Hucclecote Model Railway Exhibition 2019

The 10th Hucclecote Model Railway Exhibition was held at Hucclecote Methodist Church, Carisbrooke Road, Hucclecote, Gloucester GL3 3QP – on the Number 10 bus route from Gloucester to Cheltenham – from 1000 to 1700 on Saturday 15 June 2019. Admission £5.00. Children free.

The 10th Hucclecote Model Railway Exhibition was held at Hucclecote Methodist Church, Carisbrooke Road, Hucclecote, Gloucester GL3 3QP – on the Number 10 bus route from Gloucester to Cheltenham – from 1000 to 1700 on Saturday 15 June 2019.  Admission £5.00.  Children free. Visitors who attended in previous years could confirm the warm welcome and the quality of the refreshments. 2019 was to be no different! Similarly, the range of exhibits at this charity show appealed to both keen modellers and local families.

The 2019 poster showed Stanier 0-4-4T 41900 standing at Barnwood shed awaiting its fate. This was the last of its class to be withdrawn, in 1962. It was fitted with push-pull apparatus, and its service included trains on the Tewkesbury and Upton-on-Severn line. The Stanier designed 2P Class of 0-4-4T was introduced in 1932 with a weight of 58 tons 1 cwt, a boiler pressure of 160 lb per square inch and twin inside cylinders of 182 bore and 26″ stroke.  Driving wheel diameter was 5′ 7″ and the tractive effort developed was  17 100 lb.

ATTRACTION REVIEW

SOMERSET LANE             7mm 0 Gauge   by Alex Hodges

Somerset Lane is a play on Devons Road, in Bow, east London – the first British Railways depot to be built for solely diesel traction.

Somerset Lane was a play on Devons Road, in Bow, east London – the first British Railways depot to be built for solely diesel traction. The period chosen for the layout was late 1950s and early 1960s and the stock of early BR diesel shunting and mainline locomotives reflected what would have been found in east London at that time.  The stock was a mixture of kit built and off the shelf items with some modification as required.  The layout was produced to see what operations could be performed in a small space in terms of an O Gauge layout. Despite the layout only being just under 9ft long, the aim was to always have something moving to maintain both operator and viewers’ interest. There was a small yard in front of the motive power shed to allow shunting with goods shed and loading docks.   Somerset Lane’s rolling stock included British Thomson-Houston Class 15 D8207 and – sporting more grilles than a chain of Little Chefs  – the even less successful North British Locomotive Class 16, in this case D8403.  The two discs on the Rugby built 800 bhp machine indicated an ordinary passenger or mixed train while the single disc code on its Caledonian cousin was for a branch freight or train stopping between signal boxes.

BARNWOOD HALT ENGINE SHED
4mm 00 Gauge  by Barnwood Model Railway Club

This layout allowed the younger audience members to drive a selection of 0-4-0 driven passenger and freight stock.

BILSTON ROAD ENGINE SHED
4mm 00 Gauge  by Robert and Roger Webb

This layout was built by Peter Cullen when he was a member of Solihull MRC. It represented a typical sub-shed located somewhere in the industrial West Midlands on the Western Region of British Railways during the mid-1960s. Locomotives returned for overnight servicing and simple running repairs. Some locos had been re-numbered and the majority had real coal added. Since the layout was sold by Peter, Robert has spent time re-furbishing it.

BLENHEIM ROAD        4mm 00 Gauge  by Reg Owens

Blenheim Road was a fictitious terminus set somewhere in South West London

Blenheim Road was a fictitious terminus Station set somewhere in South West London. This allowed a variety of rolling stock from other regions to access Blenheim Road via the West London Line through Kensington Olympia. The station track plan was loosely based on Cyril Freezer’s “Minories” plan adapted to Reg’s own operating and personal preferences. Layout construction featured a softwood timber frame with a plywood top. Peco track and points plus cosmetic outside 3rd rail were used throughout. The buildings and other structures were a mix of off the shelf, kit or kit bashed and scratch built using a variety of materials. Control was DCC (Digitrax) allowing the use of sound on some of the stock. Points and signals were controlled by a conventional DC (analogue) system.  In this picture, a multiple unit wired Class 33/1 stands with a rake of maroon carriages across a platform from a 2BIL electric multiple unit.  In the nomenclature of the Southern Railway – and later British Railways Southern Region – 2BIL indicated a two car unit with both carriages including lavatories.  They were eventually to become known as Class 401 under British Rail’s TOPS renumbering and were in service from 1935 to 1971.

