July 2020 - Bridge by Bob Hordern

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Layout name:                                    KIRTLEY BRIDGE
Scale/Gauge:                                     7mm/O gauge
Size (to inc x2 fiddle yards):              8.5m x 1m
Era/Region:                                        prewar/LMS
Layout type:                                       end to end

The layout is housed within an integral garage. It is around 24 feet long and made up of six boards, each with a 6mm plywood top set over a 9mm plywood frame. Trains run from a fiddle yard at one end, which is hidden from view by quarry workings. The traverser and small manual turntable can handle up to five trains. In addition, there is a cassette that can hold further stock when needed. At the Kirtley Bridge end of the layout, there are goods facilities, sidings, two platforms and a passing loop. Beyond the road bridge, Dalehead is merely a set of sidings to receive and dispatch trains. This will enable a more interesting timetable at exhibitions. This option is only available at home weather permitting, as it extends beyond the garage doors.
 

Once the trackplan was settled upon much of the non-track area was cut away to reduce weight and allow scenic development. This was especially important where the river features were to be constructed. One board has two pairs of folding legs for overall stability whilst the others each have only one. Cross-stays help keep it all secure. Some boards are stowed in pairs allowing safer movement when the layout travels.

The track is C&L, built from lengths of rail, wooden sleepers and plastic chairs. My past experience of track-building has mostly been with copper-clad sleepers and so this has been a new departure.
 

Rolling stock is largely second hand and kit-built, plus two modified RTR items. Only one is item scratch-built. I have however been steadily replacing older wagons and constructing kits for myself. Moving on from gluing together Slaters wagons to soldering a Connoisseur etched brass horsebox has been quite a step for me. Here fellow modellers can offer good advice and help improve for example one’s painting and weathering skills. Passenger and goods vehicles now total some 30 items.

Most of the motive power is made up of ex-Midland Railway locomotives in pre-war LMS livery. These are obviously steam dominated, but I do own one early LMS diesel. Two classic tender locos - a 2P and a 4F - help a selection of tank engines run the scheduled services through Kirtley Bridge.

The full list is…

3F 0-6-0 No 747
2P tender 4-4-0 No 323
4F tender 0-6-0 No 4197
1P 0-4-2 No 1275 (auto-train)
Hudswell Clarke 0-4-0 No 6
Fowler diesel 0-6-0 No 2
L&Y Pug 0-4-0 No 11204
Johnson 1F 0-6-0 No 1820

Buildings on the layout are mostly scratch-built. My method involves creating a framework built of thin plywood or strong card and then this is clad in embossed Plastikard. All are based on real buildings but often adapted to fit their eventual sites on the layout. Railway structures are mostly Midland Railway in style, as illustrated by the station building, whilst others are faithful to the locality modelled. The Hebden Beck quarry building, for example, is a re-modelled version of a now-gone prototype at Grassington (John Delaney and Co) and the imposing Hebden Mill with its workers’ cottages is a shortened version of Bridge End Mill at Settle. The model’s back-shot wheel will eventually be motorised. I have tried to create a good mix of housing types, cottages,and village amenities, with those at the rear of the layout being built in low relief. Street and station lights are also provided by LEDs.

The scenery on the open-plan boards uses tried and tested methods but the landscape is moulded using fly-screen mesh, wich then forms a base for plasterwork - this gives a light yet rigid framework. For rock outcrops in the quarry,I have used bark, acquired when felling an overlarge poplar in the garden. The old quarry face shows this off well. The ‘quarry bottoms’ are essentially cat litter and fish tank gravel.

Modelling water was a big concern initially, but in the end I was able to master and utilize a variety of materials. For the mill water I chose thin rippled perspex to allow the stream bed to show through, which does look effective. In the running water sections, after some experimentation, I settled on a top layer of ‘Realistic Water’ which has created the shiny surface effect I wanted. The smaller Hebden Beck curves across the layout and passes under two bridges. The branch line bridge from Wharfedale has lattice sides whilst the quarry traffic passes over a simple wooden trestle. Together they make an attractive scenic feature, especially as stone trains are often held on the bridge by the signalman as they emerge from the quarry.
 

