Market Weighton

[Rippers]

Situated in the Yorkshire Wolds 'Market Weighton' was the junction of the Beveley-York and Selby-Driffield lines. The station and associated yards situated between the double junctions that brought the two routes together for a brief distance.
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The model you see part of here is a 4mm (finescale 16.5) recreation of that station and was built by many of the modellers who now consist the East Riding Finescale Group. In fact we built it 20 years ago!!. ................hence the somewhat dated scenics.
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All the buildings (mainly GT Andrews designs) were built in wood and plasticard from original drawings.
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The complete layout measures some 40 feet by 21 feet ???....... with only the station board seen here having four right angle corners as the scenic frontage was built to the curve of the prototype.
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Big isnt it?..........
...........and this is only half of the scenic section (3 boards) consisting the York/Selby junction end - there are a further 3 with the goods yards and Beverley-Driffield which go beyond the station board you can see to the rear.
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To say the model has spent the last 10 years in store (we sold it a decade back and have reaquired it recently after the owner - who never even unpacked it)- passed away.

Plans at present have includied given the model a deep clean and thorough testing - plus sympathetically upgrading the scenics with newer materials. Though due to commitments with other layouts we are reluctant to show it again (though we have been bombarded with enquiries).

Hopefully there will be a club out there who might like to take the model on (would make a superb DCC layout).

 

[Dog Star]

Thank you for posting these photographs - I had not seen the layout before and that is clearly a serious omission.  Although you remark that the "scenics are dated" that is not obvious from the images.... I like the way in which the colours are muted and that nothing is over-powering.  Maybe the ballast is a tad clean, or does the model represent the prototype a few days after relaying or a visit from the ballast-cleaner?

regards, Graham

 

[7mmMick]

Rippers,

Lovely to see some pictures of this layout, Mick Nicholson has mentioned it a few times to me but i've never seen it in the flesh. I would have loved to have stood on the platform on a busy summer saturday and watched the endless excursions run through, maybe a D49 piloted by a D20, fantastic. I only live about twenty minutes from Market Weighton and having watched the Marsden Rail DVD a few years ago I went to investigate only to find the following............

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Possibly the remaining gate post from the station approach ?

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The only remaining York and North Midland building left

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And a road bridge towards Driffield, nature has really taken hold now, sad to see but the layout brings it back to life

ATB Mick

 

[28ten]

Thank you for posting these photographs - I had not seen the layout before and that is clearly a serious omission.  Although you remark that the "scenics are dated" that is not obvious from the images.... I like the way in which the colours are muted and that nothing is over-powering.  Maybe the ballast is a tad clean, or does the model represent the prototype a few days after relaying or a visit from the ballast-cleaner?

regards, Graham

I agree. Its not my area but it looks very nicely modeled in a restrained manner. More photos would be most welcome

 

[Rippers]

Thank you for posting these photographs - I had not seen the layout before and that is clearly a serious omission.  Although you remark that the "scenics are dated" that is not obvious from the images.... I like the way in which the colours are muted and that nothing is over-powering.  Maybe the ballast is a tad clean, or does the model represent the prototype a few days after relaying or a visit from the ballast-cleaner?

regards, Graham

No probem. Actually by dated, I meant that the products used were more of the died sawdust, lint and litchen variety rather than the vast range of more modern products available to us modellers today. Though we would say that rather than fading the layouts green bit seem to have darkened over time! ???...........and yes the ballast probably is a bit clean.......though the layout was initially built set in the 1930's....where if you believe the TV period dramas everything was spotless!!

