Whitburn Corporation Tramways is my OO scale model of a small town tramway system somewhere in the North East of England. There is a real Whitburn on the coast between South Shields and Sunderland, but it never actually had trams, nor did it look like my model.
The model was built between 1986 and 1992 and was first exhibited in its completed form at the Derby Model Railway Exhibition in April 1992. From 1992 to 2002 it appeared at over 50 exhibitions all over England. Since 2002 it has come out of retirement on two occasions - the most recent being the Earley Model Railway Exhibition in September 2007.
The layout started out as an experiment in modelling OO in a small area (a board just 1m x 35 cm). This layout was gradually developed with the addition of working overhead and scenic details. After one exhibition in its original form the layout was doubled in size with the addition of the left hand section. This has a lot less track than the original section and to compensate a working bus is included, based on the Faller road system. The semi-automatic control system allows up to 4 trams to operate simultaneously. The layout is normally operated with 8 trams on the track.
Whitburn has a fleet of just 11 trams, of which only 9 are normally operated at exhibitions. All of the trams are painted in the Corporation's purple and white livery, in a style sympathetic to the prototype trams' original liveries, so the Sheffield-type "Roberts" car is white with purple bands and the Sunderland car includes the characeristic inverted V on the dash panel.
| Car | Type | Kit | Comment |
| 2 | 4 wheel single deck water car | Kiel Kraft "West Ham" | Overhead or 2 rail powered |
| 12 | 4 wheek double deck balcony | Kiel Kraft "West Ham" | The first tram I ever built |
| 18 | 4 wheel double deck balcony | Kiel Kraft "West Ham" | |
| 23 | 4 wheel double deck open top | Kiel Kraft "West Ham" | Upper deck seats are reversible |
| 26 | 4 wheel double deck enclosed | Kiel Kraft "West Ham" | Based on Sunderland ex-Ilford car using a Tramalan conversion kit, built by my brother |
| 35 | 4 wheel double deck enclosed | Kiel Kraft "Edinburgh" | Built by my brother |
| 36 | 4 wheel double deck enclosed | Kiel Kraft "Edinburgh" | Overhead or 2 rail powered, built by my brother |
| 50 | Bogie double deck enclosed | Tower Models enclosed standard | Overhead or 2 rail powered. Not normally operated at exhibitions, built by my Dad |
| 170 | 4 wheel double deck balcony | Kiel Kraft "Birmingham" | |
| 395 | Bogie double deck balcony | Tower Models balcony standard | Not normally operated at exhibitions, built by my Dad |
| 513 | 4 wheel double deck enclosed | Anbrico "Roberts" | Overhead or 2 rail powered |
Having built enough trams to operate the layout I have never really fet the urge to build another tram kit, although I have several in stock in case the urge should resurface!
The layout has won a number of awards at exhibitions including "Best visiting layout" and "Most entertaining layout". The layout appeared in "Railway Modeller" in March and May 1995.
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The track plan is shown on the diagram on the left. | |
Hall of Fame (Exhibition Diary)
Whitburn has made only one exhibition appearance in the last 3 years - at Earley in September 2007.
The Tramway and Light Railway Society
This site contains loads of information about model tramways and links to model and full size tramway sites.
Manufacturer of tram kits and supplier of all sorts of tramway modelling bits.
The background music to this page is the music hall song 'Riding on top of the Car', written by Fred W Leigh and V P Bryan with music by Harry von Tilzer, which was sung by George Lashwood. Click here to see the lyrics.
Acknowledgements
Whitburn was built with the help of most of my family. In particular, my brother David built trams 26, 35 and 36 and the buildings around the town square. My sister Hilary painted over 200 people, my father Howard built the steam roller and several other features, my brother's wife Jenny scribed most of the cobbles in the town square and made the layout curtain with the logo to David's design and my other sister Susan and her husband Jeffrey each built one of the road vehicles. The whole family, including my mother Margaret has operated the layout at exhibitions. Help with exhibiting has also come from Richard Curnow, Alec Potter, Richard Barling, Alex Hall, Jonathan Leithead and Kit Nairne.
Page maintained by Andrew Burchell. Last updated on 28/9/07. For more information email me or visit my home page.