North East model railway - Origins

North East model railway

Trenholme Junction

This article is an addendum to the YouTube channel hosting several films which were made on the layout and serves to inform those who continually ask questions about its origins. 

The layout has two levels, one with a passenger bias including a station with the same capacity as Darlington, the other level off to the Durham coalfields which fed the steelworks in the area.

Based on what you would see around the Middlesbrough area in the 1960's and as witnessed by me as a kid, the layout is all about re-creating the atmosphere of the time.

The layout is 57' * 13' inside a purpose built building. There is around 800 yds of track. Scale is OO gauge. Control is DCC.

There are five stations in all, four are sophisticated junctions. Two major Marshalling Yards capable of storing hundreds of wagons are included. There is a Pit, Gas Works, Factory, Fruit Warehouse Wood Yard, Goods Shed - all rail served. 

A feature of the layout is the large junctions which are rarely modelled because of the vast amounts of space these take up. On the lower level note there is a four into two at the bottom of the long incline which represents the junction at Bowesfield Lane (adjacent to the original Stockton Station) where the lines diverge north to the coalfields and south to Eaglescliffe.

Introduction

Trenholme Junction is not the first layout I have built. Something as ambitious as this can’t be built at a first attempt. The layout embodies all the good things which were in the previous five or six layouts and none of the irritations or disasters.

What went wrong in the past

Control

In the past I have tried all manner of combinations of controllers, switch banks and wiring that would easily put the Junction boxes of BT in the shade, even a cut down version of the holy grail of control, ‘Cab Control’. The latter requires around 300 metres of cable for a 6’ * 4’ layout and no matter how many hundreds of hours you spend meticulously planning every possibly train movement and further hundreds wiring it, five minutes after you’ve finished the thing, you discover at least two things you never thought of and it’s impossible to change it at that stage.

To add insult to injury, whichever system you choose to adopt, when you run your first train, the thing stutters and stumbles round the layout, losing power on some sections and only running well when it’s very near the controller.

Locomotives & Rolling Stock

The demise of Hornby Dublo in the sixties saw the end of the quality end of the market, the poor locomotives in both realism and performance which followed probably put more people off the hobby than any other factor. Who wants to buy a locomotive that can’t pull three coaches up an incline? And to add to this the prices were ridiculous.

The same general comments applied to rolling stock as to locomotives.

Buildings and Trackside

In the recent past, almost every layout you could see at every exhibition you could spot at least half a dozen Superquick buildings. Look through any magazine of the time and I bet there isn’t one edition of all the magazines ever produced were there wasn’t at least one of these card kits.

Not everybody can produce good models, even from kits. If you couldn’t  scratch build, there wasn’t any choice. All layouts had an air of looking the same.

All previous layouts I have built have been very sparse on buildings.

Operation

One of the most dispiriting things that can happen after you’ve invested lots of money and vast amounts of time planning and building your layout is to run it and find that its doesn’t have any entertainment value. By entertainment value I mean that the amount of combinations of operation are so restricted that every situation can created and executed in a very short space of time and apart from repeating them again and again, no further combinations are possible. Boredom and monotony soon sets in.

Many layouts are abandoned at this point and some of mine have suffered this fate.

Accommodation

Housing the layout in a reasonably comfortable and very secure place is as important as the layout itself. Many hours shivering in sheds and garages have probably been the demise of as many ventures as the failure described in the paragraph above.  

Specifying the layout

General Considerations

 I wanted to make sure, that if I was to invest a large amount of time and money, the layout could entertain me for more of the time than it took to build. To get the ratio of build to entertain to at least 50 : 50. It took ten years to build and therefore I would aim to get ten years entertainment.

I also wanted to try to try to recover some of the cost of the build by commercial exploitation.

I am a software writer and have been involved in the technology since before the birth of the internet and so wanted to exploit the possibility of using the internet to entertain others. I was in the software business and my original plan was to mount cameras in the trains and allow users on the internet to drive the trains in real time looking out from the cab.

