Trinity Dock Street Bridge

Trinity Dock Street Bridge is a fictitious location based on Railway Street in Hull, where the road and railway crossed the channel between Humber and Railway docks in the ‘Old Town Docks’ in the city.

The model is set on a dull, dank and chilly day, February 6th, 1939, with the south easterly not only bring the ‘sea rogue’ up the ‘umber, but the threat of war on the near continent.

Changed the name as the model does have an amount of modellers license and is not a perfect representation of the actually area, mainly due to track position and the lack of space meaning compression of space and features.

Also a second tightly curving spur was added to give a bit more operational scope.  This serves the fictitious ‘Trinity Dock’ after which the street and model is named.

The ‘Bridge’ part of the name comes from the (non-operational) double leaf asymmetrical bridge to the left hand side of the model.  Again, not a 100% accurate model (due to the baseboard thickness at his point) but a reasonable likeness.

The buildings, like the bridge are reasonable likenesses of those found in the actual area, changed to suit the model, including a scale 75 foot tall end to one of the ‘Sheds’ (warehouses) which dominates the area.

All the scenes have been taken, and changed where required, from ones I have found photographs of somewhere in the docks area of the city. From the way the horse drawn wagons are parked up to the group of school kids, horse drawn wagon and pair of ladies on the bridge!

There is even a story running through the scenarios on the model, of a seaman taking a trip ashore, visiting the local pub (The Earl de Gray, a infamous establishment near the dock that is sadly being demolished), having had a skinful, he has had other pleasures from the ‘ladies of the night’ (also on the model) before returning to his ship, only to fall in the dock.  Were on Monday morning 3 PC’s and their sergeant, Sgt John Thomas Rose, is recording and supervising the recovery of the body, as John Thomas (yes, his real name) was the Coroner’s Sgt.  I know this as I found out first hand, Sgt John Tom was my grandfather!

Back to the model.

‘HLD’, Hull Dairycoates shed provided the motive power in the western part of the city, being a couple of miles away from the models location, all the loco’s on the model have been re-numbered to suit those on HLD’s books.  These are mainly J72, Y1/2, Y3 (Sentinels) and Y8’s (of which there were only two out of the original five left in use by 1939).  However, for operational reasons the only Y1/3, (No.19) has ventured slowly from the timber jetties in Alexandra Dock to work the town docks (to work the timber built jetties, it had 4 tons of ballast removed, this made it a really rough running loco, and anything thing faster than walking pace it threw itself off the tracks), once built a couple if Y7’s will also venture westward.  Modellers license is a wonderful thing.

The 72’s and Sentinels are RTR, with added details, tools, coal and a good dose of weathering. Both the Y8’s are old ‘Keyser’ kits, one to be repaired, one to build.  One Y7 is a nu-cast kit, the other a connoisseur model, both needing to be built.

All the goods stock is (for the moment) RTR, weathered, 3-link couplings, loads, tarp’s and another dose of weathering to make them look somewhat better.

There is no passenger stock on the model!

I wanted to make something different as I have got fed up of seeing the ‘Summer, somewhere in the south west of England’ chocolate box top layout, and with such limited space (2000mm x 1100mm (7′ x 3’9″) I decided to make a ‘detail intensive model, based on part of my birth town, ‘Ull.  Being the antipodean to the norm!

Added some photo’s that I took in a recent photo shoot for your interest, the layout does have a Facebook page (I should get a website, too)  ://www.facebook.com/trinitydockstreetbridge/  which you can see a couple of thousand, including pictorial ‘how I did it’ studies.

Any questions or comments, please ask.