Remains of Leicester Corporation Tramways

The last tram ran in Leicester in 1949. Despite this, there are a good few remains still to be seen, more so than in some other places where they lasted longer. My favourites are the two remaining depots. Until a couple of years ago, there was also the main depot at Abbey Park - sadly this was pulled down in favour of yet more, so far unbuilt, flats.

  The most interesting one is Stoneygate on the southern edge of the city. As can be seen, the twin track depot retains its gates and ancillary buildings. I've felt for a while it would make a great microlayout on its own. I'd like to have a go at building it in 1/64 scale to display some of the Corgi trams I've acquired over the years. I'm not even sure it would need motorising though I'd like to keep my options open.

In use until 1922, the depot held 6 tramcars. In fact, it might do once more at some point in the future, as its just been leased by the Leicester Tram 31 Group. They own the remains of (rather obviously) tram 31 and are gradually restoring it. They face something of an uphill task however as a number of parts were removed from it by Crich Museum when they restored its sister, number 76. It would be lovely to see a restored Leicester tram back in an original depot one day in the future. 

One benefit of the building being taken over is that the Digital Building Heritage Group of De Montford University have carried out a full survey and reconstructed it digitally in its original condition. They've also modeled one of the tramcars in its open top condition and plan to 3d print this to give the public greater awareness of their tramway heritage.


These digital models have been used in a short animation that can be seen on YouTube:

The Narborough Road depot also survives, though this is still in use as a food and clothing wholesaler so isn't in such a well preserved state.

 Having said that, apart from the addition of a mezzanine floor, it's probably fair to say the absolute minimum has been done to the building, and standing inside the 'wellcome Supermarket Ltd' downstairs (nice people despite the spelling howler) it's not difficult to see the building's origins.

On the side wall, a lovely bit of history remains. The telephone number - Aylestone 44 - shows this advertisment's age just as much as the period motor car used as a background.

Remembering the Rivarossi tram...

Watched this for a few days on eBay - since it went for just over 100 Euros there was no way I was going to place a bid, but it did bring back forgotten memories of the old Roy's Bargain Store, later the Railway and Barter Shop (spot the connection), once son of Roy took over, back in my old home town of Long Eaton back in the 1970s.

When I first discovered it the shop was an unlikely combination of junk, such as dodgy cameras and cassette recorders, and model railways. Initially this was virtually all secondhand, Hornby Dublo or tinplate and the like. As time went by, new stuff gradually took over. By the time I left town in '79, it was pretty much a normal model railway establishment.

For a while, in the centre of the shop was a Rivarossi tram set, trundling around inside a glass case. It was a complete tramway in a box - an oval of roadway and the all important overhead wires were included in the set. At around 2 square feet it was also one of the original micro layouts, way before such things actually existed.

Looking at the eBay pictures, I'd forgotten what a good looking model it was. Considering that it came complete with overhead, working I believe, there's nothing like it available today. Of course, with Rivarossi part of the Hornby International empire now, it's possible it could be relaunched some day, though I doubt it - they seem ken to stick to safe bets, like Union Pacific Big Boys to guarantee a quick return on their investment. Good news for shareholders, less so for niche modellers. In any case, looking at the way prices have shot up since the relaunch there's no way I'd be able to afford the set if it were reintroduced, so perhaps it's better this way.

Freight on street tramways in the British Isles

Is the title of the book that arrived today, courtesy of eBay. It's by prolific tramway author David Voice and does exactly what it says on the label. Although there are a couple of lines that to my mind stretch the definition e.g. the Glyn Valley Tramway, it contains a wealth of ideas to spice up operations on a model tramway. Some of these I knew about already - anyone who's visited Crich will have seen the Blackpool steeplecab for instance - but there were many more I was unaware of.

Manchester parcels tram. Same day delivery of parcels was guaranteed anywhere in the city provided it was posted by 3.45 p.m.

Two trains of tin ore on the Cambourne and Redruth in Cornwall.

One operation I knew less about was in Glasgow, where freight locomotives were used to deliver main line wagons to a couple of shipyards in Govan (avoid Rab C. Nesbitt reference...). Glasgow tramways, like a few others, were laid to 4' 7 3/4'' gauge so that main line wagons could run on their wheel flanges on the grooved tramway street track.

And of course, the ideal locomotive to model such operations in n scale would be the tiny Deki 3 from Tsugawa Yokou.

Things I never knew about Tomix turnouts...

Most of what I know about wiring was gleaned many years ago from careful study of the works of Cyril Freezer, especially the iconic 60 Plans for Small Railways, which I pretty much wore out as an early teenager. Reverse loops were tricky, necessitating something called a DPDT switch, otherwise short circuits would occur, the universe implode - you get the picture.

As far as I knew, this was still the case today - even the new fangled DCC seemed to struggle - I notice Bachmann make a special reverse loop module for their Easy Command line. Not a massive problem when you're modelling a railway perhaps, reverse loops being quite rare beasts, but tramways are a different matter. Most of my favourites, the Silesian system I 've discussed previously for instance, have a fair number, so naturally I wanted one too. Whatever CJ said.

Googling around at the weekend for information about Tomix insulated railjoiners, I came across a message on the excellent Tomix and Tomytec model railway group on Yahoo, by Nick Kibre (message 872 if you're interested) that said the Tomix turnouts were power routing and no extra railgaps were required for a reverse loop.

To be honest, I doubted it would work - it went directly against the world according to Freezer, but I dutifully set up a quick test rig in the kitchen, using my 6 volt battery controller so that the consequences wouldn't be too dire when the whole thing blew up... Only to find it worked. Perfectly.

Thankyou Nick Kibre and thankyou Tomix!