The Coverdale Light Railway

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IrishPeter
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The Coverdale Light Railway

Post by IrishPeter » Fri Feb 22, 2013 6:20 am

As you may have gathered, my grasshopper mind is on to the third incarnation of the line in the garden, and I have returned to one of my favourite parts of the country - the Pennines.  I could not quite remember where Coverdale was when I started this version, but it runs southwestwards from Middleham and provides a high pass through into Upper Wharfedale.

The CLR is conceived as an NER blocking move at the turn of the twentieth century.  Imagine, if you will, an aggressive Midland or Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway looking to gain access to Tees-side, via Upper Wharfedale and Coverdale.  After all, this route had been mooted as long ago as the 1850s as a sort of southern equivelent of the Stainmore route of the Stockton and Darlington.  In response, the NER, with a pressing need to keep them out of their backyard sponsors a 2'6" gauge line up Coverdale from Leyburn through Middleham to a fictitious Pennine market town to block the MR/L&YR.  In my version of events, the CLR is nominally independent, but in truth it is a 'sock puppet' for the NER with the equipment being maintained in York, Darlington or Shildon.  

In most respects it is a fairly conventional NG line, but some of a certain E A Calthrop's ideas were borrowed by Wilson Worsdell and Vincent Raven to allow for cheap transhipment of goods.  Transporter wagons are used on the line, and a fairly healthy traffic develops in coal, milk, livestock and minerals, whilst the locals have an easy way of getting to Northallerton and Leyburn markets and Northallerton and Leyburn folk can get to Coverdale.  The CLR does not exactly live off the fat of the land, but it makes ends meet, and becomes a useful feeder to the NER system.

After 1923 the line passes to the LNER who are a bit non-plussed by it.  After all it is their only narrow gauge section.  Gradually, the standard LNER way of doing things is applied to the CLR, and they eventually cut back on some of the NER's overkill.  The time period of the layout is the late 1930s by which time goods traffic is on the down swing, but the line has been discovered by the rambling and hiking fraternity.  The LNER, not wishing to look a gift horse in the mouth, has stepped up weekend passenger services on the line, and given it a cheap revamp (i.e. a lick of paint and some good deals for weekend travel) including the new board based signalling agreed by the MOT and the LNE in 1935.  This replaces the Light Railway version of the NER's usual 'why use one signal when three will cover every option?' approach to things.

I sort of see the Coverdale Light as staggering on until BR removes passenger traffic from the line to Hawes in 1954, at which point it becomes freight only closing about 1957/8.  Rather than being lifted it goes dormant and is revived by Railway enthusiasts from Teeside and the West Riding in the 1960s.

Construction photos so far are at:

http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/ttac/CLRCon1.html

http://www.angelfire.com/ca7/ttac/CLRCon2.html

Cheers,
Peter in AZ
Traffic Pattern? What pattern? Spuds out; grain in, but cattle, sheep and passengers are a lot less predictable.

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Post by TommyDodd » Fri Feb 22, 2013 11:14 am

Admittedly I enjoy all model railway "unhistories", but this one feels like a winner- it just fizzes with potential. In the North Eastern you have a sponsoring company with a strong and distinctive character- right up there with the GWR- whose stamp remains visible even today on the lines it built. The era and background you've chosen give you a free hand to blend "parliamentary" and "light railway" character to taste (though in that geographical situation I'd have found the temptation to pastiche the Nidd Valley Light Railway just over the hills almost irresistible). A quick look at the area on Google Earth shows a group of villages and settlements whose names are pure poetry; Agglethorpe, Melmerby, Gammersgill & Swineside, Horsehouse. I've always said that real place names show far more variety and humour (Mavis Enderby, anyone?) than anything made-up. Priv return to Arkleside, please!
Well, now we know the buffer-stops work! (Heard at 2013 "Longest Day" solstice steamup)

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Post by IrishPeter » Fri Feb 22, 2013 6:37 pm

I am sure that some Nidd Valley Lt Rly influence will creep over the hill.  However, the NVLR was a fairly heavyweight operation by comparison to what I have in mind for the CLR due to the traffic to the reservoirs.

