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19th October 2021 - Jim Summers Burntisland 1883 A good attendance at the meeting was treated to a talk on
‘Burntisland 1883’ by Jim Summers, a retired professional railwayman and member
of the East of Scotland 4mm Group of railway modellers.
The talk was partly a history of the town in that year, but mainly a
description of a working model of the station and dock area as it was in that
August. As Jim explained, ‘1883’ was
significant in three ways. Firstly,
the year was important in the railway history of the town.
The Tay Bridge had collapsed four years
earlier. The construction of same designer’s Forth Bridge had been stopped as a
result, so Fife remained with no direct rail link with either Edinburgh or
Dundee. However, in 1883 work began
on today’s Forth Bridge, which would transform the appearance and way of life in
the port. Secondly 18.83mm is the strictly accurate track gauge for models built
to a scale of 4mm to the 1ft, and an association exists to foster this degree of
accuracy. And thirdly, the initial section of the layout was built to fulfil a
challenge from that association to create a layout in 18.83 square feet. So the
group thought it might as well also choose 1883 as the year in which to depict
the area accurately. Jim went on to describe some of the research the group had
carried out, including obtaining drawings from Armstrong Whitworth and old
copies of ‘The Engineer’ magazine to get details of some of the dock machinery.
He showed old photographs of the goods ferries which plied between the
town and Granton, carrying wagons of both coal and other goods.
He went on to illustrate the meticulously detailed models which members
of the group had created, not only of the ships themselves but also of the
infrastructure which was developed to allow wagons to be winched on and off, at
any state of the tide, what were the first roll-on/roll-off ferries in the
world. The accurately modelled
locomotives and rolling stock also featured, including The Diver, the
locomotive which had gone down with the Tay Bridge and been recovered and put
back into service by 1883. After the
initial ‘challenge’ section was built, winning the national competition
incidentally, the layout has been extended to some 40’ in length and up to 15’
wide in places. It is hoped the layout will eventually be found a permanent
home, ideally in Burntisland itself. Of
great assistance has been the Burntisland Heritage Trust (https://www.burntisland.net/)
on whose website links to the layout can be found (‘Model 1883’ in the ‘History’
section) The VoT, which gained a hearty response from members, was
given by Jim Watt. The next meeting,
at which all will be welcome, is on 2nd November when Liz Macintyre
will talk on ‘Love Letters from a Desert Rat’. |