Kings Cross to Leeds

[Mickey]

Kings Cross to Leeds a historically inaccurate layout but a bit of fun to operate I presume.

http://letsgoloco.co.uk/kings-cross-leeds-steam/

[jwealleans]

Great place to visit if you get the chance, Mickey. All operated using blocks and bell codes.

[Mickey]

Yeah the layout actually looks pretty good Mr.Wealleans I particularly like the 'London end' featuring Kings Cross station, Kings Cross Goods yard & Hornsey road part of the layout.

[Hatfield Shed]

Yes, it is an operator's model railway. This is an aspect of the hobby that is not much promoted from the commercial side, I suspect because the product opportunity is significantly smaller than selling pretty locomotives to either stand in display cases or never emerge from the box.

Yet it is the timetabled guided route operation that is the heart of the fascination for some of us. No need for any of that landscape around it, there's no trains on that: just the track and key functional features for the trains to operate on. It is a minority taste in the hobby.

I recall some pretty criticial correspondence in one of the modelling mags circa 1970 when they had dared to cover an 'operational only' rather than fully sceniced layout. Oh dear, this just wasn't on, 'not railway modelling'. Currently there's fussing over Pendon on RMWeb. For my taste that's the classic example of 'not railway modelling', it's a landscape model that just happens to be seasoned with 1% GWR extract.

[Atlantic 3279]

I agree that it is an impressive achievement in many ways of an ambitious idea. Unless they've considerably improved the power controllers in recent years then they are one thing that badly spoils operational "realism" on this layout. Locos and trains are not being operated realistically if they start off reasonably slowly but then lurch to a considerably higher speed when somebody throws a big switch! Slamming locos on to full power when they are already losing their feet trying to pull stiff, heavy trains up gradients and round curves that are too much for them, where an over ambitious track layout has been crammed in, also does nothing to contribute to satisfying operation.

[Graeme Leary]

I only became fully aware of Grantham when I joined the LNER Society during my last visit in April and read an article on the layout in one of the earlier journals. My next UK visit will be in September/October next year(2019) and I certainly hope there will be some chance of seeing it then. It looks amazing.
Graeme Leary
New Zealand

[markeg]

Agree that it is a great place to visit. Was there in 2011 visiting from Australia.
Mark

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Ar'n't we lucky that 'Model Railways' is a broad canvas, we have plenty of scales, and rule no 1 is at work everywhere.

manna

[Manxman1831]

I enjoyed visiting the GMRS with my parents that I took my girlfriend there not long after we started seeing each other. She thought that the old school was a bit cramped, but the way that the layout is set up makes for a very good visual spectacle. We adjourned to West Stockwith afterwards.