NSW – 0054 - Layout of the Quarter - ASHWOOD DALE – TCH118

By Rob Lees

 

All photographs by the author except where noted.

 

Figure 1- Ashwood Dale Lime Works

 

How it began.

In 1993 Christopher Lord and I were on a demonstration stand at the Kurri Kurri model Railway exhibition, we were supposed to be showing how to paint figures. At that time, I had been experimenting with Alex Jackson couplings and I took along with me my EM Gauge 1.2 metre long test track, loco and some wagons and had them sitting on the front of our demo table. When not painting I would amuse myself doing some shunting of the wagons into the three sidings. With no visible means of uncoupling it was attracting more people watching the loco pushing the wagons into different sidings and leaving them there or picking them up again, than were interested in our painting. Chris suggested that I should add a bit more length to the test track and turn it into a small shunting layout for the next time we do another demo stand. The seed was sown and it was not long before I had made the length 2.1 metres and at the same width of 160mm. Being so narrow, it was very limited in what could be done. I therefore started to think in terms of a small exhibition layout with two scenic boards 1.8m x .45m with a 4-track fiddle-yard giving a total length of 4.8m.

 

At the time I was heavily involved with the rebuilding of “Dartmouth”, the G W R layout I purchased in 1990, built by David Mitchell and Derek Pitman of Canberra. I purchased it from a fellow from Forbes and it was in a bad state, the track work board levels needed realigning at all the board joints. The track work in to the goods yard was all trouble and a large amount needed to be rebuilt. The electrics also needed renewing into a much more simplified format. With a third of the track needing to be rebuilt, I decided that I may as well rebuild it to EM Gauge standards. After having spent so much modelling time with Dartmouth I decided that with the new mini lay-out I would return to my first love of the Midland Railway.

 

Baseboard construction history

The layout started out as an extension to the test track constructed from 50mm x 25mm maple framework with a top of 12mm pineboard. Some of the old frame has been retained in the new construction. 9mm five‑ply has been used for the new framework with a top surface, where needed, of 12mm pineboard. Around 1995 I commenced to build and lay the track on the two new boards, also building a 4-road traverser, 1200mm long. The layout, in an embryonic stage of construction, made its first showing at the Epping exhibition in 1997. I was supposed to take Dartmouth but, due to my work van developing steering problems on the Friday morning, I had no way of carrying Dartmouth. So as not to let the Epping Club down we managed to fit Ashwood Dale in my car and small trailer, turning up with a very unfinished layout. The track layout at that time was a single line from fiddle yard to a station with run around and a three-road goods yard running off the run around.  There was very little scenic work.  After a couple more exhibitions it became clear that the station was inadequate, and I therefore built another 1200mm module on the station end.  In 1998 I sold Dartmouth to Tom Clune which gave me a lot more space in the Railway room to develop Ashwood Dale.

 

Over the next 12 or so months the width of boards was widened to 600mm which allowed the rear scenery to be improved.  The 1200mm board was extended to 1800mm and another 5-road traverser was installed at the other end of the layout.  The layout is now 3 by 1800mm scenic boards plus a 1200mm 4 track traverser and a 1500mm part scenic traverser.  The length has now grown from 1.2m x 160mm to 8.35m x 600mm with a track plan as shown.  Legs and pelmet framing are constructed from 45mm x 19mm radiata pine.  The back scene has been glued to 3mm customwood sheet.

 

 

The story behind the name

I have been a modeller of some sorts for as long as I can remember. It all started in the Second World War when we would get wood and nails etc. from bomb damage sites and make ships or aeroplanes, using a pen knife and concrete as a file to shape the wood. My interest in model railways did not start until my mid-twenties and, as I left the UK at age 16 when I joined the Merchant Navy, other than commuting for 4 years to Waterloo on the blunt nosed Southern Electrics, I knew very little about UK railways. So, all my knowledge I have now has been obtained from fellow modellers, books and recently from the internet.

 

The book “Through Limestone Hills” by Bill Hudson has been my bible for Ashwood Dale. Between Millers Dale and Peak Forest on the main line from Derby to Manchester there is a triangle junction from which runs a line to the town of Buxton. As it would be unlikely that Buxton would get full express trains and that the maximum train I could have was a train of 4 x 48-foot coaches and a van behind a 4-4-0 tender loco, this became a more suitable location to base my layout on.