Layout Specific Considerations

The layout is a re-creation of the railway I knew as a child. The idea to build a replica of the place is not practical, the sheer complexity of the trackage would be almost impossible to build in a lifetime. Almost everything would require scratch building. Re-creation is the key word here, to produce the flavour of the time using commercially made components brought together. 

To be able to take positions on the layout and see a train approaching but because it was far enough away it was not possible to recognise what it was until it got closer, as in real life.

A major requirement was the ability to sit and watch the trains going by without intense controller activity and so a tail chaser configuration was a foregone conclusion.  A second and equally important part of this requirement was to have the capability of running point to point operating as well.  A combination of both types of operation were also a must have requirement as well. 

To have more straight sections of track runs than curved and the curves with reasonable radii.

Control requirements to be able to operate several trains simultaneously from one control point. A computer interface path for future use was essential. 

Several stations of all sizes based on typical stations in the area all able to take trains of at least six coaches, the largest station to take mainline trains of up to eighteen.

Two levels, independent, from each other, but interconnected, each level with the capability of fulfilling the overall requirement of the layout in their own right.

The main reasons for the existence of the railway, passengers already mentioned, together with Goods facilities to give a purpose of the trains and to re-create prototypical operations including overlaps for the handling of parcels and perishables also to be catered for.

The rolling stock and all buildings must all be correct for the period.

Trains must be of prototypical length.

The entire model must be modelled in 3D. If you intend to film the layout from the rolling stock, the fronts and backs of everything has to be modelled.

Period

As a child, almost all outings involved a train journey in one way or another. I lived close to the railway in South Bank near Middlesbrough in the North East of England. The time was 1962 when I was nine years old and this is the period. A little leeway in the date places the layout in the period 1960 to the end of steam in 1968. This date range allows the mix of Steam and Diesel locomotives.   

Preparation

I spent a great deal of time reading many books and magazines in order to try to get a good view of the features I wanted to incorporate into the layout.

I am a great fan of the late, great Cyril Freezer (former editor of Railway Modeller in the seventies and eighties). Cyril’s track plan books are invaluable. Each track plan has been carefully worked out to avoid the ‘boredom and monotony ‘ trap mentioned earlier and each of his plans has an explanation to give an idea of the operational possibilities. If you don’t use the plans as drawn, the principles of his thought process can be applied to your own design, taking into account the points he draws to your attention.

I also read hundreds of books, mainly looking at the pictures, again to get the flavour of what the railway at the time.

The Layout

The main layout is a four track main line on both levels. North East practice was to have two sets of up and down lines for both the passenger and goods traffic. From Bowesfield Junction to Warrenby four track operation with goods tracks up and down adjacent to each other and the same for passengers.

The two levels are joined together by an incline which is over 40feet long visible on the layout. This double track incline has a representation of Bowesfield Junction where the four track section split north and south, a four track into two junction rarely modelled because of the amount of space required. (Bowesfield Junction is less than half a mile from the original Stockton Station which still exists). There are two further single track inclines between the two levels hidden in tunnels to create operating interest and flexibility. 

The main station is of the size and layout similar to Darlington Station, with an overall roof and two lots of Bay Platforms. Each of the main platform faces can accommodate two trains.

The other stations are typical types of station layout from around the area. The station near the pit is representative of Battersby Junction on the line between Middlesbrough and Whitby. Trains entering the bay have to reverse back out to continue their journeys.

There is also a Pit, Gas Works, Fruit Warehouse Goods Shed & Private Siding to a Wood Yard, all rail served.

There are two goods Marshalling yards one on each level. The lower yard is the bigger of the two, the upper is the secondary yard to the lower to give the excuse to run inter yard transfers. Both yards have reception and dispatch roads and have loco roads and headhunts’ although the upper yard uses the station road for this purpose.

Track work is Peco Streamline Code 100 on Peco underlay. This arrangement,  with baseboards made with insulating board produce silent running. Ballast is loose filled in between the edges of the foam underlay.

Earlier in this article I mentioned about the poor running qualities of some of the layouts I have built in the past. One thing I was determined to do with this layout was to have super smooth running. As you probably imagine, there is only one control system which could be considered for a project this size. DCC. The perils of DCC failing are much greater than with the traditional resistance controller.

