Clay Cross Model Railway Society
Current Projects
Two 4mm scale exhibition layouts are currently under construction.
Midland Mainline
This is based on a fictional station on a secondary mainline somewhere in the Midlands. The aims of this large continuous oval layout are to inform and entertain the public by providing a succession of realistic trains in a semi urban location to demonstrate the operation of a local railway in transition between the steam and diesel eras. Construction is well advanced with the track and many of the buildings and other structures complete or nearing completion. The station buildings will be based on those at Kettering
The goods warehouse is based on the large one that stood in Chesterfield station yard until recently.
There will also be at one end a 9 arch viaduct and leading to it will be an elevated section of brick built arches occupied by warehousing and industry, whilst at the other end there will be a cutting through a town similar to that at Belper, but built out of brick, rather than stone.
The station building is based on that at Kettering and is the work of Arnie Buxton.
A view of the whole layout under construction showing the eighteen road fiddle yard capable of holding up to 36 trains. The nine arch viaduct, finished in engineering blue brick, is described in more detail in the following section.
The railway in the landscape
The layout is designed to depict a gradual falling away of the ground from the town scene in the far distance in the above photograph, which is traversed through a deep cutting, to the river valley below the viaduct. The approach to the viaduct from the station is over a series of brick arches, which will be occupied by various industrial and commercial concerns.
The brick arches will be accessed from a cobbled street at the front of the layout.
The partially constructed viaduct: The front panel of the baseboard section could not be cut away until the piers had been glued and screwed in place. The woodwork was by Tony Friend and Tony Waring.
The viaduct was faced in plastikard painted to represent blue engineering brick. The curving track over the viaduct was laid by Alan Peachey.
The whole of the track through the station was constructed by members using the ply and rivet method. Alan has applied all the cosmetic chairs on the layout. The track is now operational but has yet to be ballasted.It is intended that the viaduct should cross a fast flowing river in a leafy valley before it disappears through a cutting into the fiddle yard. In order to get an impression of the kind of effect that we want, a photomontage has been attempted.
The background to the viaduct in the first photograph was cut away and the resulting layer was pasted over a picture of Aysgarth Falls. The effect was completed by airbrushing any imperfections and adding a little smoke and steam. (Photomontage by Louis Heath).
Hindlow
The second layout has recently been started to fulfill the prime objective of our Society of educating the public in railways and model railways.
Some members who had not been involved in the construction of the first layout from the beginning expressed an interest in constructing a smaller layout from scratch with a view to producing a working layout for exhibition. Unlike the first this will be based on a real location in Derbyshire to portray a railway built to serve both a local community and two traditional Derbyshire industries, quarrying limestone and the production of lime.
In depth research has been taking place to ensure that the layout will be as realistic a representation as possible of the station at Hindlow and its surroundings. Sources of information have included local libraries, the London and North Western Railway Society, retired British Railways staff and site visits to photograph the infrastructure remaining on site.
A copy of the original LNWR Civil Engineer’s 1893 linen drawing of the line at Hindlow, updated to show alterations, has been obtained, to ensure that the track layout is faithfully reproduced. In fact it changed little between 1893 and 1960, which will enable various periods to be portrayed.
The actual traffic carried by the railway needs to be faithfully portrayed. We have acquired working timetables for various years and the locomotive allocations at both the Buxton and the Stoke motive power depots that worked the line. Photographs dating back to the last years of the 19th century show the type of locomotives used and the traffic carried including limestone products, livestock, milk, munitions for the MOD depot at Harpur Hill, silica bricks from Friden, chicken grit from Longcliffe and both local and through passenger traffic.
A visit to the present operators of the site produced a series of photographs of the works when it belonged to Beswicks from the 1920s to the 1960s and these should enable a realistic representation of the battery of limekilns adjacent to the tunnel mouth.
This has been a fascinating exercise and still continues.
The layout will be about 9 metres long with fiddle yards at both ends. The area to be modeled will include the station and yard from the tunnel mouth as far as the junction with the Ladmanlow branch, which joined the line with the route of Cromford and High Peak Railway to Whaley Bridge. The bank of four lime kilns by the tunnel will also be included with a representation of the exchange sidings.
So far the baseboards and track have been fabricated.
LMS Class 4F No. 44508 testing in Hindlow Yard. May 1962. Photo J M Bentley
Beswicks lime works at Hindlow 25th April 1953. Photo: H Townley
Hudswell Clark Diesel Mechanical locomotive no. 577 "Mary" delivered new to Beswicks Limeworks in 1932. She joined a similar loco , HC DM no 559 "Lizzie" of 1930. Mary is shunting lime wagons in pre-1948 livery in front of a bank of coal fired lime kilns that have long since been dismantled. These "Spencer" kilns were once a common sight in limestone districts. Mary is preserved in working order on the Middleton Railway at Leeds.
This photograph is reproduced by kind permission of Lhoist UK who now operate a clean and energy efficient natural gas fired plant at Hindlow to produce high purity lime, an essential raw material for a range of products. Today lime and its derivatives are used in a broad spectrum of applications which have a major impact on our daily lives, such as: Acid neutralisation, Agriculture, Construction, Effluent Treatment, Foodstuffs, Flue Gas Treatment, Paint, Petrochemicals, Pharmaceuticals, Plastics, Salt, Soil Treatment, Waste Water Treatment, Sugar, DrinkingWater, Glass and Paper, Winemaking, Leather Tanning and Iron and Steel Industry
Updated 28 March 2009