 

Ashwood Dale is a small village located between Buxton and Buxton Junction about one and a half miles from Buxton. However, visitors will not find a station there. For the model it has been supposed that the village developed sufficiently to need its own station and a small goods yard. The period is between 1919 and 1920. The Ashwood Dale eastern signal box controls access to station, station, goods yard, level crossing and also two small quarries, one on each side of the line off stage. The western signal box has control of the western end of the station and the Buxton Gas Works which is off stage.

 

The permanent way

Ashwood Dale’s track has been constructed using components from both Studiolith and the EM Gauge Society to EM Gauge (18.2mm). Built to the Brook Smith method, sleepers are 1mm thick ply with small rivets to represent the chairs. Timbers under the turnouts are 4mm wide (12ins) and the sleepers under the plain track are 3.5mm wide (10 ins). Code 75 BH rail is soldered to the rivets. Using a blob of solder at the joint is supposed to represent the chair. I now build track work using C & L Chairs, the above ply sleepers, P4 track Company Flangeway chairs and fish plates.

 

Scenery

The scenery is constructed using cardboard formers with strips of cereal box card supporting fibreglass and metal fly net. Cornice plaster with some sort of colouring to remove the white is then applied to the netting to form a shell.

 

The rock faces are built up with the cornice plaster, which has been scribed to give the desired effect, then coloured with artist water colour paints.

 

Woodland Scenic products have been used extensively for ground cover, track ballast, trees and bushes etc. Evergreen plastic strip has been used to construct a lot of the fencing on the layout. Ratio Midland style fencing has been used on the station platform. The road bridge and tunnel entrance have been constructed by building a sub structure of thick card and then covering with cornice plaster and scribing in the block work.

I have endeavoured to bring the layout to life with the use of people of the period, horse drawn vehicles, gas lamps and other items of interest. These are mostly Langley, Mikes Models, Dart Castings, Smiths, and, other kits.

 

Buildings

All of the buildings on the layout are scratch built from card except for the signal boxes and one pub. The signal boxes are modified Ratio kits. The Ratio kit is for a 20ft signal box and two have been reduced in size to create Midland Railway 10ft boxes. This involved cutting sections out of the roofs and also from the front and rear sections. The interiors have been detailed with items from the Springside signal box interior kit. The pub is a Superquik highly modified with new roof and exterior wall covering.

 

The church is built using mainly cereal box card by Garry Stephan for which I thank him. The Station Building, Goods Shed, Coal Offices and “Railway Inn” are all built with good quality card by my long-time friend Ken Gray, thanks mate. The rest have been built by me, afraid not to the same quality of Ken’s buildings. The lime stone hopper has been constructed using Evergreen plastic sections for the steel framework with card for the hopper. The conveyor belt structure is of brass sections and tube, the roof being of thin aluminium sheet corrugated in a roller made by Garry Stephen.

 

Signalling

After I had installed the operating level crossing gates, at exhibitions the operators were not always opening them when we should, hence trains were running into them. To counter this, I built 2 semaphore signals operated by Dick Smith relays from switches on the control panel.

 

 

Figure 2- Ashwood Dale East signal box with the level crossing gate in operation.   Paul Plowman

 

The operation was that when the gates were open for the road, the signals would not pull off, a dead section of track in front of this signal would prevent the train entering. When the gates were opened for the train it would then be possible to pull off the signal and then train would be able to proceed. Once the gates were closed again the signals would go to stop even if the operator did not switch it to stop at control panel.

 

With the success of the crossing signals I went ahead to install the whole layout signals on same principle that if the correct road was not set the signal would not pull off and the train would come to stop in a dead section of track in front of the signal. As most of the track is by-directional, if a signal has been left pulled off the opposing signal will not be able to pull off, much to the dismay to some operators at times. There are also operating ground signals for the reverse crossing when shunting. All of the signals are built from parts obtained from Model Signal Engineering with some scratch-built parts of brass and wire.

 

The point rods, cranks and pulleys are a mixture of Model Signal Engineering and Colin Waite products. The rods are soft florist wire fixed into groves cut in off-cuts of white metal sprue.

 

Rolling stock

Working in EM gauge a time frame of 1919-20 just about rules out the use of ready-to-run rolling stock. All of the models running on the layout are either built from kits or scratch built to suit the period. With the exception of 4 of the 20 odd locos on the layout, all have been constructed in either etched brass or scratch built in brass. Only two of the locos have not been built by me.

 

Coaching stock has been constructed either from Ratio plastic kits or PC’s etched brass. Wagons are a mixture of Slater’s or other plastic kits, etched brass and white metal kits.