DOCK STREET                     4mm   00 Gauge by Chris Hopper

Dock Street Sidings was a self-contained small layout built as a test track and also so Chris could still run the stock from his now sold “Pixash Lane” layout.

Dock Street Sidings was a self-contained micro layout built quickly as a test track and also so Chris could still run the stock from his now sold “Pixash Lane” layout. It was a simple set of sidings which can be used as an “Inglenook” shunting puzzle using wagon cards if required. Mr Hopper had added a short head shunt off scene to improve operations. The layout had been built using Peco Code 75 track and the buildings were a mixture of scratch-built, plastic kits and L-Cut. Chris also made use of Redutex 3D textured brick sheets. It was loosely based in the 1960/70s and depending on the stock used could be located on the BR Western Region somewhere in the Gloucester area or in the North Wales or Merseyside area on the London Midland Region. Both Blue and Green diesels were used. Chris could also run the layout with some more later stock from the “Railfreight” era. The layout was run with an NCE DCC system and many of the locomotives were sound chipped. The couplings were Kadees which were operated using fixed magnets. Chris tried to operate “hands off” as much as possible. The locomotives were detailed and weathered ready-to-run from Hornby, Bachmann, and Sutton’s Loco Works and the wagons were mainly Bachmann or kit-built. The British Rail Class 50 Diesel Locomotive – also, like the earlier Class 40, known as an English Electric Type 4 – was a Co-Co configuration engine built in 1967 and 1968 by English Electric at Vulcan Foundry at Newton-le-Willows.  Designed to haul passenger express trains on non-electrified stretches of the West Coast Main Line, 50 locomotives were built and renumbered from D400-449 and later to 50 001–50 050. The engines initially saw work to Preston, Lancaster, Carlisle and Glasgow and were redeployed to the Western Region after electrification was complete on the West Coast.  With the introduction of the HST in the West, they next saw service out of London Paddington to Birmingham until the late 1970s. After refurbishment, they worked from Paddington and Waterloo until complete withdrawal in the 1990s.

JOINT HARRIER STRIKE FORCE    

4mm  00 Gauge by Alan Drewett

The Joint Harrier Strike Force represented a Harrier – and US Marine Corps AV8A  – forward base somewhere in West Germany complete with tactical refueller, Bedford MK lorries, tanks and even a Sikorsky CH-3 Jolly Green Giant helicopter ready for a rescue behind enemy lines.  The Hawker Siddeley Harrier – introduced to the RAF on 1 April 1969 – and the Scorpion tank were news in the early 1970s and caught my imagination as a youngster at the time.

As relatively small strike aircraft,  Harriers were able to hide individually under camouflage nets, trees or structures such as bridges rather than sit together on an airfield dispersal area in the manner of Hawker Hunters or English Electric Lightnings.  As such an enemy would waste more time, energy and aircraft trying to locate and destroy them.

Once in the air too, the Harrier proved an agile and elusive target for opposing air superiority fighters because of its unique lift and propulsion system.  Unlike the earlier Short SC1 or later Yakovlev Yak-38 Forger – fitted with separate lift and thrust engines – the Harrier was built around a single example of Sir Stanley Hooker’s Bristol Siddeley ( later Rolls Royce ) Pegasus turbofan.  This supplied cold compressed air to the front and hot exhaust efflux at the rear to two pairs of jet nozzles which could be swivelled – or vectored – by the pilot.  When vectored downward, the Harrier rose vertically.  When vectored aft, the Harrier moved forwards and when vectored slightly forwards the Harrier slowed to a halt and moved backwards. This last manoeuvre – known as Vectoring in Forward Flight or Viffing – could be used to allow enemy fighters chasing a Harrier to overshoot and themselves become vulnerable to gun or missile fire.  However, once the Harrier had viffed, a large amount of energy was required to accelerate again.

JOURNEY’S END
4mm  009 Gauge by Nicholas Wheatley

A spooky addition to the October 2016 Cheltenham GWR Modeller's Exhibition for nearly Hallowe'en (and organiser Mike Walker's birthday!) Nicholas Wheatley's Journey's End’ features an 009 gauge (4mm scale) narrow gauge railway serving a cemetery. It is entirely fictional, set “somewhere in England”, though inspired by the London Necropolis Railway that ran from Waterloo to Brookwood, Surrey, from 1854 until 1941. The narrow gauge dimension was inspired by the Golden Valley Light Railway in Derbyshire, which runs from the Midland Railway Centre at Butterley towards a natural burial ground. The setting is almost timeless, but can be dated by use of different vehicles anytime from the present back to the 1950s.