The main reason for control failure on any layout is the method of applying the power to the track and its distribution to all parts of the layout. The train set method of using a power clip wedged under the rail and then relying on the fishplates (rail joiners) to conduct the power is great on Christmas day but is no use at all for a permanent layout. Quite often, the fishplates are different metal from the rails. A chemical reaction can take place which is in effect a resistor to electrical current, the more joints the more the locomotive slows down. The condition is usually made worse by damp conditions.

The DCC system has two parts to the power the locomotive receives. The power part is obvious but more importantly the power part also carries the signal to instruct the locomotive chip which direction and speed to travel. Poor connections may cause the locomotive to ignore commands. Ignoring commands when stationary is annoying but worse is to ignore commands whilst moving a speed. Imagine the calamity of a modern locomotive fitted with sound pulling a train of say ten coaches, ramming the buffers and landing on the floor, maybe £600 of damage.   

I chose Nickel Silver rails throughout and although Peco fishplates are steel base I don’t use them to conduct electricity.

Many modern DCC experts and manufacturers recommend the use of copper tape stuck onto the base board top and wired to the track at every 2 metres or so. I decided to bond every piece of track to the ‘bus’. I did not use copper tape for the bus, instead I use 8mm copper cable sunk into slots cut in to the baseboard with a router. Better, because there is more copper in the cable than the tape, therefore better conductivity AND costs about 10% of the copper tape cost. All track sections were then bonded to the bus cables. The result is super smooth running.   

The layout was originally controlled by ZTC system controllers and power boosters which proved to be very unreliable on a large layout. Recently I have replaced it with the brilliant ESU ECOS controller with a Radio Control Remote Controller. I can walk round the layout controlling the entire layout from whatever position I please, brilliant for shunting in the remote corners of the layout. Suddenly, freed from the controller the whole of the layout takes new interest. Also unexplored as yet, I haven’t had time to find out the wonders of connecting the ESU up to my laptop and the internet.

The arrival of Airfix and Mainline brands emerging in the eighties brought a new level of quality and realism to rolling stock not previously seen. Following the demise of both the aforementioned brands Bachmann carried on the good work. At last we have locomotives which can pull 50 wagons or ten coaches. Deep joy. This was a wake-up call and suddenly we have super rolling stock from Hornby as well of lots of super models to stock my layout. All the rolling stock is ready to run.

Almost the same thing can be said about track side accessories and buildings the buildings which are all ‘ready to plant’ types.

The scenery is mainly from the Woodlands Scenery range

What is going on now

My original plan to mount cameras in the locomotives and let others control the trains through the internet hasn’t come to fruition and probably won’t for me as the layout is in a part of the world where sufficient speed internet is unlikely to be available.  

As a compromise I have recently mounted a mini camera into locomotives and trains and filmed the layout, this perspective shows the original purpose of the layout, to recreate the atmosphere of the time has been fulfilled and this part of the operation gives me as much pleasure as operating the layout in the traditional manner. Sharing with others who appreciate the work is an unexpected bonus. Several films are available to view on the layout’s Channel on YouTube.

The future

This hobby has a real problem. The competition for its continuance is fierce. A large number of distractions conspire to take youngsters away from what was a big fish in a little pond.

The way we live is also playing a big part in what could be the end of the hobby altogether when all the baby boomers have finally died. Except for a few pockets in certain parts of the country most people don’t come into contact with railways any more.

Trenholme Junction, although not originally conceived to address this problem, hopefully has evolved to contribute to try to reverse this position.

I am hoping to re-kindle young people’s interest in the hobby, the videos can be viewed on mobile phones computers and tablets. Feedback from those youngsters who have seen them is generally good.

My son has recently been telling me about the ‘raspberry pi’ which is a full blown computer, the size of a credit card, costs twenty pounds and fits into a wagon, now I wonder what I could do with that......... 

To view the channel, follow the link below

www.youtube.com/user/dougattrenholmebar