 

Of special interest are a model of an 1890’s Cowan’s Sheldon 15 ton crane from a D&S kit and a model of No.2290 0-10-0 ‘Big Bertha’ from a DJH kit. ‘Big Bertha’, also known as ‘Big Emma’, was the resident banker on the Lickey Incline. The justification for it appearing at Ashwood Dale is that she was built at Derby in 1919 and the Midland Railway used the line between Derby and Buxton for trials and running in before allocating her to Bromsgrove for banking duties.

Couplings are a mixture. Passenger stock is made up into fixed rakes with either screw link or Dingham auto couplings. Through goods trains are permanently coupled using three link or some with Dingham auto couplings.

 

The local goods and lime works trains have AJ’s auto couplings so that they can be shunted around the goods yard and into the lime works siding.

 

Control system

Control is with a conventional ECM Compspeed F and Orbit hand held Supertroller. The central control panel can be fixed to the front of layout for home use or the rear for use at exhibitions.

 

A diagram of the layout with sections in different colours is on the panel with the cab switches in each section. A bank of numbered switches corresponding to numbered locations on the diagram work the Signals and turn-out motors.

 

Turnouts and signals are fully interlocked. Turnouts are worked by Tortoise motors and the signals by modified relays.

 

Operation is between the 5-road fiddle yard on the left representing the town of Buxton, through Ashwood Dale station and on to the right 4-road fiddle yard representing Buxton Junction.

 

In the early years of the 20^th century, freight was the dominant part of the railway’s business. One is likely to see goods trains to Buxton in one direction and in the other to Derby, Manchester, etc. Coal trains to the Buxton Gas Works, with empty wagon trains from the gas works. Also, full and empty coke wagons run to and from the gas works.

 

Pick-up goods trains may be seen shunting their wagons in the goods yard and lime works sidings. Passenger trains will comprise through trains to and from Buxton, local trains which will stop at Ashwood Dale and also the Millers Dale to Buxton push-pull train.

 

Figure 3- MR 0-6-0T class 1 1678 at head the of the Buxton brake down train.                Paul Plowman

 

What Now

In my youth I had no interest what so ever in railways, although I commuted on the Southern Railways blunt nosed eclectics to school for 4 years in late 40’s, enough to turn anyone off railways, my model railway interest started in my mid-twenties. As mentioned before, my inspiration in building Ashwood Dale has come from “Limestone Hills” by Bill Hudson.

It has been built as a working layout in that all the trains have to be driven from point A to point B with the driver setting up his road, turn-outs, level crossing and signals with the correct train from the fiddle yard. After fully passing signals, resetting them to danger, closing the crossing gates, stopping in station if need be, then making sure he arrives in the correct road of the opposite fiddle yard. No sitting in the middle looking bored as the same train circumnavigates most roundy-roundy layouts one sees at exhibitions. Over the years I have had a good band of helpers at exhibitions, Garry Stephen, John Chapman, Chris Lord, Peter Betts (in early days). There have been others, a good band of fellows at Canberra, and the guys in Melbourne would not let John and I on the layout for the whole 3 days of the exhibition. My sincere thanks to all you fellow modellers for making my little part of the Old Dart come alive.

 

 

Figure 4- MR 0-6-0T Class 1 No.1673 with a local pick-up goods

 

Figure 5- MR 0-6-0WTClass 1 shunting the goods yard

 

Figure 6- Milko chatting with Mrs. Mop at the gate of railway workers cottages          Paul Plowman

 

Over the years Ashwood Dale has been awarded a few trophies, “Best Layout” at Canberra 2002, “Best Non-Australian Layout” at ARMA Liverpool 2003. “Best Layout” Judges Choice and “Best Layout” Exhibitors Choice, ARMA Melbourne 2004.

 

The layouts first outing was at the Epping Exhibition 1997 and it was fitting that its last outing before retirement was also Epping 2005.

 

The future is up in the air at present. It has been erected in my new Railway room. It’s showing its age and there is a lot of new technology available that can improve what one can do in building a layout.

One is DCC and I have had a play with this and can see it has a lot going for it.

 

Will there be another layout? Yes, I have a few ideas floating around in my head and also on paper. It will not be P4 after my resent dabble in it. It will be EM as I have all the stock I need already built or as kits. Most likely a point to point or fiddle yard to station terminus as then one will have to operate, including shunting, of which I like to do most. It will be built as a portable layout in which case it may see some exhibitions.

 

If you have read this far, thank you and if you are anywhere near Port Macquarie, Bonny Hills drop in for look see, cupper and chat.

Rob Lees

 

Figure 7- M R 0-6-0T Class 1 No. 1934 at the head of the Permanent way train

 

Figure 8- Village shops and the Railway Inn