The NER was aware of the possibility of an L&Y/Mid. route north from Skipton, which would have run from Grassington, over the top and down Coverdale to Middleham before taking a line past Catterick, and Croft Spa then along the Tees Valley to Stockton.  The Midland was also aware of the possibilities - I think that was part of the motivation behind the Rylstone/Grassington branch which was built by the Yorkshire Dales Railway, a Midland puppet. This had ambitions to reach either Hawes (a minor inconvenience to NER due to the existing MR branch from Hawes Jct) or Darlington via Coverdale which would be big trouble to the NER.  From the Milands POV, the YDR kept the NER from coming the other way into the Skipton/Colne/Blackburn area!  A Midland line into Teeside had the potential to syphon off a worthwhile amount of coal and iron traffic.  

I suspect that by 1900 an extension of the YDR could well have been promoted as a SG light railway - after all we are talking freight route here, so the 25mph speed limit is no real inconvenience - over the top through Middleham and Cattrick and into Darlington.  The full horror of the proposal (from the NER's POV) would only have become apparent later when the Midland makes a definite play for access to Stockton and Middlesbrough by running powers or following the lower reaches of the Tees.

Naturally, it would have been important to the NER to block the possibility of an alternative route for goods to/from Teesside, so spending twenty-five to thirty thousand at 1905 prices on a branchline to keep the Midland out of Coverdale and therefore out of Teeside would have just have been the cost of doing business to a big company like the NER.  In any case, some of the capital would have come from the locals.  Even though this line is mainly a spoiler, the NER would have done a thorough job, and they were not afraid of new ideas to make the line economically viable.  I also suspect that they would have indulged in some of their standard thinking as well, especially when it was a simple matter of ordering the usual kit.

The other Dale that I have taken a good look at is Swaledale, which has a lot more traffic potential due to lead mining around Reeth and Muker, but I am sticking with Coverdale as being, in railway terms, strategically more important. It also gves the possibility of an interesting post-preservation history including a 'heritage railway to heritage railway' interchange at Leyburn.

Peter in AZ
Traffic Pattern? What pattern? Spuds out; grain in, but cattle, sheep and passengers are a lot less predictable.

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Post by IrishPeter » Mon Mar 04, 2013 5:31 am

The foundations have gone in for the shed, and the new track up to the upper, Hinderthwaite, terminus has been laid, and there is most of a loop in position.  I am not quite happy with the alignment of the station, so it may well get altered when I am a bit further on with the shed project. At the moment the loop is cramped by the rising gradient to the west, and I would like it to be both leveller and closer to the fence line. However, that will get fettled as things with the shed progress.

The first of the matchboard carriage is coming along quite nicely.  It is a homebrewed brake-composite converted, according to the tale, from a brake-third. In winter it usually pals around with one of the all-thirds, but occasionally goes on its own, to provide basic Dales transportation.  I gave it a clearence test on Saturday and it does not even come close to getting too close to any fixed structures, so from that angle "the job's a good un."  Also at a scale 33'6" it looks big, but not huge alongside a 15'6" Millie. However, I am wondering whether I will have the courage to build a transporter wagon that long, or will I chicken out with just the 19' version. At least with the CLR's theoretical 7.5 ton axle loading the transporters would have been able to convey NER 20T coal wagons, though they would have been a bit short for the BR 21 tonner.

I also gave my Accucraft Ruby an outing - the first for several months.  It seems she will manage two or three bogie coaches, or five wagons, and brake van on the long climb up Hinderthwaithe Bank.  Millie manages two bogies, five wagons and a van with no difficulties except for occasional shortness of breath, which would be less of a problem if I would run with the gas turned up more, but I tend to turn it well down once the safety blows as my usual loads are quite light.  The restart on a 1 in 29 gradient with a heavy load is pretty noisy even without a chuff-pipe.

