A tour of the project
Starting from Doves Holes Tunnel SB was fairly straight forward - it already existed, at least two-thirds did, another baseboard was needed here. However the laid track had suffered from years of storage and had been built using flat bottom rail (c.1960 era) which now needed ageing to around c.1930, so it was removed and replaced by steel bullhead rail.
There is not a lot happening in this diorama, it will be mainly green from grass and trees, with one occupation bridge and a small stream plus two tunnel mouths. Well not quite true, there is a complex of drainage channels a platelayers hut and nearly all the signals are "specials". Today all the detail is lost to nature as the line is still in use as a single line so all there is to work from are old pictures and the memories of one visit to the area. Furthermore the plans had to be shortened, by about 3m in length, but hope it will look quite realistic when "complete".
The signal box is a converted "Melton Lines" kit and the adjacent huts will be made from no longer available Nu-Cast kits. The two tunnel mouths are carved from plastic sheet while the stone colours of the occupation bridge still needs correcting. Some progress has been made with making tapered wooden signal posts and two buffer stops have been fashioned from timber sleepers, mileposts and tunnel name boards have been made but not yet installed. The platelayers hut has been built along with a roof-less derelict hut near Dover Holes Tunnel nut both need some detailing.
The rising ground to the rear is being extended over storage loops which we hope will give the scene some more atmosphere. This will be backed by the rear of the backscreen to Canal Street to enclose both dioramas and hide the circular route storage loops. A small forest of large shrubs or trees will be needed for the hillside. While the stream was given coats of PVA for water, if laid too thickly does not set transparent, it stays a white colour. Only later a layer of clear silicon mastic was added to it, though this may lose some of its shine.
An empty hopper train approaches Dove Holes Tunnel returning to Tunstead Sidings.
In the distance is Chapel LNWR Tunnel, really a bridge carrying the LNWR line to Buxton.
Peak Forest cutting and Bubnell sidings were the next sections to be developed. This needed early construction because it would be difficult to reach over to Bubnell Sidings as the baseboard for Canal Street was added .
Above the cutting is one end of Bubnell Sidings with a lonely gunpowder store and a derelict wagon chassis hidden in the undergrowth. Here some flock has lost much of its original colour from being bleached by strong sunlight and has now turned a bright yellow colour. Later we shall be trying to spray it to a duller heather colour or a pale straw depending upon its location.
Some derelict quarry buildings have to be built and an old water tower added to Bubnell Sidings once the pointwork has been made to work. More track has been made, but will not be laid until we have settled the baseboard alignment. Two double arm signals and more fencing will need installing, plus the signal box and quarry buildings and maybe a stop/shunt/blasting signal as well. A version of a Period One Midland Signal box has been started for Bubnell, a tall and small cabin. This also uses the Melton Line components, with added height curtsey of EverGreen clapboard sheets and like all the signal boxes will have new windows from AMBIS with 0.5mm glazing from acrylic sheet. All signal boxes also have etched name boards, but no steps or interiors until other adjacent scenic details are completed.
From the deep cutting the main line cuts through the hills, crosses a lifting bridge and passes over a level crossing to arrive at LowDale Station.
This area is the least developed with a few trail shells made from foam board for buildings. The main station building is likely to be based upon the plans for Elstree. It has a bay platform a bit like that at Millers Dale and also reflects the Low Dale layout plan of Malcolm Cross. Here a large warehouse building will dominate the station yard while close by will be a few marshalling sidings for goods arriving from the North (Liverpool and Manchester areas).
Low Dale might have been a more appropriate name for the real Peak Forest Station that closed for passengers in the 1960's, but ironically this is the highest point on the Midland Railway's Peak Line into Manchester. We only adopted this name after failing to find a better alternative.
LowDale is very similar to the station in the original figure of eight plan, but with a longer extra baseboard that has allowed for three Up service reception loops to be long enough for moderately lengthy trains. The Down side has more limited facilities, the space available being used for a motive power depot based on a plan of Coalville engine shed. We have nominated this is the depot for this area ignoring the new Rowsley facility built by the Midland Railway, it particularly located for servicing train engines from trains split or being joined at LowDale.
Going further Northwards the track narrows down to pass under a skew bridge to enter the New Mills cameo. This is quite a bit different from the real New Mills, a mirror image of the real place but on a ledge beneath which is a river with a large mill building. We call this Torr Vale Junction where services to Liverpool or Manchester divide. This is the "end" of the model going Northwards as Manchester is a reversing loop and Liverpool is the circular storage loops.
To make it possible to run "there and back" trains the reverse loops will also have bi-directional sidings for either a push/pull train or diesel multiple unit operation. An equivalent arrangement for the circular route loops has been built - a scissors crossover added to the central pair of the eight loop lines.
Leaving the Liverpool loops in the anti-clockwise direction, what we call Derby, the mainline climbs up to Calver Station. Calver as a place exists, North of Chatsworth, but it never had a railway, although there were plans suggesting using the Derwent Valley as a route from Matlock/Rowsley to Edale.