Nicholas Wheatley’s Journey’s End’ featured an 009 gauge (4mm scale) narrow gauge railway serving a cemetery. It was entirely fictional, set “somewhere in England”, though inspired by the London Necropolis Railway that ran from Waterloo to Brookwood, Surrey, from 1854 until 1941. The narrow gauge dimension was inspired by the Golden Valley Light Railway in Derbyshire, which runs from the Midland Railway Centre at Butterley towards a natural burial ground. The setting was almost timeless, but can be dated by use of different vehicles anytime from the present back to the 1950s.

A particular, and probably unique, feature of the layout was its ghost train, comprising several ghost figures (made by Aidan Campbell) hauled by a diesel loco with a ghost headboard. There were also several Ffestiniog Railway hearse vans, in different liveries, and a model of the LSWR hearse van, as used on the London Necropolis Railway, is under construction for use on the layout. Other rolling stock, including steam and diesel locos, was mainly by Roco or Liliput, with some kit or scratch-built items, including a double ended railbus.

The basic structure – baseboard, track laying, wiring and controls – was professionally constructed in 2011 by Model Masters of Weston-Super-Mare. It had two tracks, independently operated, one a continuous loop, and several working features by Viessmann, including level crossing lights, a gravedigger (if he’s not too tired) and a man with a scythe (the Grim Reaper). A cemetery lodge and chapel were the main buildings on the layout, with several scratch-built mausoleum structures and platform waiting building also present.

The gravestones and monuments were from a variety of sources, including Hornby, Harburn Hamlet, Dornaplas, Langley, Woodland Scenics, Busch, etc and the angel statues and other figures were mainly by Preiser and Noch. The mausoleums were mostly scratch-built, though two were adapted Hornby Skaledale structures. The vehicles were also from a variety of sources, the hearses and limousines being from Oxford Diecast, and there were some horse drawn hearses and carriages by Preiser

GLB BITTERFELD

3.5mm H0 Gauge by Eric Bird

Bitterfeld was built primarily to demonstrate German DCC items of rolling stock and advances in model technology, as well as the Kadee magnetic uncoupling system.

GLB Bitterfeld represented a small permanent way yard and servicing depot for on track plant in Germany from 1980 to the present day.  The points used were recycled from a second-hand American layout. Bitterfeld was built primarily to demonstrate German DCC items of rolling stock and advances in model technology, as well as the Kadee magnetic uncoupling system.  The layout was powered by Roco Multimaus or NCE DCC control systems. Models shown were straight ”out of the box” or may have had some weathering.  Like their opposite numbers in Britain, these on track machines are painted yellow and often built by Plasser and Theurer, one of Austria’s biggest exporters.  Their tasks include lifting, cleaning and replacing ballast and tamping down new track – all jobs done more intensively by human labour many decades ago. A small DVD player was utilised to show the real life items and their use

Deutsche Bundesbahn, the West German Federal railways, benefited greatly from American Marshall Aid during the years of reconstruction after the Second World War and as a result embraced electrification to a much greater extent that Britain, which had to pay war debts to the USA while eventually modernising its national railway system.

THREE ACRES    
3mm TT Gauge by Phil Bird 

Three Acres was based on the station that was at Dymock in the Forest of Dean on the Gloucester to Ledbury line after the line from Dymock to Ledbury had been lifted. Although the station area and yard was a good representation of the site it was not totally accurate so hence the name change. Three Acres was chosen as there is a similar named place, Five Acres, close to Coleford and the area modelled is approximately three acres. The area to the left of the layout was purely fictional but was modelled to give that area some interest. Everything apart from the stock, which are from kits, was scratch built- a very time consuming pleasure. Dymock itself at this stage, from July 1959, had no passenger service being goods only, but Three Acres retained a service to the community as a rural terminus.

WINTERWELL ON THE FOSSE      

3mm TT Gauge by John Thomas

Winterwell-on the-Fosse was a fictitious small country market town (Winterwell actually exists as a large farmstead surrounded by numerous cottages and many stone built buildings). Set in the Cotswolds in the 1950s, it was served by a rural branch line.  The economy was very much agricultural as one would expect, based on this rural background.   It was envisaged that this branch tine (although now much rationalised) once formed part of the Midland and South Western Junction Railway. As such it would have been possible to see both locomotives and rolling stock from the GWR, LMS and Southern railways. The brewery complex was a kit which was altered and reduced to fit this scale, with other buildings added to complete this typical Cotswolds scene.