I have been giving the stations some thought.  I think Hinderthwaite will be a loop and a couple of sidings, but with an engine shed and maybe the usual NER 'why use one when three will do' signalling installation worked from a late example of the brick 'southern division' signal box (probably the most substantial building on the NG Section!) rather than the usual boards  Horsehouse, Gammersgill, and Covenham will be 'nowt more than a shed,' though Gammersgill and Coverham may eventually get a sidings.  Middleham, predictably, is the main intermediate station and has a loop, booking office, and a couple of sidings and has the experimental board signals.  Leyburn will be a simple layout, again with board signals, but some sort of simple representation of the SG station across the road (garden path), and an interchange for rolling SG wagons on/off transporters.  If I go for the preserved era, the SG side of the station need be no more than a short length of 3" gauge single line, and a siding leading to an interchange with the CLR.  

Anyway, tomorrow is my day off, so perhaps I will get an hour on the railway, with the camera, in among my shed building duties.

Cheers
Peter in AZ
Traffic Pattern? What pattern? Spuds out; grain in, but cattle, sheep and passengers are a lot less predictable.

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Post by IrishPeter » Sat Mar 23, 2013 4:19 am

Now the shed is more-or-less finished (I am down to the tinkering about jobs, and it needs a coat of paint) I will hopefully get back to garden railway construction. The new upper terminus will need some engineering to prevent flooding due to run off, and some of that work was incorporated into the shed project.

Cheers,
Peter in AZ
Traffic Pattern? What pattern? Spuds out; grain in, but cattle, sheep and passengers are a lot less predictable.

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Post by IrishPeter » Mon Oct 14, 2013 7:07 am

Strange as it may seem I am still brewing on this idea even though I have officially returned to the Skebawn and Castleknox plan. I guess it is a case of watch this space for which wins! However, my wife likes the Pennines

The latest little nudge in this direction - other than a trip to Leyburn when I was on vacation - was discovering the NER's Tyneside electric stock, and the two Petrol-electrics built in the 1904-06 period. That gives me an idea of what the carriages could have looked like as Light Railway practice favours saloon carriages. After all, I cannot imagine the NER reinventing the wheel for a dozen miles of 30" gauge in the wilds of Yorkshire, I imagine the mantra would have been closer to - 'just mak it a foot narrower, Lad, and keep it about fotty foot' would have been about as much direction as York Carriage Works would have needed. Deducting the engine compartment, the Autocar design produces a 47/60 seater that is 43' long. I am playing with a couple of other versions in the area of 38'...

Other than that - I am a sucker for slotted post signals and spring green locomotives...

Cheers,
Peter in AZ
Traffic Pattern? What pattern? Spuds out; grain in, but cattle, sheep and passengers are a lot less predictable.

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Re: The Coverdale Light Railway

Post by IrishPeter » Sat Dec 02, 2017 2:48 pm

If you will pardon the somewhat eccentric English "I am still liking this idea" and I think it has a chance of realisation in 1:22.5 running on Ga.0. It is all a bit sketchy at the moment - literally given the state of the note pad next to my chair. Quite a few of the ideas from the original project are surviving the project review, however. I am, however, leaning towards making it preservation era.

Peter in Va.
Traffic Pattern? What pattern? Spuds out; grain in, but cattle, sheep and passengers are a lot less predictable.

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Re: The Coverdale Light Railway

Post by IrishPeter » Thu Dec 21, 2017 2:34 pm

It looks like the site for the Railway is going to be a rectangle roughly 31' by 15' with the possibility of running a further length of line across the rear of the kitchen to produce an 'L' shaped area approximately 31' by 35'. The domestic authority has given outline planning permission, and the Light Railway Order is pending. The site slopes fairly steeply, so there will be levelling work and shallow cuttings at the west end of the site, whilst the east end of the continuous run will be on a raised track bed of some sort. The draft plan calls for a minimum mainline radius of 6' (which is a little over 2 chains scale) and a minimum radius of 4' (which is roughly 90' scale) and a maximum gradient of 1 in 50 (2%). The swept envelope will be 8" x 5" which should be plenty for Ga. 3 waggons on transporters as the old RCH standard wagons were rarely larger than 12'H by 8'6"W, and the CLR would not have lasted into the Speedlink era when wagons finally got appreciably bigger. That would have been the death of the old style Calthrop transporters, and would have required a switch to the Saxon type of Rollwagen. I don't see anyone putting their hands in their pockets to finance that innovation. I am hoping, but I have not looked at the diagrams yet, that the 1950s Ferry Wagons would fit on the longer transporters. They were still kicking around in the 1980s on goods trains.

