Picture of the Town Centre and new Extension taken
at the Huddersfield Railway Modeller's October 2010 Holmfirth Exhibition.
An atmospheric shot of the station area with the
Huddersfield trolleybus and new Bradford trolleybus.
A view looking back down the developing extension.
The layout won the 'Lockwood Trophy' for Best layout in
Show, by public vote.
News: 2011 -
Railway Modeller magazine commissioned an article on Ridings in 2010. A
professional photographer came to take pictures; these, along with some further
detailed pictures, set the scene for an article I wrote for them during the year. The
resulting article appeared in the November 2011 issue of Railway Modeller.
2010 -
"Ridings" appeared at the Huddersfield Railway Modeller's
Exhibition in Holmfirth on the 30th/31st October and was voted Best in Show.
See photos above.
2009 -
"Ridings" appeared at the Bradford Model Railex on 18/19th April.
It was very well received, and indeed won recognition by taking the Chairman's
Choice Shield. It also appeared at the Sheffield Model
Railway, Bus and Tram Exhibition on 20th June 2009
- see photos below.
2008 - "Ridings"
appeared at the Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft's Model Weekend on the 13th
&14th September and also at the Model Bus Federation's AGM in Sheffield on the
4th October.
2007 - "Ridings"
appeared at the Sheffield Model Railway, Bus and Tram Exhibition on 23rd
June 2007 complete with the new extension (albeit in its early stages).
2006
the first full year "Ridings" was exhibited turned out to be quite busy! It
was at the Model Railway, Bus, Trolleybus and Tram Exhibition in Sheffield on the
17th June. It also appeared at the Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft's Model Weekend on
16th/17th September where it worked very well.
"Ridings" was also invited to the Huddersfield Railway Modellers
Exhibition on 28th/29th October 2006, where it caused quite a stir amongst the traditional
railway layouts!
Click here for pictures from the
above events, and of the
layout at previous stages for comparison (bottom of this page). Click on any of the photos
for a larger version.
The building of the Extension continues with
the scenery. The Extension makes
Ridings around 50% bigger, and gives more operational variety to both the railway and the buses -
see Extension Pages (link above left). The latest is the addition of DCC control for the
trolleybuses.
Click here for Videos
of Ridings! (Now working again)
Latest
Awards:
The Lockwood Trophy for Best Layout in Show - Holmfirth 2010.
This project started some years ago - too many to remember
actually. The idea was to build a 4mm scale (1:76) layout with working
trolleybuses on it. A railway as well was a natural addition as items for these are
readily available, although I took the decision to operate 'unusual' stock, as opposed to
those easily obtained, so long as they operated in the Yorkshire area of
England. It is based in the mid-1960's, when trolleybuses still plied the
streets in great numbers, but the cut-backs on the railways had already led to some line
closures and diesels were complementing steam operation.
Obviously the
idea relied on steering the trolleybuses. At first, I tried electronic guidance from
a wire carrying a high-frequency signal - even having to obtain a radio licence to do so -
but eventually settled on a magnetic method. The railway part has been constructed
for a while, but the technical problems with building the working trolleybuses were too
great to overcome with the limited engineering tools I had at my disposal.
However, the resurgence of my interest in trolleybuses led to intense activity on the
layout, and then the Faller road guidance system became more readily available, and this
was used to supersede my own vehicle steering system.
Why "Ridings"? Well, Huddersfield is in the old West
Riding of Yorkshire, and the layout pinches bits of the scenery and buildings from around
the Ridings of Yorkshire. And, well, the connotations with riding
on trolleys were too great to resist!
In this section you can the follow
the links above left to views of the layout under construction,
and also to the vehicles and the locomotives. Below are wider-angle
photographs from events visited.
Views of "Ridings" at the Bradford Model Railway
Club's Exhibition in April. Above - the Extension end of Ridings, with the Chairman's Choice
Shield.
A long view from the moors end of the layout at the
Bradford Exhibition.
At the Sheffield
Model Railway, Bus and Tram Exhibition in June 2009,
showing the Town Centre from a different angle.
Photographs of the Ridings from 2008 Exhibitions:
Above and left: Ridings at the Model Bus Federation's
AGM, October 2008
Above - Ridings at Sandtoft in September 2008
Photographs of the Ridings extension at
the Model Exhibition in Sheffield, June 2007. The newly-built Extension was
taken for trials, even though it wasn't finished scenically. The operation of it
went very well, and lessons learned were acted upon after the exhibition.
Photographs of Ridings at the Huddersfield
Railway Modellers Exhibition in October 2006:
Photographs of Ridings at the Model Exhibition in Sheffield, June
2006:
Photographs of Ridings in
very basic form at the Model
Exhibition in Sheffield, June 2005:
