Regular visitors to this blog may have noticed Keag members attending our monthly meetings are the few, 4 or 5 since Covid restrictions were lifted. Returning to the Church hall in Dartford has several advantages and disadvantages - it is warm and dry year round loft storage and a large floor area on which to set up layouts. Disadvantages - are that some members cannot said to be local. traveling from Abingdon and North West London as well as north of the river and Maidstone in Kent. But perhaps the greatest disadvantage is in exhibiting Lightermans Yard.
We need at least 4 to operate the layout and if possible a fith to engage with the public. The logistics of exhibiting requires at least 2 cars and and some off site (home) storage.
If an exhibition falls between meetings, the boxed layout is ‘taken home’ in two loads to be reunited at the venue, and returned to the church hall at the next meeting. Usually this works well, but it relies on, and requires two vehicles and a minimum team of four operators. Recently we have had to turn down or cancel two good shows - this does sound like (and is a thinly discuised) a plea for new members to help bolster our numbers and support other activities.
Building on the Covid experience where we were able to use other methods of meeting, Zoom being one example. It would be possible to have ‘hybrid’ meetings allowing remote members access to the proceedings (the Australian ZAG), as an example, We were also able to include remote members via Zoom, one in North Yorkshire.
Lightermans Yard remains popular at shows, and for us is still enjoyable to operate. However, we are beginning to discuss ideas for a new club layout.
As mentioned in previous blog entries, several individual initiatives are on-going, to which our membership will be able to contribute.
If 2mm scale interests you, or you would like to experience the sheer beauty of fine scale please come to one of our meetings, you will be welcome.
For more information, contact Pete King ( kingpete47@hotmail.co.uk )
In each monthly blog post we try to post something of interest, weather it is from our own modeling experience, a demonstration, workshop or just an interesting report.
This month, a visit to a narrow gauge museum in the Netherlands.
Museumwijzer Stoomtrein Katwijk Leiden, Nederlands.
Narrow gauge railways, a forgotten means of transport. In our museum you will become acquainted with the railway with a small gauge, the 'narrow gauge'. With narrow gauge, the track and rolling stock were light, making it much cheaper in construction, maintenance and operation than 'normal gauge' (1435 mm). Narrow gauge also lends itself to projects requiring temporary transport, such as the construction of roads, dikes and canals. A track was quickly laid and just as quickly taken apart and used elsewhere
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First applications were in the mines, the advantage of the wheel can already be seen around 1400. First on wooden rails, but from 1775, cast iron rails were used in German and English mines. It was not until 1820 that the first Dutch application for the Domaniale Mine in Kerkrade followed. Narrow gauge is also used in agriculture. A name that is inextricably linked to this is that of the French landowner Paul Decauville. He invents a 'portable railway' and transports his beet harvest much faster than with a horse and carriage to the factory. This movable track consists of short pieces of rails of 2 meters that can be easily attached to each other. The French armed forces immediately saw the potential of Decauville's invention. Transport was still a big problem at that time. In wet periods, the horse and carriage sink deep into the mud. Due to a better distribution of the weight, this does not happen on the railway lines. Narrow gauge railways played a major role in the First World War.
Narrow gauge as the first form of mass transport
From the middle of the nineteenth century, the Netherlands began to industrialize and the use of narrow gauge increased. Investments were being made in a good system of roads, railways and canals. The earthmoving required for such infrastructural works takes place with temporary narrow-gauge railways. The need for bricks is also growing. For a long time clay is formed on site and fired in field kilns. In 1869 the ring kiln 'De Eersteling' was put into use near Heeswijk along the Hollandsche IJssel. The ring kiln uses the heat from the fired brick to preheat the unfired brick, reducing fuel costs by 70%. Because brick factories are now in a fixed location, narrow gauge is used to bring in the clay from the surrounding quarries. m h s Narrow gauge is also used for long-distance transportation of people and goods. Tramways are being built throughout the Netherlands. East Gelderland, for example, has a line network with a track gauge of 750 mm. The light narrow gauge is not only cheap to purchase and construct, but can also often be laid along the road. This saves expensive land purchases needed for standard railways
In factories, at water works, on peat and horticultural farms, in lignite quarries and even in waste transport, the small locomotives with their train of often specially designed carriages ensure impressive performance everywhere. As in France and Germany, the Dutch army is also going to experiment with narrow gauge. From 1907, the Genie built a large network on the Leusderhei with connections to the train station in Huis ter Heide and the military airfield at Soesterberg.
