Ridings - a 4mm working Trolleybus layout
Part of the Trolleybuses Galore site.
(What is a Trolleybus? Click here to find
out).
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News: 2007 - "Ridings" appeared at the Sheffield Model Railway, Bus and Tram Exhibition on 23rd June 2007 complete with the new extension. This was taken for trials (even though it wasn't finished) which went very well - see photos above.
2006 had already turned out to be quite busy! "Ridings"
appeared 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 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 this event, 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. This makes Ridings 50% bigger, and give more operational variety to both the railway and the buses - see Extension Pages (link below). The latest is the addition of DCC control for the trolleybuses.
Click here for Videos of Ridings!
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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 all the Ridings of Yorkshire. And, well, the connotations with riding on trolleys were too great to resist! In this section you can the follow links on the left to views of the layout, and also to the vehicles and the locomotives. Questions? Comments? You can contact me at - |
Photographs of Ridings at the Huddersfield Railway Modellers Exhibition in October 2006:
Photographs of Ridings at the Model Exhibition in Sheffield, June 2006:
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Photographs of Ridings at the Model Exhibition in Sheffield, June 2005:
