Tales from Ropeway Sidings - No.3
The Foundry Goes Roaming
It is during those dark moments with no moon, a gale is blowing through the trees and horizontal rain is lashing the windows can inanimate objects come to life ? A blunted knife shaped pencil, characteristically leaning in a left handed pose, pauses only to puff away at a filter tipped fag, creating a ”to do” list. From time to time a well worn cardigan weighed down by a packet of ciggies and a disposable lighter, both elbows exposing the shirt beneath and with cuffs rolled back ready for work, shuffles from stool to sink to fill the kettle for another brew of tea.
Earlier in the evening some hours had been spent fiddling with a few insignificant jobs, geeing up the troops and making small talk with those of different persuasions before the rush to down a few pints before last orders. On return to a much quieter clubroom an hour or so would be spent in more fevered activity as in perhaps six weeks the layout would be at another show with the latest additions unveiled.
Most effort was really spent during the other evenings of the week or over free weekends, gradually removing items from the do list. That pile of rubbish, finishing of the new bothy, repairing the failed 4F, lettering the new rake of mineral wagons, building the new trackwork or finding the real fault in the electrical wiring. There was AB the scenic detail expert, provider of most stock, in reality a corporate accountant, and AA a reincarnation of George Hudson, civil engineer and much maligned empire builder, in reality educated as a town planner. Others had turned up got stuck into tasks requiring special expertise such as ballasting, electronics, stage lighting, signalling or provided essential logistical support. Some came and went after a while unable or unwilling to find a niche to settle into. From a small band of three youngsters and a part-timer the band grew to over a dozen on paper. Some had migrated from other groups in the club, or in from the streets as fame spread, but no more than five at any time were ever seriously active constructors.
This had all started because the main layout was always stored in pieces, only coming out during the annual exhibition at the Town Hall. The older, experienced and long standing members had detected a need for a more moderate scale model, otherwise known as the “small portable layout” that could be erected in a evening, used and stored away again in that evening. The club committee had agreed to this and around 1971 the first baseboard construction had started. The layout plan turned out to be a modeller’s version for a single track branch terminus, somewhat devoid of any character or identity. Progress was invisible, it was not an apprenticeship as it seemed the tradition of old faces turning up infrequently with something finished, was being followed. Over a year passed and the youngsters decided to move on progress a bit, particularly as it became known that the large layout “Totnes” was going to be stood down from the exhibition. To avoid being left out as it was felt, to become porters and stewards, the active “EM” group pushed ahead with “Sherdington” as it became known, as an under construction modelling demonstration with bare baseboards and some working stock.
In those days “EM” exhibition layouts were something of a rarity. So being present in the exhibition worked in one surprising and unexpected way – we were asked if we would exhibit the layout at Southend the following year. We agreed, and set about making the layout fit as we saw it, to visit an exhibition, with better rolling stock, scenery and even signals. Unfortunately the older members were clearly taken aback by this invitation and declined to positively contribute to showing the club flag!
But we didn’t care, there was a clear target to aim at, though our experience in such matters was lacking. The layout design used a traditional unit sizes – two, four and six feet lengths, so for transport we eventually persuaded a neighbour’s relative to fill their big estate car with some of the layout to take it to the show. Even then part of it projected out of the back, fortunately both trips, there and back was in dry weather.
It was all a bit frantic and the start of a steep learning curve about exhibition etiquette and building an exhibition layout. But a die had been cast, a path of perpetual evolution. Even for this first exhibition during the nights before one point was converted to an interlaced three way switch, in-situ, because there was an operational bottleneck and the turntable would require more clearance than the existing siding provided.
It may have been co-incidence but the long established EM modellers soon afterwards moved on to 7mm:1 foot scale. This one exhibition appearance started off a chain reaction of invitations to other local exhibitions, but thereafter we always used a hire vehicle. All the reasons for this, will shortly be made clear.
We needed bigger and better transport capacity. The immediate success with the layout expanded the interest in the EM group. As really a two person layout, all group members standing shoulder to shoulder behind it would be longer than the layout. Not all railway interests could be accommodated by a single platform station with run around immediately leading to a fiddle yard. So we went back to the original approved plan. This had proposed a 90 degree curve between the station and the fiddle yard as phase two. Following the committee’s approval we set about building this curved section. But there was a difference from the original plan which the caused the committee to hesitate, outside the running line where a mineral branch track had been proposed, we would build Ropeway Sidings, where the main line trains would exchange wagons with an industrial railway.
