge 4mm Scale



	English, Welsh and Scottish Railways (EWS) Rimenough Depot featured light engine movements - mainly Classes 37, 60, 66 and 67- for refuelling and storage as well as the arrival and departure of Arriva Trains Wales Rhymney style coaching stock top and tailed by Class 37s. All locomotives were sound chipped with South West Digital equipment and controlled by Bachmann Dynamis DCC while the rolling stock was modified, detailed and weathered. Scenery also included working shed and yard lamps.



	POOLE IN WHARFEDALE by Tom Couling 00 Gauge 4mm Scale



	The beautiful valley of the River Wharfe marked the northern boundary of the industrial region formerly known as the West Riding of Yorkshire and the railway eventually built through the dale was a joint North Eastern and Midland Railway venture, linking the Leeds to Carlisle route with the Leeds to Tyneside line but bypassing Leeds itself. In the 1950s local trains to Leeds and Harrogate would have passed excursion trains to the coast and such freight workings as ICI anhydrous ammonia tank wagons from Billingham to Heysham, where ammonia and nitric acid were combined to make ammonium nitrate fertilizer. ICI Billingham's Haber-Bosch method of anhydrous ammonia production helped produce a 39% nitrogen fertilizer against the 21% nitrogen equivalent of fertilizer made from ammonium sulphate in turn made from bubbling coke oven gas through sulphuric acid. The robust ICI anhydrous ammonia tank wagons had a high tare weight of 22 tons but were not through piped or vacuum braked! Also visible - above and at the top of this feature - was a Derby Lightweight twin car diesel multiple unit, valiantly competing against bus and road lorry traffic actually moving at realistic speeds. Although the buildings on the layout were reproductions of those found at the real Pool in Wharfedale, the addition of an "e" to the name allowed some minor track alterations to the actual location. However, the uncompromising attention to detail that brought crowds of visitors around Poole in Wharfedale was exemplified by the cattle dock. Not only were the bovine and ovine inmates of the authentic LNER type hurdles typical of Yorkshire breeds but they could be replaced by a plain cobbled ramp after the train taking them to market had departed.



	LLANTHONY ROAD by Richard Grosvenor 00 Gauge 4mm Scale



	Llanthony Road was loosely based on Gloucester Docks and its environs with a fine collection of scratch built buildings instantly recognisable to those familiar with the area. Until the mid 1980s the western side of Gloucester Docks had been served by the Docks Branch of the former Great Wetern Railway while the Midland built High Orchard Branch had served the eastern side until closure in 1972. The former GWR Docks Branch left the Gloucester-Cardiff main line at Over and crossed the Eastern Parting of the River Severn on a bridge before crossing Llanthony Road itself and arriving at Llanthony Yard opposite Bakers Quay. Today Llanthony Yard is the site of the new Gloscat campus and the earlier 125 Business Park. 2009 meanwhile saw Bakers Quay re-opened as the Gloucester Quays designer outlet. Richard Grosvenor imagined that the former GWR Docks Branch had survived at least into the 1990s and the era of BR Raifreight three tone grey liveried diesel locomotives such as Thornaby based 37 507 "Hartlepool Pipe Mill", seen at work below on a "one engine in operation" principle. As trains arrived on the layout from the right hand end they passed under the former seed and flour mill conveyor and across Baker Street between the Tall Ships public house and the 1849 vintage Mariner's Chapel next to the Lock Warehouse of 1834 which until recently housed Gloucester Antique Centre. Further to the left are representations of Foster Brothers Oilseed and Cake Mill ( built 1862 ), Llanthony Road bridge and the shops nearby.