LITTLE ALLER JUNCTION

2mm N Gauge    by Chris Morris

The real Aller Junction is located a short distance west of Newton Abbot station on the Western Region main line to the South West. It is where the quadruple track from Newton Abbot splits into two double track lines. The one track is towards Plymouth and Cornwall while the other is for Torbay and Kingswear. Both lines handled express trains and large locos. 

Chris didn’t have sufficient room to build a scale model of the area so his layout had to be a caricature of Aller Junction and this is why it is called Little Aller Junction. It was set in the summers of the 1960s when diesel hydraulics were in command. The exact time period can vary from between 1962 and 1967 so, whilst most locos are maroon or green diesels visitors might have seen the odd steam hauled train or a rail blue loco.

OILY END IN THE BUSHEY AREA 2mm N Gauge    by Alan Drewett

First flown in 1949, the British-made Comet was the world's first jet airliner to go into regular service. It was designed to give Great Britain a definite edge in post-World War II transport and it was an immediate success.


Oily End in the Bushey Area began with the concept of an easily accessible and transportable test track to which other components could be added to form a layout. These initially comprised a concrete airfield to display 1/144 scale aircraft from the Jet Age Museum Reserve Model Collection and an oil tank farm recycled from components previously used on another N gauge layout.  This had been a “roundy” with British Railways late crest era freight trains held in a fiddle yard at the rear, moving to the front to cross on the passing loop of a single line.  Without such a fiddle yard, locomotives and brake vans would have to be reconfigured out of public view at either end of the straight track. But rather than tunnel mouths or over-line buildings I opted to use wooded hillsides – the bushy areas of the title – made from scrap wood, Gorilla glue, paint, trees, flock powder and lichen.  I also decided to describe the layout as being a branch line somewhere in rural Hertfordshire.  Hence the play on the town of Bushey, within easy flying distance of both the Handley Page works at Radlett and those of de Havilland at Hatfield.  In this picture  de Havilland Comet C4 XR397 – one of five supplied to RAF Transport Command – awaits refuelling from the tank farm while in the background Birmingham RCW Type 3 Bo-Bo D6572 hauls a train of Berry Wiggins oil wagons.

RIDDLE TOWN   2mm N Gauge    by Anthony Hubbard

Riddle Town was set in the 1960s / 1970s era. DMUs served the station and run to Old Town, where a small refuelling depot was situated. Most remarkable though was the amount of track and scenic opportunities that were packed into a relatively small layout without it seeming overcrowded. This was largely due to the fiddle yard being on one curve of the “roundy” and the rectangular scenic area being divided into two sections.

ST BRIDGETS   2mm N Gauge    by Chris Sharp

A Western Region country terminus on the Devon/Cornwall border. The local creamery provides milk for Bristol and the small but busy goods shed keeps inward and outward traffic moving. The local coal merchant also has a siding.

A Western Region country terminus on the Devon/Cornwall border. The local creamery provided milk for Bristol and the small but busy goods shed kept inward and outward traffic moving. The local coal merchant also had a siding. Chris was able to tell me that when the railways first linked the rest of Great Britain with Cornwall, most of the milk disappeared to London as well as china clay going to Staffordshire and tin going to plating mills all over the country. Later on though, steps were taken to end the milk famine. The station building on St Bridgets is also based on the former Midland Railway station at Nailsworth, Gloucestershire.

STATIC EXHIBITS

CROSSWAYS 4mm  00 Gauge by Ryan Birch

1/76 scale model bus fleet, operating in the same fictional universe as the North Western Road Car (Gloucestershire) Limited and based in depots in Gloucester and Stroud. In association with Somerset based southwestbus, Crossways operates its Flexicoach brand between cities and to cruise liner departures and special events. Crossways also handles most of the Cheltenham Gold Cup traffic and has vehicles ranging from minibuses to bendy buses!

GLOUCESTERSHIRE ROAD HAULAGE IN MINIATURE 4mm  00 Gauge by Paul and David Mellor

The Mellor Brothers delighted visitors with their ever growing collection of 1:76 hand built lorries – many of them operated by Moreton C. Cullimore -dating from the 1950s until the present day. Drewett’s Lane layby was home to Jen’s Red Hot Food Bus, marauding Herring Gulls and an encounter between someone enjoying a vacation under canvas and a moped rider.