Calver Station is a mixture of ideas and places. A plan for a model appeared in Railway Modeller called Dewsbury was used as a basis for the Manchester Model Railway Society layout xxxxxxxx. However we have changed this plan quite a bit and decided to use the Water Orton Station building plans situated on an overbridge for our model. It is our version of Hellifield or Trent, starting as a central island platform configuration. Only subsequently a third platform face was added and then the narrow gauge "Eyam Light Railway" was built, in memory of the real Ashover Light Railway.
Calver Station replaces the storage loops once proposed for the layout. As there is now an access gangway between the line and LowDale it allows for a more railway like operation here, so we now envisage it as a real junction for services to the city branch line, for access to the second reversing loop lines we call Chesterfield as well as the goods facilities at Canal Street.
At Calver South the left hand line heads towards Bubnell and Chesterfield, the central line is the Derby "cut off" and the right hand line leads to Canal Street goods. The Eyam Light Railway was an extra development to give Calver a better scene by adding the band of trees in the background.
As we were working through service options it became clear some level of coaching stock storage would probably be needed. The only place we could identify was in a corner leading off of the running lines at Calver. This we call Albert Park, mainly because of the link to Queen Victoria's Prince Albert being a common accolade in many Victorian era developments. The carriage sidings are reached through Albert Park Junction, the only surviving part of the upper storage loops from the figure of eight plan. The running lines rising above the main line are the city branch that cross over the old main line. In the foreground is the new "cut off" line.
Next is the section based upon images of the Church Road area in Birmingham. This was a narrow linking baseboard in the original plans, with one high level line above the main line in a cutting. We have modified this concept and the high level line goes not to a goods depot, it has become part of the city branch. It is very steep for steam train operation and heavy trains may need banking up it, especially the coal supplies to the works at Treacle Lane on the edge of a town, notionally Sheffield. The through station at the top of the incline has some reflection of Marple Station with a squarish signal box located on the station platform and a third platform face for workman's trains to and from the works. We have added a coal yard and turntable as the city terminus has no space for a large turntable, hence there will be light engine movements to and from the terminus as well as turning the coal train engines. The city branch will only be constructed after the reversing loops beneath it are completed.
It is planned to emulate the hopper trains services with the coal supplies trains. This includes fitting a large turntable at Treacle Lane, copying the real facility at Great Rocks provided for turning the ICI hopper engines.
Once the mainline leaves Albert Park Junction it passes a closed station we call Stoke Hall before entering a long tunnel emerging at Dove Holes where we started our tour. A real Stoke Hall exists in the locality of Calver, we are recalling the nature of wealthy and powerful land owners being bribed by railway promoters by offering them a station built for their use, only for subsequent generations to turn their back on using private trains.
The other line from Calver heads towards Chesterfield passing Bubnell quarry en route. This we envisage was the first real railway in the area and successive changes of ownership and developments altered Calver until it was rebuilt by the Midland Railway around 1910. This included a new "cut-off" line towards Derby. The Chesterfield line will only be developed once the Manchester reversing loops are completed as they pass over them, though Bubnell itself will proceed at a faster rate to the lifting bridge that is the main entrance to the layout room.
We imagine a pre-existing mineral line was developed into the main goods yard for Calver where it linked to the canal system, factories, a brewery and a large woollen mill.
Calver we imagine was turning into a large industrial town, very much against the inclinations of the Devonshire's at Chatsworth, but then ours is an imaginary railway. We have also made the Derwent Valley and the Torr Valley much closer to each other than they are in reality. Our LowDale is somewhere in the locality of Chapel-en-le-Frith through which the ICI hopper trains used to operate from Tunstead Sidings going Northwards towards Stockport, but never towards Rowsley and Matlock where Calver is situated. Again this is just in my imaginary world it is not a precise copy of reality.
There are quite a few short goods branches on the Midland Railway network, so we felt another to Canal Street would be acceptable. It is also based around the warehouse branches found in East London - off the Fenchurch Street line of the London Tilbury & Southend Railway and inspired by the published plans produced by Iain Rice. The large factory buildings were started in parallel with the layout plan so Canal Street was designed to accommodate them and includes a competition model, A4 in size, of a workshop made during the 1970's. One building uses Bachmann DPM modules, one a Walters Cornerstone kit and the other is from Kibri, none of which were built following the manufacturers instructions. Another kit(s) is due to be butchered to make a brewery building using inspiration from Kentish Town - the "Dogs Head Brewery" featured in many photographs of locomotives at the Kentish Town Depot.
This is by any scale a mammoth project. In 2019 the Railway Modeller decided that this was being built for "OO" gauge stock. But they were wrong, I have made it more difficult for myself by deciding to use P4-ish standard trackwork despite being involved with EM gauge models for many years and having left "OO" behind as a toy train, though this was years ago before the current range of ready to run stock was ever thought of and made available for adult collectors. If I were starting now maybe I would work in "OO" too.
Railway serviced factories being built for Canal Street goods depot.
Alan Austin 2022.