	CAPITAL WORKS by Alan Drewett 00 Gauge 4mm Scale



	In 1935 His Majesty King George V was celebrating the first Royal Silver Jubilee of the Twentieth Century with just a year left to live. During his reign the House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha had been renamed Windsor during the First World War, most of Ireland had become independent of direct British rule and Mahatma Ghandi had similar hopes for India. Elsewhere the humiliating terms of the1919 Treaty of Versailles were being challenged by Adolf Hitler, now in his second year as Fuhrer of Germany, with the re-establishment of the Luftwaffe. At the Capital Works of Morland and Anderson meanwhile, wagons from railways all over London and beyond - some taken out of traffic while still loaded with coal or other freight - were being inspected and repaired: leaving railway workshops as Swindon, Crewe, Doncaster and Eastleigh free to build new rolling stock. Bringing the wagons in - and taking them out again via the North London and other lines - was a mixture of tank locomotives small enough to work in the cramped yard. Alongside former North British J83 9819, 1925 vintage 0-6-0T 581 - below - belonged to J72, a Class uniquely built in five batches over 54 years by the North Eastern, London & North Eastern and British Railways under four different Chief Mechanical Engineers. Designed by William Worsdell in 1898 - and based on the existing J71 Class - further batches were built for Sir Vincent Raven in 1914 and 1920, for Sir Nigel Gresley in 1925 and Arthur Peppercorn from 1949 to 1951. Of the final batch 69023 has been preserved in LNER green livery as "Joem". 0-6-0T 581 was built at Doncaster although Darlington Works and Armstong-Whitworth of Newcastle also undertook contruction. In 1932 meanwhile there suddenly appeared on London streets a revolutionary new design of diesel-engine omnibus with a full front and seats in the position where orthodox passenger service vehicles had engines. An entirely new chassis, developed by the Associated Equipment Company featured the prime mover on the offside frame member behind the front axle. After the success of the single deck Q with London General Omnibus Company and provincial operators, London Passenger Transport Board ordered 102 4Q4 units from Southall based AEC for country area services from 1935. The Q Type was only in production for four years but its highly advanced design paved the way for the underfloor-engine buses and trains of the Twenty First Century. BX 528 – LPTB fleet number Q7B – is seen above in its original pre-Second World War green Country livery with 37 seat bodywork by the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company. Allocated to Watford Garage it stayed in London Passenger Transport Board service until August 1953.



	NEW LAKEPORT by Graeme Schrouder H0 Gauge 3.5mm Scale



	Set in the mid to late 1960s, when relatively small second generation diesels still hauled forty foot boxcars, the analogue DC operated New Lakeport represented as US port hinterland switching yard. Structures were all kit-built with many being altered to better suit their location and were deliberately generic to allow different locations to be represented by changing motive power and rolling stock. The Municipal Pier building - pictured above - contained a two track sector plate to facilitate train storage for home use and trackwork was Peco Code 75 with modification to the turnouts in order to "Americanize" them. New Lakeport was featured in the September 2006 edition of Continental Modeller.



	BOTTIT by Sodbury Vale MRC N Gauge 2mm Scale



	Bottit depicted a modern image main line through station somewhere in the south Midlands with a goods yard and branch line and hidden sidings at the back. The layout was purchased in 2008 with just the Peco trackwork laid out on the baseboards. Some modifications were made to the trackwork, which is now all ballasted. Among the weathered structures was an example of Ratio Concrete Footbridge kit number 222 - pictured above - which also formed the basis of the VC10 steps seen on Terminal 1. Similarly, the John Deere tractor seen below next to the red Foden lorry beyond the water tower is very similar to the one often seen at Britain's newest airport. Although not entirely finished, both the outer and inner track circuits have their own control positions and each control position can partially contol the other system. Points were operated by wire pull rods at the back of the layout and "fun" visitors included Thomas The Tank Engine and a German Double Deck train.



	LINDTZAL by Brian Silby N Gauge 2mm Scale



	Lindtzal was situated on an imaginary secondary line on the border between Germany and Austria. The tiny station saw only local passenger traffic and a modicom of local freight. The passenger trains were all diesel operated, mainly by DB Class 218 locomotives and Class 628 diesel multiple units while freight trains were hauled by venerable Class 212 locomotives and reclassified Class 225 diesel hydraulics. A vintage Class 795 railcar and trailer also put in an appearance. Originally built as an Alpine spring scene, Lindtzal was "winterised" in 2002 using Woodland Scenics snow and cement. The cosmetic overhead catenary equipment was by Veismann with Kibri and Pola kit buildings stood in front of an acrylic backscene created by Ann Silby.



	BAD FERIENDORF by Ann Silby Z Gauge 1.5mm Scale



	Bad Feriendorf literally translates as Spa Holiday Village and was inspired by visits to the Mosel and Rhine Valleys. The Marklin rolling stock runs on Marklin and Peco track among Heki ( and some scratch built) trees and Kibri kit buildings standing on polystyrene and ModRoc scenery dressed with Woodland Scenics material. The backscene was painted using emulsion and acrylics.



	Also in attendance were Troublesome Trucks, displays by the Festiniog Railway, Diesel and Electric Modellers United and a wiring demonstration by John Freer and Giles Walburn. Modelmania of Bristol (BTozer8649@aol.com) purveyed model rolling stock and accessories while Stewart Blencowe offered books, photographs and transport ephemera.