We should add here that “Totnes” was built under the management of a true GWR follower, as newcomers we were not of that persuasion; more followers of the dirty working railways of industrial areas, than the pristine holiday line. As previously visitors, courtesy of the Home Countries Railway Club, both AB and AA had independently visited many engine sheds spotting engines during their rest days, nearly all simmering, grimy black, big freight steam locomotives. With the ending of main line steam, by this time, we were trekking many miles across the country to see the only ones left working, the industrial locomotives, usually on NCB railways or those at the preserved railway centres.
The only issue was that AB was a coal man and AA was more interested in limestone traffic. We compromised, coal and ironstone traffic would be the mainstay of the model; AB could already supply the coal trains, but I had no ICI bogie hoppers, but if we were to use ironstone it would justify the short trains we had space for and the use of large locomotives. Then any special wagon could be integrated into layout operation as it became available.
To add extra scenic value to the model the corner section would feature a small factory; and if we then built a rope worked incline based upon the Cromford & High Peak line, a later extension could be built rising high enough to allow the fiddle yard to rotate underneath it.
This is how the first extension became known as “Ropeway Sidings”, which bearing in mind what we knew from JS Tonk’s book “Ironstone Railways and Tramways of the East Midlands” a copy of which was found in the club library, was quite plausible. Except for two things “Sherdington” was not in the ironstone district and most of the rope worked ironstone lines were narrow, not standard gauge. A straw poll decided that “Eastwell” was a better name for the station and henceforth “Sherdington” was renamed, this time with proper angled name boards as used by the Midland Railway.
Further research had discovered more about the Eaton branch of the LNER, which had a Midland arm to Holwell Ironworks and where co-incidentally a new coal mine was shortly to be announced for the Ashfordby district. It had been useful to have some basic knowledge of geological formations, we knew there could be coal under the ironstone deposits. So we had predicted a coal and ironstone railway, though these were almost thirty years apart, what was missing was a time shift to back the 1930’s, the favourite modelling period at that time.
This building up of a background for the model gave it features lacking in the first plan. A clear identity, our scenery could reflect a real location and building style and provide a justification for our railway history and its source of traffic. This led to providing a complex working timetable, which could utilise a wide range of different train formations of both LMS and LNER origins. Although starting from a Midland’s background this had become a bit restrictive, as one of our more useful new recruits had declared an interest in the local GER - well at least this formed part of the LNER. The historic dominance of chocolate and cream and green could remain so – historic.
In 1975 at the Milton Keynes exhibition the new shape layout was first presented. At this time Ropeway Sidings was just black painted baseboard. Close by was Heckmondwike the new flagship P4 layout. To our satisfaction the Ropeway Sidings extension was operational whereas this other layout had long intervals when the irritating sound of block signalling bell signals, was occasionally broken by the movement of a train. This underlined our commitment to try to keep at least one engine working on the layout at all times, though not a feature of prototypical railway activity, but necessary for a public exhibition and to never consider the introduction of the audible aspects of block section operations, but when possible to use lights or images.
Undaunted we kept on going, the next feature to be completed being Joseph Ellis’s foundry. AB researched how an iron foundry would work and built most of it, including a large corrugated iron building made from flattened take away food trays and the top of a shampoo bottle. To speed up progress in building works, Bob was asked to build a corrugation machine. This became the mechanism used to produce “Eastwell Corrugated Iron” which funded the continued construction of the layout. A quick check on expenditure suggested that every extra square foot of layout would cost on average over £5 in scenic materials alone and those sort of figures were well above the total budget traditionally requested from the club for complete layouts!
Until going to Southend the only exhibition we had been involved with had been the Ilford club’s annual event. Other exhibitions attended had been as a member of the public and these had been limited to Central Hall and more recently the Chase Boys School exhibition in Enfield. There was a significant contrast between the format each show had adopted; the formality, crowds and commercialism at Central Hall, the bygone era exemplified at Ilford Town Hall using booths apparently modelled on Central Hall, to the more bustling market place atmosphere of Enfield. As we were invited to attended more shows as exhibitors it became clearer there was much more involved behind the scenes with exhibiting than we had seen before.
There had developed in the club a rivalry between the EM group and the OO group exhibiting “Hartleybrook and Titchfield”, lead it appeared by Geoff Silcock who also acted as the club publicity officer. It was though him that we heard about the CMRA convention, where member clubs were set a themed challenge. As few other club members were seemed interested in events outside the clubrooms, we decided to take to the convention the recently finished foundry model.
