Alder Carr.wmv

As displayed by Jim Owers at theM5-M50 Narrow Gauge Modellers Exhibition at Corse & Staunton Village Hall on Saturday 8 October 2011.

Alder Carr, measuring 31" x 17", was a coal mine layout set in the 1980s based loosely on a private mine in West Yorkshire. The purpose of the layout was to explore the idea of showing the working production from the mine.

Viewers could see full mine wagons, hauled by Greenwood and Batley battery electric locomotives, pulled out of the mine and entering the processing shed. There they were unloaded and, after a short period, the empty wagons were returned to the mine. Electronics behind the scenes made the whole process completely automatic and, as reported in the model railway press, the illusion was completed by a full train entering the shed on one loop of track with an identical but empty rake leaving on another loop. As Eric Morecambe would have said "You can't see the join!"

The wagons and Greenwood and Batley battery electric locomotives - correct for Yorkshire in the 1980s - were made from Black Dog Mining kits and the two buildings were scratchbuilt out of Plastikard. Rubber moulds and plaster were used to make the rock faces.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

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