South Pelaw Junction

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John Donnelly
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South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Sun Dec 08, 2013 6:55 pm

As 'The Works' grows ever closer to completion I have been giving a lot of thought as to what to do next and have decided that, as I'm now happy that I can 'do' P4, the next layout will be somewhat more ambitious and is to be a depiction of South Pelaw Junction on the Tyne Dock to Consett Line.

It is a location I find fascinating not least because I'm old enough to remember the junction being there and to have seen trains running on the line as it went past the bottom of the playing fields of my comprehensive school, it is just a shame that I wasn't interested enough at the time to have documented or photographed the site as, of course, very little remains now.

Whilst the layout will, as far as the location is concerned, be an accurate representation of the site as it was in 1970 it will, to some extent, be a ‘what if’ as the following assumptions will be made:

* The track plan remained as it was in 1970 with the lines to Stella Gill still intact.

* Passenger services did not end in 1955 which will allow the running of DMUs on the passenger service.

* The line did not close in 1983, the assumption will be made that the steelworks in Consett closed in 1995 instead.

* At least one coal mine on the route remained.

The plan is to run a chronological series of trains from 1974 – 1995 starting with double headed Class 24s pulling the iconic iron ore hoppers, through the BR Blue years, all the way up to Coal and Metal sector class 60s showing what would have run on the line had it lasted until the early 1990s…

The Templot track plan is shown below. The blue lines at either end are the 2 bridges that, very conveniently for the purpose of scenic breaks, were at either end of the junction. The scenic section of the layout is to be 18' * 3' which will allow for a full size representation of the junction with no compression.

Image

By the very nature of the size of the layout, this is to be a very long term project with the first task to start to build up a collection of rolling stock for the layout as, for the time being at least, I don't have a room big enough to erect the layout to it's full size.

During my research so far, I've managed to get a hold of a number of photographs of the site so I've put together a website (early days still) http://www.southpelawjunction.co.uk to show the photographs (with full permission of the owners of course) as well as a number of 'then and now' photos of the location.

John

PS: If anyone has any pics of the junction (particularly from 1980 - closure) I'd love to see them ;)

Armchair Modeller

Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby Armchair Modeller » Sun Dec 08, 2013 7:26 pm

Looks like a fascinating idea for a layout. The junctions and the signal cabin really catch my eye whenever I have seen the place in photos.

Edit

Have you seen this site? http://southpelawem.blogspot.co.uk/ I couldn't find it when I originally wrote my post

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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Sun Dec 08, 2013 7:45 pm

Armchair Modeller wrote:Have you seen this site? http://southpelawem.blogspot.co.uk/ I couldn't find it when I originally wrote my post


Yes, I've seen that and I'm in contact with one of guys responsible for it, they are really 'going large' with it and going beyond the two bridges that will form the scenic breaks for my version. I just hope that mine comes close, particularly as far as the signalling goes...

John

Mark Tatlow
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby Mark Tatlow » Sun Dec 08, 2013 9:27 pm

That looks rather fantastic as an idea; especially if you keep the interest with the DMU service.

The guys doing it in EM are also doing a great job of it!

Keep us informed............
Mark Tatlow

Terry Bendall
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby Terry Bendall » Mon Dec 09, 2013 7:19 am

Did the North Eastern Electrics run on that part of the line? Just another challenge. :D

Terry Bendall

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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Mon Dec 09, 2013 10:18 am

Terry Bendall wrote:Did the North Eastern Electrics run on that part of the line? Just another challenge. :D


No, they didn't get that far out but it is my trainset... ;)

John

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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Tue Feb 11, 2014 12:54 pm

Planning for the layout is continuing with the decision made that it will, ultimately, be a roundy roundy as it will let me, should the urge come up to just sit back and watch the trains go by. I think I've almost cracked the basics of Templot so the track plan now looks like this:

Image

The 2 thick blue lines represent the bridges that form the scenic breaks. The main fiddle yard (which has yet to be designed) will be at the bottom. I've also extended the Stella Gill lines in to a fiddle year of their own although this will be a nice to have rather than a necessity.

John

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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Mon Feb 17, 2014 9:32 pm

Almost there with the plan I think. There are now 2 fans of loops in the fiddle yard which can be accessed from the Washington, Ouston and Consett lines so are fully bi-directional albeit with some pretty complex track work, particularly at the Consett end of the yard. The Stella Gill sidings can act as a fiddle yard in themselves so there will be plenty of storage space there with a run right through back to the Washington line. This will allow me to sit back and watch 4 trains running at once.

Image

John

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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Sat Mar 15, 2014 12:07 pm

I decided to print out the Templot plan of the scenic section of the Junction and the enormity of the layout has hit home a little. In the following pics, the 37 is about half way between the 2 bridges that will form the scenic breaks at each end:

Image

Image

John

Crepello
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby Crepello » Sat Mar 15, 2014 12:20 pm

John Donnelly wrote:I decided to print out the Templot plan of the scenic section of the Junction and the enormity of the layout has hit home a little. In the following pics, the 37 is about half way between the 2 bridges that will form the scenic breaks at each end


It's the enormity of the mortgage to house the thing that would really scare me!

jayell

Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby jayell » Sat Mar 15, 2014 3:57 pm

you will at least have one ready trained driver, maybe she should start learning track building skills as well ;)

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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Sat Mar 15, 2014 4:48 pm

johnlewis wrote:you will at least have one ready trained driver, maybe she should start learning track building skills as well ;)


I can just imagine the carnage if she got her hands on a soldering iron :shock:

John

Terry Bendall
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby Terry Bendall » Sun Mar 16, 2014 8:50 am

Crepello wrote:It's the enormity of the mortgage to house the thing that would really scare me!