Initially, the wagons were mainly pushed or pulled by horses. But the transport capacity increases enormously with the arrival of locomotives. It is now possible to transport large amounts of cargo over longer distances at a reasonable speed. The first steam locomotives appear around 1880.
The first electric and motor locomotives follow around 1900. In the coming decades, however, steam traction will determine the picture. Especially where strong performance is required, the stronger steam locomotives have more to offer than the much lighter engine locomotives. It was not until the 1930s that the diesel locomotive slowly but surely replaced the steam locomotive. The curtain has already fallen for most interurban tram lines. The tram is replaced by the bus. The steam locomotives last longer during heavy earthmoving. Dutch contractors still used steam traction until the 1950s. But much earthmoving was already done with trucks. The narrow gauge only disappears in brick factories in the eighties. Horticulture will also continue to use narrow gauge for a long time to come. Trade and production Hendrik Figee from Haarlem is probably the first importer and manufacturer of narrow gauge equipment. Figee has built at least one electric locomotive for the Gasfabriek Keilehaven in Rotterdam. A much larger producer is Machinefabriek Breda (formerly Backer & Rueb). It supplies most of the typical square tram locomotives. The largest Dutch producer of industrial narrow gauge locomotives is Du Croo & Brauns from Amsterdam and Weesp. The company started in 1906 as a trading company. Simple construction work of sugar cane wagons, tipping wagons and motor cars followed later, and in 1922 the construction of steam locomotives was started. Almost all go to the Indian plantations. D&B also builds motor locomotives.
Not all entrepreneurs have their own equipment. Many rented it. The most important rental companies are Oving from Rotterdam and Spoorijzer from Delft. Oving started trading in used rail in 1875. Later on, all kinds of narrow gauge equipment was imported and built. Spoorijzer also started as a trading company, but soon became an important supplier of narrow gauge cars and diesel locomotives. A lot of equipment of Dutch manufacture is also used in the mines. For example, Machine and Oxygen Factory W.A. Hoek from Schiedam compressed air locomotives and Kromhout from Amsterdam and Hovers Constructie from Tilburg diesel locomotives. Coal wagons are mainly made by Spoorijzer and Hovers. In addition, dozens of smaller trading companies and manufacturers are active, sometimes with no more than local significance. However, much of the equipment used in the Netherlands is made in Germany. In Germany narrow gauge is made in large quantities and, new or used, often comes to the Netherlands very cheaply.
The end of the First World War is one such moment. Both the German army and the manufacturers would then have to get rid of their stocks and sell at dump prices. Also in the crisis years (1929-1936) prices in Germany were low due to the devaluation of the Reichsmark. Well-known German factories are Hanomag, Henschel, Jung, Krauss, Linke Hofmann, Maffei and Orenstein & Koppel. After the war, a large number of diesel locomotives were supplied b the English company Rushton & Hornsby.
Narrow Gauge now. An example is the construction of the North-South line of the Amsterdam Metro. The concrete tunnel segments, which form the outer wall of the tunnel, were transported by narrow gauge from the storage yard to the heart of the drilling machine.
Our collection is a reflection of the areas in which the narrow gauge railway was once active. For example, we have the complete steam tram that last ran between Doesburg and Doetinchem in 1957, and five heavy locomotives that once worked for large contractors. Our steam locomotives with a track gauge of 70 cm have a diverse past. They were often initially from a rental or contractor company, but eventually they all ended up in the stone industry, where many of our diesels also come from. Most locomotives are of German origin. Only a dozen diesel locomotives are of Dutch manufacture. On the other hand, most of the cars are of Dutch origin. We have cars from Spoorijzer, Oving, Du Croo & Brauns and from IVB. Special Dutch products are the two rail cars built by the Amsterdam factory Simplex. Another masterpiece is the carriage built by a local carpenter that once served on the Bornia estate near Driebergen's own rail network. In the outside area are some machines that were often used in combination with narrow gauge railways, such as a steam piling rig, a dragline and an excavator, with which the tipping trailers were loaded. In addition to locomotives and carriages, our collection also includes models, photos, books and other objects. Historical films showing the narrow-gauge equipment in operation are shown in the museum's display and screening room.
Google Translate from the original Dutch museum brochure.
Next KEAG meetng. Dartford 11 September 2022
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