A little late on a Saturday morning, Joseph Ellis’s foundry was squeezed into a car and taken to the canteen of the Hawker Siddeley factory at Hatfield as a late entry into the competition. We were taken aback by winning and had to return with a large framed Cuneo print of a Jubilee, a Castle and his characteristic mouse as the prize. This the languished for some years in the club library until it was returned to the CMRA, who had by then decided not to continue holding an annual modelling competition and instead promote improving modelling standards, leading by example through their annual exhibition in St Albans.
The foundry returned to Ilford and for years formed the cornerstone to the Eastwell layout. Starting from a 16 feet long layout – or just under 5 metres, it was eventually extended to a 20 feet square L shape and then into a mirror image F shape. Frequently at about 3-4 hours journey time back to the clubroom an exhibition was not over on a Sunday evening but after 1am the next morning. At a rate of about six exhibitions per year, many of which were two day events this was just a few hours before going to work. The operators and the layout began to tire and exhibition managers started to wince at the cost of exhibiting the layout. As a fairly regular exhibitor at the Market Deeping Club exhibition, initiated by receiving the “best exhibit” prize, forcing a return match the next year, a new precedent was set – can you bring a smaller layout with reduced overheads next yearquestion
Paul the group leader at the time had an idea – to take only the crusher plant baseboard as it was known. This was the layout extension that hid the fiddle yard, but as fiddle yard operations were quite hectic the crusher plant had become almost a static scene as the operator had difficulty reaching and operating it, unless they were tall, had long arms and were quite agile. It took about ten months to plan out this new layout extension and about 4 weeks to build. Planning was protracted by the customary expansionist plans seemingly conflicting with the idea of a small portable layout that could be taken to exhibitions. In the end three new baseboards were initially built containing only plain trackwork and no wiring complications. The quarry feature was included making the layout a T shape. It would feature only ironstone traffic and industrial engines and quickly took the name “Mini-Eastwell”, though 16 feet long and almost 8 feet deep is was not exactly small.
Clearly, as requested the reduced layout could only sustain a reduced number of operators when attending exhibitions and this more seriously divided the group into two camps. But there was more to this than that. The continued expansion of the layout and its frequent exhibiting, seemed to upset other parts of the club. Some of the members thought an invitation to an exhibition should extend to the whole club, and they would then decide if the invitation would be accepted and who or which layout would be offered. The clubroom was just under 20 feet wide and the full Eastwell layout could only be erected in the clubroom as a “Vee” shape taking up some 28 feet of the clubroom. So we had gone almost full circle. From “Totnes” a layout 23 feet by 12 which was only erected during the annual club three day exhibition, to one that nearly always packed for transit to an exhibition or whose parts were undergoing necessary maintenance or improvements but used about fifteen days a year.
The “Mini-Eastwell” builders made it clear to the club that they considered the new bits as a private layout which would normally be stored outside the clubroom and that the use of the club part would be expected to be honoured without question as this continued to advertise the club name. To try to calm the growing rift a new plan was put to the club – to build three more baseboards for Eastwell to make it a U shape taking up less clubroom space, being only 20 feet long, but excluding club funding for this venture. This illusion was duly approved, baseboards were built, new track laid and basic scenery was started. During this time “Mini” continued to be exhibited, but overall the enthusiasm had started to flag.
While Eastwell had been invited to many club exhibitions and no reciprocal invitation had ever been made as the Ilford club rarely invited other clubs to their show. As compensation we set ourselves up as the East London FineScale Group and joined the CMRA organisation. We ran three exhibitions in Wanstead, firstly in the library and then the examination’s room of a nearby school. This event was based to some degree on the EXPO format used by the EMGS but applied across all modelling scales. However successful from the point of content these were barely financially viable, as nobody really minds paying a little for a good day out. Whilst we nearly broke even we felt unable to continue these shows because we had not attracted enough visitors. Then two subsequent events brought this experiment to an end, though we like to think that the Watford club who attended the last Wanstead show, have employed much more successfully the same spirit in running their weekend exhibition.
