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Exhibition

The Open Day 25/6/2016

What's New

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Monyador

Royale Les Eaux

The N Gauge layout

St Aidan's Bay

St Aidens Bay

The clubs previous layout under construction. See a section of it at the exhibition and open day. An "action shot" below.

Take a "virtual cab ride" from the goods yard across the Viaduct by clicking here.

The Viaduct

The viaduct is based on the structure at Staithes in North Yorkshire and has taken well over two years to construct. It is made from a 12mm exterior-grade ply with a 1mm brass sheet top deck and 0.5mm brass sheet on the sides and the underside. The brass is bonded to the ply and the top deck has countersunk screws for additional security.

3mm square section wooden strips represent to timber baulks normally found on bridge structure and the Peco code 75 track is fixed in individual chairs which are solvent-welded onto the plasticard strip bonded to the wood.

The viaduct supports are from brass tube, channel and angle sections soldered together to make what we think are reasonable representations of this type of structure. The outer pairs of supports are angled at three degrees to enhance the model and we are indebted to RAINFORD MODELS of Whaley Bridge for their kind assistance in machining the various components. The materials cost in the region of a hunderd pounds and our Treasurer is still getting over the shock!!

The handrail stantions are from 1950's GRAHAM FARISH '00' gauge brass track, bent and drilled for the wire handrails then soldered into place.

Comments have been made that it has taken longer to construct this than Isambard Kingdom Brunell would have taken, but in reality, we only have 2½ hours a week to do our construction. As a tribute to "IKB", we felt that we should have some identification on the structure and you will note the small plate between the upper and lower sections of the deck, inscribed with S&DRM 2002 - this isn't the date the viaduct was completed but is somewhere between where we started and finished. The next line BN/DMS/DM are the initials of those who laboured long and hard in building the structure, and of course, they are THE ENGINEERS !

As the structure isn't too far from Hartlepool (and for those of you who don't know the {true} story of the Hartlepool Monkey) you'll find one hanging from one of the support structures - this is slightly different than most other layouts which seem to have a thing about couples "humping" somewhere on their layout!

The final coat of red primer, white handrails and a layer of grubby ballast gives the viaduct a "lived-in feel" and of course the black plate with white text is a nice reminder that Engineers are still alive and well...