Where the line is ground level I am planning to go with my usual construction method of a shallow trench and gravel roadbed with everything well and truly pounded down to discourage weeds. I have found that weed membrane is a bit of a mixed blessing; it discourages weeds right enough, but promotes washouts because roadbed does not bind with the soil underneath, especially when the line is on the side of an hill. I am seriously considering not using it this time. On top of the sub-roadbed goes the track, which is held with wire stays driven into the ground, and is basically at ground level. Lastly a top dressing of finer material actually to hold the track in place. The local variety of pea gravel seems to be crushed rock, which, if I run it through a screen, will provide both the larger stuff for the sub-roadbed and the finer stuff for the actual ballast.

The NER was very fond of wooden buildings in secondary locations, so I will be recycling standard elements there. The CLR would have been roughly contemporary with the Ponteland, and the widen lines out of 'Ull, so that is where I'll start looking for prototypes.

I am really getting excited by this project!

Cheers,
Peter in Va
Last edited by IrishPeter on Sat Dec 23, 2017 11:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Traffic Pattern? What pattern? Spuds out; grain in, but cattle, sheep and passengers are a lot less predictable.

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Re: The Coverdale Light Railway

Post by LNR » Thu Dec 21, 2017 9:55 pm

Excitement is good!
Glad to hear your breaking ground outside.
Grant.

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Re: The Coverdale Light Railway

Post by ge_rik » Fri Dec 22, 2017 10:51 am

IrishPeter wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 2:34 pm ........ with the possibility of running a further length of line across the rear of the kitchen to produce an 'L' shaped area approximately 31' by 35'.
It wasn't until I was about half way through that I realised it wasn't an indoor line. I know houses across the Pond are more generously sized than our rabbit hutch derivatives, but I was beginning to envision a really spectacular indoor railway. I think it was the digging of the trench that made me suspect I was barking up the wrong tree.

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Re: The Coverdale Light Railway

Post by IrishPeter » Fri Dec 22, 2017 2:03 pm

ge_rik wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2017 10:51 am
IrishPeter wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 2:34 pm ........ with the possibility of running a further length of line across the rear of the kitchen to produce an 'L' shaped area approximately 31' by 35'.
It wasn't until I was about half way through that I realised it wasn't an indoor line. I know houses across the Pond are more generously sized than our rabbit hutch derivatives, but I was beginning to envision a really spectacular indoor railway. I think it was the digging of the trench that made me suspect I was barking up the wrong tree.
There are two railways in progress.

There is an indoor line in the basement with an area about 28' by 18.' This is the Skebawn and Castleknox, which is 15mm/Ga.1 Irish 3'gauge, and it is down there because I decided that after years of them struggling up and down the 1 in 30 grades of the old S&CT, the kettles needed somewhere to run on the flat. It also allows me to go into some extra detailing on the buildings if I want to because they don't have to deal with the great outdoors. Small tank locos, four wheelers and small bogie carriages for the stock of the S&CT, and it is a worthy example of all that Calthrop criticized about the NG light railways of Ireland. The rest of the basement - about 14' x 14' is general storage and Herself's yarn stash. My side has all the awkward bits like the stairs and the boiler.

The new project is an outdoor line, the Coverdale Light, which is 1:22.5/Ga. 0 and is battery powered. The idea is that it gives me somewhere to play around with Calthrop's ideas. Big rolling stock is the rule for the great outdoors, so re-gauged Newqida Reko carriages, transporter wagons, and all that good stuff, but the buildings will be minimal and wooden, and stashed in the shed when not in use. This project is scheduled to be started over Christmas and New Year. At the moment I am at the paper dirtying stage.

Our house is sort of Vicarage sized - about 2400 square feet - and is four over four; kitchen, dining room, study, and parlour down stairs, three bedrooms, bathroom, and screened in porch upstairs, and was built in the 1890s. The usual house size here is 1600 to 1800 square feet, so we are on the large size, but not the size of some of the few McMansions on the south side of town by the golf course. The lot it is built on is about 150' by 50' taking an average on the width, and tapers back from the street to allow for the difference between the original city street grid, and the 1889 street grid, which is orientated along the river. Unfortunately it is on a considerable east facing slope that looks out on the Blue Ridge, so that limits the size of the outdoor line. It is a biggish house by UK standards, but by no means huge.