Still -we dont intend to change much on the model now - just tidy it up and add a bit more variety in colour courtessy of some spanking new Woodland Scenics products and a whole range of the cheapest and stickiest own brand hairsprays we can find. ;D
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Which as you can see do little for Steve hair or Craigs lack of it!
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Yep - the cottages at the rear are the self same ones that can be seen in Micks photos of the real thing as it is today. The rest of the station is now the foundations of a housing estate. Though the similar station at Pocklington still exists complete with its overall roof which covers a school gym I do believe. Whereas Market Weighton lost its overall roof in the early Nationalisation era in favour for some featureless platform canopies of the same type as recently removed from Pickering station in favour of reinstalling the overall roof there. (err with me on that!)
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The beans have come on well in the allotments over the last decade though! :scratch:

Mind looking at the layout now it is hard to believe but this layout was the first exhibition layout I ever did the scenic work on. (Just the scenics Mally and the gang built all the structures)....and I was barely 21 at the time with my only prior experience been the couple of small home layouts I had constructed in my teens.

Quite an epic model to choose (well more like be press-ganged into) to make a start in scenic modelling wasnt it!!?

I obvously had no fear in those days!! :wave:........... or more likely no experience of all the things that could have gone wrong in doing it!

 

[Tappa]

As requested a few more piccies showing the view away from the station in the other direction

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Mally enjoying the tea break during cleaning!

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The final board which is the Beverley/Driffield junction was still in the carrying cradle.

Jeff

 

[Rippers]

...and after Tappa's timely selection of photos showing the two boards that go together to make up the goods yards at the Eastern end of the station here is the last and final scenic board which has the junction of the Driffield and Beverley lines on it.
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Notice the elms in the region have suffered a bout of Dutch Elm disease.
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Left for Driffied and the coast - Right for Beverley, Hull and the Docks. Leading on from here were a pair of double tracked curved boards which feed the two level fiddle yard - the similar curved boards at the other end of the layout do likewise - the height difference of the two levels facilitating a crossover of all thrains so that they reappear from the correct line again on the next circuit. 
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Lastly a shot of all the scenic and fiddleyard boards now packed up and crated again as if ready for action.

Incidentally if there is a group (or individual as mad as the one that conceived this model in the first place) that would like to take on this model them please get in touch.

 

[garethevans1986]

If only I had the space (permission from SWMBO is another thing lol).....

Nice layout and I hope you find somebody who can take it on and get it up and running again.

GE

 

[micknich2003]

 

[micknich2003]

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[Rippers]

Time for an update on progress with the layout me thinks.

The models appearance here has generated an amazing amount of interest - so much so that the layout is going on display for a month over Christmas (starting Dec 13th) in the Minster in nearby Beverley. In conjunction with a display by the Minsterrail group campaigning for the reopening of the real line.

In fact Mally did a radio interview last week about it and we have at least one TV spot to do in the next couple of weeks. (any more media calls and we will be employing agents!).

Joking aside it it an interesting oppotunity to give this local model an airing (after all it hasnt been seen in public for over a decade) and a darned good way for us to promote the positive side of this hobby to the general public. Something we have always thought well worth doing. If the visitor numbers quoted to us for the Minster over the Christmas period are accurate it will be seen by many thousands.

Anyways, if you happen to be in Beverley over the next month or so you know where to drop by if you wwant to see the model............. ' oh look dear a layout ...........I had no idea!'

 

[Rippers]

Due to the renewed interest surrounding this model and calls upon us for media coverage in relation to its forthcomming period of public display (any more calls from TV and radio stations and we will be employing agents!).
We have taken the oppotunity of borrowing a sizable room at a nearby charitable institution so as to errect the whole of the scenic section of the model for the first time in over a decade.


A sizable piece of real estate isnt it!! - at 40 foot by 21 foot when complete with its rear fiddle yards it has a central operating area lage enough to leave the van that carries it in and yet it not be in the way!

Still with a distinct lack of the orignal 1930's stock we played around with a limited (but not fully historically correct) update into the 50's/60's.

 

[Rippers]

As of yesterday the layout is available to view in Beverley Minster......

Plus it has hit the local papers and TV with the usual cockups of facts and miss-spelling of names in the reporting.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-16151857

 

[Simon]

Spottedfrom a link on the G1MRA Yahoo website - I thought you were being a bit ambitious

Model looks super though, and in very posh surroundings

Simon