“You must be the camper”

“Well, that Vespa isn’t very butch!”

TO THE MANOR BURNT 4mm  00 Gauge by Martin Nash

One of the great joys of the Cheltenham GWR Modellers Group Exhibitions is the unexpected takes on engineering. A visitor might have anticipated different presentations on the Great Western Railway or moving coal but how about a manor house burning down? Fire is a good servant but a bad master, and ever since man – uniquely among animals – first discovered how to create it the two have had a difficult relationship. On one hand, fire kept mankind warm, cooked food and warded off dangerous animals before boiling water to make steam. On the other hand, it required containment in stone or brick to avoid setting wood or other combustible material alight. Out of control, fire has burned down forests, entire cities and even parliaments – sometimes with truly horrific results. To counteract this, fire fighting technology has progressed from human water bucket chains to the kind of diesel powered ladder and pump appliance seen on Martin’s diorama.

One of the great joys of the Hucclecote Model Railway Exhibitions is the unexpected takes on engineering. A visitor might have anticipated different presentations on the Great Western Railway or moving coal but how about a manor house burning down?  Fire is a good servant but a bad master, and ever since man – uniquely among animals – first discovered how to create it the two have had a difficult relationship.  On one hand, fire kept mankind warm, cooked food and warded off dangerous animals before boiling water to make steam. On the other hand, it required containment in stone or brick to avoid setting wood or other combustible material alight.  Out of control, fire has burned down forests, entire cities and even parliaments – sometimes with truly horrific results.  To counteract this, fire fighting technology has progressed from human water bucket chains to the kind of diesel powered ladder and pump appliance seen on Martin’s diorama.

A TASTE OF AMERICA

1/87 Scale (3.5mm to the foot) by Vincent Tweed

Having impressed us over the years with his Southdown buses and transport rally dioramas, Vincent took Hucclecote visitors to Miss Bettie’s Diner, Colorado, USA with a dazzling array of chrome and tailfins parked outside. He commented:

“Since my first visit to the United States I have held a fascination for diners, especially those constructed with a stainless steel finish. Miss Bettie’s Diner is found on a busy highway sometime in the 1960s. The now disused rail track will eventually become an extension to a nearby preserved railroad. The ranch is a stud for breeding racehorses and also houses a collection of vintage tractors and farm machinery which is open to visitors at weekends. The diner is a grey Walther’s Cornerstone kit sprayed to achieve a stainless steel finish and with added detail. The cars are from the Oxford Diecast range and various US manufacturers with the majority of figures by Woodland Scenics.”

DREWITT HALL

2mm  N Gauge by Vincent Tweed

Drewitt Hall was Vincent’s first foray into 1/148 and N Gauge and depicted a National Trust property located in the heart of the Sussex countryside.  It was constructed towards the end of the 18th Cebtury by Lord William Drewitt on the site of an earlier mansion destroyed in a major fire.  Passed down through the generations, this ancestral home was donated to the Trust by the last in the family line, Lord Alan, in 1957.  He lives in a private wing of the ancestral pile and is seen driving his Vauxhall Cresta estate along his private drive

The remainder of the property features rooms depicting life over the past centuries.  Many of the family heirlooms are on display for visitors to appreciate and enjoy.  The house is open each year from March to November, with the winter months spent on maintenance and cleaning.  Regarded as an important property to visit, people travel from far and wide arriving by car and coach.  Coach companies arrange special day trips or include a visit in their holiday itineraries.  The nearby single track railway is now freight only as, sadly, all the stations along the line, including the one serving the estate, were closed some years ago. 

SALES STANDS

KEITH’S BITS AND PIECES

A wide selection of new and second hand trains and accessories were on sale. Keith also runs the charitable Weston-super-Mare model railway show, held twice a year in January and September. Tel: 01934 425 075 keithvictorprice@hotmail.co.uk

RECON LOCOS

Specialising in loco refurbishment and sale of second-hand locomotives. Will tackle anything providing spares can be sourced.

DEMONSTRATIONS

GLOUCESTER MODEL RAILWAY CLUB

The club meets regularly at Elmscroft Community Centre on Monday evenings and other times to work on current layout projects.  Web site: www.gmrclub.org.uk.

RAILWAY ARTIST

ROB ROWLAND

A member of the Guild of Railway Artists, based in Gloucestershire who impressed visitors with his detailed and highly atmospheric paintings.