Fen End Pit
Industrial Sand

Between Ely and March, amongst the rich peat soil of the Fens, deposits of sand and gravel have been quarried for many years. in a shallow pit a Ruston 10RB dragline loads skips ready to be hauled away by ageing Simplex locomotives.

The gift of an original manual with scale drawing for a 10RB led to the construction of the dragline and inspired this 16mm scale layout, a tribute to an age before lorries and conveyor belts replaced rails.

The layout was originally 8 feet long by approx. 3 feet wide but has since been extended to 15 feet with an unloading hopper and conveyor belt.

A Lenz DCC system has been installed, with the locos fitted with Gold Decoders and Power-1 modules to help cope with the quantity of sand which gets thrown around.

 

breadbin dragline dragline
Ruston Bucyrus
Dragline		 Rad Pevec -
expert dragline driver		 Unloading
breadbin lister simplex 40S model
'Bread-bin' cab
Simplex		 IP Engineering
Lister		 Model Simplex 40S
binnie binnie plan of layout
No 43 Binnie skips Fen End Pit plan
For more information please see the following articles
publication issue article
Narrow Gauge and Industrial Railway Modelling Review volume 7, issue 54, 2003 building jubilee track in 16mm scale
 Narrow Gauge and Industrial Railway Modelling Review  volume 8, page 279, 2005
 Fen End Pit
     
     
16mm scale
32mm gauge