Hall Royd Junction: The Model Railway

Hall Royd Junction Box nameboard as preserved at the East Lancashire Raiway, Bury

NEW! Upper and Lower Quadrant 2mm signal transfers!

Check out the Change Log for recent updates

Latest updates

14 December 2023: Added a page describing the Charlestown tunnel and subsequent deviation.

22 October 2023: Martin Neald's 'Eccleston' LYR P4 branch terminus was surveyed at Scaleforum in High Wycombe in September 2023.

21 October 2023: The opportunity to visit Kev Greenhalgh's magnificent 'Thurlstone Great Central' in mid-October was not to be passed by.

26 March 2023: The wonderful P4 Ryburn model railway layout of master model makers Kirby and Dilnot was on show for possibly the last time at the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Society Modellers' Meeting in Todmorden on 5 March 2023, and the opportunity was taken to record the salient features of this layout.

22 February 2023: A note for modellers interested in the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Society. The first 2023 meeting of the LYRSociety is to be a Modelling Event at The Fielden Centre, Todmorden on Saturday 25 March 2023. Models in all the major scales plus 5-inch gauge, demonstrations, and two speakers... One of those speakers will be your scribe, and I have to talk for 35 minutes on the genesis, prototype and model of Hall Royd Junction, Todmorden. If you would like to attend, you can join the LYRS here.

7 October 2022: Stanier Jubilee 45654 'Hood', a Newton Heath loco withdrawn on 25 June 1966., photographed on 13 November 1965, working Warwickshire Railway Society excursion, as seen at Todmorden.

Hall Royd Junction: the model railway

Hall Royd Junction was a major junction on the old Calder Valley main line of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, just on the Yorkshire side of the Country boundary. Its also the name of a model railway in 4mm scale being constructed in a loft in the Shire counteis. By way of introduction, I am Keith Wallace, a keen railway modeller since 1957, and this site records some of the adventures on the journey to create a slice of railway nostalgia.

An aerial photo taken by Nigel Trafford on 21 April 2014 shows the full extent of Hall Royd Junction from the mouth of Millwood Tunnel to Hall Royd Road bridge.

Prototype

Hall Royd is a modest junction high up in the Pennines. Yet it's the first junction on the main line of the L&YR as it headed towards Lancashire.

Straight on was Manchester - the hub of the old system, and beyond Todmorden was Stephenson's famous Summit Tunnel. At Castleton an important set of tracks heading off to Bury and Bolton, which gave connections to Preston and the coast at Southport. The right hand set of tracks set off for the summit at Copy Pit, and then fell towards Burnley, Blackburn, Preston and Blackpool.

The site provides information about the real railway at Todmorden, and also connecting lines such as Copy Pit or Rose Grove to Colne.

The L&YR was a key part of the North's industrial infrastructure and huge quantities of coal were heaved over the Pennines to be distributed right across the whole of Lancashire. In the last few years of steam, the triangle of junctions at Todmorden became well-known for being the home of the last British Railway bankers, with 8Fs propelling both the coal hauls bound for Rose Grove and the Blackpool-bound excursion trains.

Although much of the LYR infrastructure survives, items such as signal boxes and their associated signals were culled in the 1960s.

And for anyone interested in seeing LYR signals a visit to the Bala Lake Railway is highly recommended, as the signal collection amassed by George Barnes is still in daily use there.

Even 'Mallard' has visited Hall Royd, thanks to an initiative by Allan Peglar, which saw the Northern Rubber special tackle Copy Pit. Legend has it that 'Mallard' left the WD 2-8-0 assigned to bank it far behind, but all the photos so far gathered show 90348 firmly buffered-up to the Observation Car as it passed through Cornholme....

Check out the full index of prototype resources on the site.

Railway Modelling

For modellers, the site records some of the issues associated with building a model railway, including a number of How-to-do-it pages showing how to ballast track, connect PECO code 70 to Code 100 track cheaply, how to work points using DPDT switches, how to cross the baseboard joint, and much more!

Looking for free downloadable buildings to make? Popular kits include a house in Todmorden, LYR and LNWR signal boxes, an LMS-style asbestos lamp hut and 1930s-style small factory.

And if painting distant signal arms accurately and correctly is proving too difficult, check out the signal arm transfers for Upper Quadrant, and GW steel Lower Quadrant types.

Hall Royd Junction April 2014

The 4mm scale (1:76) model railway layout of Hall Royd Junction on 3 October 2022, showing bridge signal box and signals in place

Hall Royd Junction: the model. Time frame 1965/6. Recent developments include the permanent signal box, and recently the completion of working models of all the main running signals. The next project is tackling the legion of ground signals that allowed movement of the Copy Pit banking engines, access to the sidings and cross-over.