Back in the Ilford clubroom as a short term measure to please the main line railway supporters a fourth baseboard was built. This enabled Eastwell Station to be connected to the fiddle yard and in this format Eastwell Station had been exhibited on a number of occasions since 1985. The group – largely a rabble of enthusiastic bachelors had been fragmenting. For example Paul’s job had moved from Kings Cross to Hereford; he and Gary were basically blue diesel era modellers, AB was still a steam fan but had started to build his own small colliery layout Coleorton No2 for his industrial engines. I had married and was becoming detached from the bachelor circle, John and Ebernezer were finding travelling increasingly difficult and both Mike and Martin were becoming concerned about their families and futures.
Then during one cold spell a water pipe in the clubroom burst ruining the floor. The steps taken to remedy this damage further divided the whole club and what at one time had been friendly rivalry between sections with different interests, turned into something close to undeclared war. A final blow occurred in May 1987. A myocardial infarction. Our friend AB who glued the section together died aged 39 and incidentally left the non-club joint assets homeless.
Over the next year the EM group at the Ilford club virtually disappeared. Those remaining were bequeathed a small circular layout plan code named “Browning Road” as a model they could build just to play trains. Following a stay in a damp basement space “Mini” moved to Hereford. From there it appeared at exhibitions under Paul’s management using the name “Eastwell Ironstone Company” in an ever expanding and flexible design. This largely used Paul and Greg’s stock of diesels for over ten years, until they were bitten by a desire to model at 12 inches to 1 foot scale.
Most of “Eastwell Station” was acquired from the Ilford club and it resided in basic garden shed for a number of years before moving to Hutton and after time in a spare room were put into a proper insulated garden shed. The odd part, the foundry baseboard was spirited away and turned up at the Cottesmore Museum after some years, and was last seen looking sadly neglected in the brick weighbridge building before being moved to a private house of a member. However though our contacts with the Rutland Railway there was a small hope that it may be re-acquired to be reunited with the rest of Eastwell.
Some parts of “Mini” were extended by using the last and unfinished Eastwell baseboards and Ropeway Sidings was cannibalised in the development of “Eastwell Ironstone Company”. This was contrary to the previous policy of adapting and extending, but storage space was at a premium. But with new flora and refurbishment of the foundry buildings, coupled with rewiring of Ropeway Sidings and small modifications to the last unfinished expansion baseboards the Eastwell branch could be reborn. On paper Coleorton No.2 could be added to the branch as both layouts use the standard EMGS dimensions for trackwork, and they share a common ancestry, including baseboard height and design and rolling stock.
If this were to happen it could mean Eastwell would be the oldest and largest portable model railway over forty years in the making. Not so much a layout, as a way of life, as John once put it.
The ELFs soldered on much reduced in numbers and due to health, family and work commitments for a number of years though more of an apparition than a reality. Never-the-less five more personal layouts are being built by members the team. Mike became a prominent figure in the EMGS, built a layout and joined another local club, Paul became an irregular contributor to a monthly magazine whilst I went on to produce parts wanted for the layout developments becoming a manufacturer of components and the continued source of Eastwell Corrugated Iron and Geoff became to author of a number of articles in an esteemed magazine.
Should any invitation be received provided sufficient notice is given an exhibit could have been provided, though the resources to do this are spread far thinner across England than once they used to be. Then in 2009 after ill health and following another move from East London the ELFs we declared extinct and resignation from the CMRA followed.
The CMRA provided us with a lifeline to keep in touch with a wide community of modellers and from time to time a forum to present our latest experimental designs. Instead of being a formally organised club, the CMRA started as an association of clubs for self help regarding exhibitions and other common interests. It has grown and prospers as a forum for this. Beside the usual type of locality based clubs a number of national societies and a number of other groups are also members of the association.
Perhaps the Chilterns Model Railway Association ought to have four grades of members. One would be (national) societies whose principle aim is self publicity. The next would be clubs based upon the original formula for the CMRA – self help and exhibition support. The third would be “small clubs” – really groups of like-minded modellers who don’t have a club constitution, clubroom or operate public exhibitions but can make a joint contribution to the hobby. These were all current CMRA members at the same level.
A fourth could be a new grade of associated individuals, railway modellers who prefer to work alone but could be interested in having some privileges that can be gained from society or club membership. The CMRA could enable facilities such as being listed as the contact for a layout that would be prepared to attend exhibitions or just for advanced warning of exhibition dates though this usually achieved through “the grape vine”. But it could provide a basis for the continued progress of the CMRA to reach out to all those involved with railway modelling under a broad umbrella and speak with one voice.
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