Cheers,
Peter in Va
Traffic Pattern? What pattern? Spuds out; grain in, but cattle, sheep and passengers are a lot less predictable.

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Re: The Coverdale Light Railway

Post by bazzer42 » Sat Dec 23, 2017 8:34 am

Being Laurel and Hardy fans and railway buffs my brother and I would give anything for a house with a railway basement that looked out to the blue ridge mountains...is there a lonesome pine?

Merry Christmas.

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Re: The Coverdale Light Railway

Post by RylstonLight » Sat Dec 23, 2017 8:34 pm

Nice cheese as well, although now made in Wensleydale and not Coverdale
Andy S. at the Rylston Light Railway

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Re: The Coverdale Light Railway

Post by IrishPeter » Fri Dec 29, 2017 4:06 am

Okay, here goes with the preliminary track plan...
Track Plan Mk. 1.3 - 1.1 & 1.2 went in t'bin!
Track Plan Mk. 1.3 - 1.1 & 1.2 went in t'bin!
NER Coverdale NG.jpg (138.76 KiB) Viewed 7120 times
Leyburn is only partly shown as paper comes in standard sizes, as do scanner beds, so the right hand end of the station would be off the paper! The basic idea is to allow end to end operation via a continuous loop, so I can either set a train running and watch it make circuits, or else run something a bit more timetable orientated depending on my mood. An up working would leave Coverdale (the terminus by the shed), and make several circuits before calling at Middleham. After the Middleham stop it would continue for a couple more laps, and then head into Leyburn and drop off any wagons in the exchange sidings, and reload the transporters before heading back up the hill to Coverdale. Rinse and repeat with some sort of system for generating goods traffic such as a die and a pack of cards. I do need to fit in a basic halt - siding, platform, and short stretch of Ga. 3 track - somewhere on the continuous run, but I have not quite decided where yet.

Cheers,
Peter in Va
Traffic Pattern? What pattern? Spuds out; grain in, but cattle, sheep and passengers are a lot less predictable.

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Re: The Coverdale Light Railway

Post by LNR » Fri Dec 29, 2017 8:42 am

Good to see the creative juices working Peter, sod turning soon!
Grant.

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Re: The Coverdale Light Railway

Post by tom_tom_go » Fri Dec 29, 2017 9:15 am

Oh to have the room to building something like that, looks brilliant!

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Re: The Coverdale Light Railway

Post by Big Jim » Fri Dec 29, 2017 10:09 am

Ooooh, nice.
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Re: The Coverdale Light Railway

Post by Dwayne » Fri Dec 29, 2017 3:15 pm

:thumbup:

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Re: The Coverdale Light Railway

Post by Soar Valley Light » Fri Dec 29, 2017 7:37 pm

Looks great Peter.

Are the tenders in and a contractor appointed yet? ;) I look forward to seeing it develop.


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Re: The Coverdale Light Railway

Post by IrishPeter » Sat Dec 30, 2017 3:09 am

Parson, Pawson, and Shovel - in other words, me, the dog, and the garden spade - are doing the digging once it warms up a bit out there. I am loathe to construct earthworks when it is below freezing, so at the moment I am waiting impatiently to make a start, as it is just too cold to make any extended efforts outside. We have been down to -13C this week, and the day time high today was +3C, but that is the highest temperature that is expected before 8th January! Now I am used to my fingers and toes getting a numb when I take the dogs out, but my backside! That is a bit much. Not quite 'thawing the dogs off the lamp posts' weather, but very cold by Virginia standards. At the moment I am creeping outside for 10 or 14 minutes here and there to measure up the site some more, and I am tweaking the plan whilst I wait for the weather to warm up a tiny bit.

Cheers,
Peter in Va
Traffic Pattern? What pattern? Spuds out; grain in, but cattle, sheep and passengers are a lot less predictable.

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