There is at leats one large p4 layout in existant where the builder only had room to put up two baseboards at a time. It can be done but may not make things easier.

The plan looks very nice John.

Terry Bendall

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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Sat Mar 29, 2014 5:12 pm

I've made a start on one of the iron ore wagons, using one of the new kits from Dave Alexander which uses a combination of white metal, resin, photoetch and lost brass castings. So far the kit is pretty much falling together with all the pieces fitting perfectly with only the smallest amounts of flash having to be removed with a quick swipe of a scalpel.

Here's where I'm up to about 5 hours work. I've made a couple of small mistakes but I'm going to be building plenty more of them :D

Image

John

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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Sun Mar 30, 2014 6:32 pm

And here's the under frame in place - again, such is the fit that it holds itself in place with no glue for now as the brake levers still need to be added:

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John

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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Fri Apr 04, 2014 1:48 pm

I've given the wagon a quick coat of paint so I can see if anywhere needs filling or sanding - there are a couple of places. The right hand bogie does not seem to be sitting perfectly flat so that will attended to as well. Underframe needs brake levers and then it is done. There is some conjecture of what the actual colour of these wagons was, I've used Tamiya Red Brown which looks good to me and, in any event, in reality the wagons were filthy so a lot of the underlying colour is going to be lost anyway...

Image

John

Mark Tatlow
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby Mark Tatlow » Fri Apr 04, 2014 8:34 pm

That does look good, well done. As you say, lots of dirt required!
Mark Tatlow

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Noel
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby Noel » Fri Apr 04, 2014 9:43 pm

John Donnelly wrote: There is some conjecture of what the actual colour of these wagons was...


Since they were built by BR at Shildon, were BR stock and were VB fitted, there seems no particular reason to suppose that their original colour was anything but BR bauxite. Subsequent weathering would have been considerable, as you say, not least because some ores were virtually fine dust, hence the use of covers over [most of] the bogies. They were photographed in colour on at least four occasions in steam days; I presume there are also colour photos from later periods?

Noel.
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Noel

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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Sat Apr 05, 2014 8:09 am

Noel wrote:They were photographed in colour on at least four occasions in steam days; I presume there are also colour photos from later periods?


I have one colour photo from steam days but I'm not convinced that it's a genuine colour photo, it looks very much like it is a 're coloured' black and white photo. I have a number of later photos in colour but, again the wagons are so filthy, that determining the underlying colour is difficult.

John

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Noel
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby Noel » Sat Apr 05, 2014 10:04 am

Colour in older colour photographs or transparencies is always a doubtful issue, owing to the differences in the original films and lighting conditions, and subsequent deterioration and variations in reproduction. However, it's all there is ...

If it's any help, "On North Eastern Lines", Derek Huntriss, Ian Allan 1998, ISBN 0 7110 2543 6 has 4 pictures: one dated 1954 and one dated August 1956, both by D G Charlton, one dated 8/9/1960 and one dated 9/7/1960, both by T B Owen. The last of those is an overhead shot of empty hoppers being placed under the loading gantry. "Steam Days" magazine December 2006 has a repeat of the 8/9/60 shot mentioned above, plus another from the same photographer on the same day in which the locos and the bogie covers are different, indicating that it is most probably a different set [or just possibly the same one but turned round]. All the wagons are quite filthy. There are differences in the colours between the shots though, probably due to the variables mentioned above.

So far as painting models is concerned, I would suggest that the original colour is probably immaterial. With BR bauxite the actual colour of the paint seems to have changed after application anyway [possibly because of chemical changes in the paint?], becoming less red over time. Your approach of using a suitable [non-bauxite] base colour plus weathering seems to me to be entirely reasonable. My only comment, based on the photos mentioned, would be that there is possibly too much red in the base colour used, at least as it appears on screen?

Noel
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Noel

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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Fri Sep 19, 2014 1:37 pm

No progress on the layout itself but I'm managing to get some work in this week, the second of the iron ore hoppers is now well on the way to completion. I have to say that these kits are pretty much falling together, everything fits with the absolute minimum of fettling. They are not cheap but you certainly get what you pay for.

Image

John

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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Sat Oct 04, 2014 6:07 pm

Spent an hour or so weathering a Boplate E wagon I built a while ago.

Before:

Image

After:

Image

John

Colin Parks

Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby Colin Parks » Mon Oct 06, 2014 10:43 pm

Nice looking wagon building John.

Your are going to need boxfuls of them to fill that projected layout of yours. As a matter of interest, how many iron ore wagons do you need for a train load?!

All the best,

Colin

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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Tue Oct 07, 2014 6:33 am

Colin Parks wrote:Nice looking wagon building John.

Your are going to need boxfuls of them to fill that projected layout of yours. As a matter of interest, how many iron ore wagons do you need for a train load?!

All the best,

Colin


Cheers Colin. The iron ore wagons ran in rakes of 9 so, as I'd like to be able to have full and empty trains passing at the junction, I'm going to have to build 18 of them...

John

Terry Bendall
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby Terry Bendall » Wed Oct 08, 2014 6:56 am

John Donnelly wrote:The iron ore wagons ran in rakes of 9 so, as I'd like to be able to have full and empty trains passing at the junction, I'm going to have to build 18 of them...


That should look good. The alternative to save building so many wagons is to have removable loads and not have them passing. :)

Terry Bendall


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