For trees I use wire armatures ‘dressed’ with various types of foliage. The larger items are made of Sedum flower heads which are carefully dried, fastened together and then covered in flock. I use the usual mix of proprietary scenic materials elsewhere, but I am much impressed with the finish provided by static grass application and continue to experiment with this medium. Finally, I was very lucky to find a set of background sheets that really do match the area I have modelled.
 

I live on the western edge of the Yorkshire Dales not far from the Settle Carlisle Railway. Arriving in this area as a young married man in the 1970s, I found it difficult to move away from such an attractive location. As a Geography and Geology teacher, I had my classroom and recreation on the doorstep. Now retired from education, I have much more time, grandchildren aside, to develop my modelling and wider railway interests. I am a member of Skipton & District Railway Club and the O Gauge Guild. My historical railway interest has always focused on the Midland and later LMS Railways, much influenced by people like David Jenkinson. I have built around 6 layouts previously in TT, OO and EM gauges – the latest being a model of Garsdale and Hawes.
 

Kirtley Bridge is my first venture into 7mm gauge and so far, this has taken about five years (can’t believe it’s that long!). The story began as follows………….

 “In the closing years of the nineteenth century, a group of local businessmen in upper Wharfedale raised funds to build a light railway to serve their estates, farms, mills and quarries. Trains would run up the valley through the villages of Hebden and Kirtley Bridge, eventually reaching the small hamlet at Dalehead. Local people too hoped to use the line to reach the towns of West Yorkshire and beyond for work and travel.

As in many such enterprises the optimism of the early owners did not match the realities of running a railway profitably, and so it was with some relief locally that the Midland Railway Company took over the line even before it was completed. This was soon reflected in the trackwork, station buildings and railway practices that followed. The railway thrived and ran like this until the LMS took control in 1923. “

This seems a convincing fiction and is not untypical of some railway operations in the Yorkshire Dales. My 0 gauge model version of this railway portrays the growing village of Kirtley Bridge served by its branchline. It is set in the late 1930s when passenger and goods services were both operating successfully.
 

Traffic on the line includes limestone from the quarry at Hebden Beck where a trans-shipment shed transfers stone from narrow to standard gauge wagons. From here the quarry loco brings stone wagons across the Hebden Beck viaduct to the yard at Kirtley Bridge. Hebden Mill is built next to Hebden Water - a tributary of the larger river Wharfe. Owned by the same family for three generations, it uses water power and generates textile traffic on the branch. Livestock movements are another feature, including cattle, lambs and milk. Passenger services use ex-Midland stock and in recent years Bradford Corporation has built a reservoir above Dalehead increasing freight to serve this facility too.
 

Control is at present still analogue and a mimic panel is operated from the rear of the layout, with two handheld controllers attached. The fiddle yard has its own small panel which allows for two-person operation. Power comes from the usual ‘box’ of three open transformers, giving six outputs to operate track and accessories. The baseboards are linked by a wiring loom and D connectors. ‘Tortoise’ motors operate the points and servos the quarry gates and signals. In addition to this, there are two (e-halogen) lighting poles.

KIRTLEY BRIDGE UPDATE – JULY 2020

 

I ended my article in BRM Magazine July 2017 with the following….

My immediate task is to add more signals and finish fitting Dingham couplings and uncoupling magnets. For now, I am looking forward to running a ‘proper timetable’ and maybe getting some exhibition bookings. For the future, there is the possibility of adding two small ‘front of house’ extensions at each end of the current layout. An extra siding for the quarry would help as would longer sidings at Kirtley Bridge to accommodate more stock and prompt the building of a proper Midland goods shed. Finally, apart from the expense of converting the locomotives, the layout’s existing electrics would lend themselves relatively easily to DCC conversion – we’ll have to see!

So, here’s a quick update. The couplings are done and the semaphore signals are completed. The layout has been to ten exhibitions up until February 2020 picking up a number of trophies along the way.

Hebden Beck Quarry has its extra siding and a short platform for workers to disembark whilst at Kirtley Bridge a dedicated new siding allows tankers and vans to load milk.

More importantly, I am using the opportunity provided by isolation to convert the track to DCC operation, though accessories will still be run on DC. Some locos are already converted so we now have the sounds as well as the sight of trains in Wharfedale.
 

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