York City and District Society of Model Engineers Ltd - Miniature Railway Britain Episode 114.

Duration: 30:16 1544 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

The video follows a visit to the York City and District Society of Model Engineers, featuring their miniature railway located in the Hogmoor area just outside York. The host begins his journey by walking across the countryside, noting that despite the rural appearance, the area is actually surrounded by suburban housing estates. He reflects on York's transport history, mentioning the city's former tram system and its brief experiment with trolley buses before settling into a walk towards the railway site. Upon arrival at Skin Halt, he observes various miniature trains operating on the main line and sidings, including a notable appearance of an unrebuilt Rall Scott locomotive, which adds to the collection of rolling stock he has seen in York over the years. Unlike typical episodes where the host takes a ride, this visit presents a unique scenario because the society was running only ground-level gauge trains that day, making passenger rides unavailable for new visitors. However, the host compensates for this by utilizing archival footage from a previous visit to demonstrate what a ride looks like on the ground level track. He spends his time observing a variety of both large and small trains, including interesting goods trains that are less commonly seen in miniature railway settings where passenger services usually dominate. The atmosphere is described as friendly and welcoming, with club members granting him permission to explore areas not typically accessible to the general public to capture better line-side shots. Beyond the miniature railway, the host also explores the society's indoor facilities, which feature a well-maintained 16mm scale layout where live steam can be heard in operation. He examines specific details of the track infrastructure, such as gradient markers indicating inclines like one in eighty-six and one in ninety-five, highlighting the engineering precision involved. The visit is further enriched by the proximity to York Racecourse, visible behind nearby houses, which adds a local context to the location. Throughout the afternoon, he captures the charm of watching these small-scale operations, emphasizing that even without a ride, the experience of seeing diverse locomotives and goods trains provides a novel and engaging perspective for model railway enthusiasts. The video concludes with the host walking back to York Station after a pleasant few hours, expressing gratitude to the club members for their hospitality and the opportunity to document their work. He advises viewers to check the society's schedule before visiting, as operations are not always running or open to the public on every day. Despite the lack of a ride on this particular occasion, he considers the visit a success due to the variety of trains seen and the interesting insights gained into the society's activities. The episode serves as an invitation for others to explore this unique miniature railway and model engineering community in York, encouraging them to plan their visits accordingly to ensure they catch the trains in action.

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5A. >> Hello. Thank you for joining me today. I'm at York. Look, there's Eddie Pacific. We're going to see her depart and then we're going to go and find the York City and District Model Engineering Society. The platform 8 is the 134. This train has three end of the church. >> [music] >> very well. He Ed stone gone now. Let's go and find this miniature railway. By the way, it's not the one in the National Rail Museum over there. I have been to that one. That was on a much earlier episode of Miniature Railway Britain. We're going to go and find York's other miniature railway. Right now, I'm now making my way across Hob. It feels like I'm leaving York behind me and heading out into the countryside. But in actual fact, this large area of Mland is completely surrounded by suburban housing estate. Um just over there behind the trees, you can't see it's gate sidings and over there is some houses. So that's all that area is known as drinking houses where um null Terry of Tererry's Chocolate Orange lived. I did once do a video on his house. It's a National Trust house. So that's somewhere else you could visit. You could go there by bus, but I like this walk. It's a nice day for a walk across Hogmore. Might have a few cows to negotiate soon. Of course, if York had tra still, I probably have traveled here on the tram, but they went long ago. They did manage to though outlast the trolley buses that were supposed to replace them. It's little known fact the York did have trolley buses for a short time. In an ideal world, York will get trams, but anyway, this video isn't about that. Maybe one day I'll do video on former York trams. I need to continue on heading in approximately that direction. The miniature railway is in those trees there. So you can see it from the west coast um the east coast mainline rather. And I noticed today I saw they're running some trains as I passed. My plan is to go there and see if we can have a ride. There go the cows. A whole load have just all come out of this next field which I'm about to walk into. So I'm kind of glad they all went ahead just before I went through there. So, we're getting close to the railway now. I always enjoy the walk though, as I was saying, across Hob and I'm nearly at the end of it. There's a few more cows coming. Hopefully, they won't mind me walking through. I better these people. I've keep going towards that houses and then hopefully I should find this railway. There we are. We're at the railway. I'm at Skin Halt. This is the halt for the uh ground level 7 and a/4 and 5 in. over there has a racetrack which I think is 5 in, 3 and 1/2, and 2 and 1/2 in. Now, this episode is going to be a little bit different to the others cuz I don't actually think I'm going to get a ride today. What's happening? All the trains running are good trains. It's a ground level 5 in. So, we're going to see quite a few good trains. We can watch this one go by now, but we're not actually going to get a ride. I'll get to what we're doing in a moment. Let's just watch this go by. Oh, by the way, that's the main line there. So, we're going to see lots of little and lots of big trains. I've ridden behind Scott's Guardsman into York, but that was of course a rebuilt Ral Scott. What we just saw then was an unrebuilt Ral Scott. So nice. I can now say I have seen an unrebuilt Ral Scott at York. So, um, just it's a bit smaller. what I'm going to do regarding a ride. I've visited here in the past. I've got footage when I had a ride before Cory Hunt. I'm going to put that in as a ride around on the ground level and um then we'll just do some line siding, watch some trains uh and see if we see anything on here. So, I think it's unlikely I'm going to get a ride today, but it's a bit of a different day. I've turned up I've turned up on, like I say, a running day for 5 in. So, look, they look fantastic. All these really nice model, well, they're not model, miniature good trains going round. Just a bit different. And like I always say this and I'm repeating myself every time I say it. It means railway model engine once. It's exciting cuz you don't quite know what you're going to see. Uh it sounds like as a passenger train on the main line Grand Central. So we're just going to line now. We're going to see a variety of big and a variety of small trains. And then like I said, I'm going to use my footage from quite a long time ago for the ride. And then maybe another time I'll revisit here on one of their public days. It's just I was in York today, saw that running and it seemed a shame not to come and see what's going on. >> You painted last night. >> There we are. Thank you, Mike. Hand over to a proper driver now. Heat up here. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Oh no. Help me. Heat. Heat. as well as the miniature railways. They've also got this quite nice 16 mm scale layout. So, we'll have a look and see what's running in here. I can just hear some live steam coming. So, let's watch that go I like most miniature railways and model engineering scientists are very friendly here. They've given me permission to have a bit of a wander around where the public wouldn't normally go. So, I'm hoping we can get some interesting line side shots. As I say, this is the raised track. And there was a French loco running, but that seems to have been taken off now. Maybe it was running all morning. It's also quite nice. Check the train. See how they've got the gradient marker. So one in 826. Not particularly steep. One in 94. Yeah, that's a bit steeper. Let's see what I can see. Trains going around over there. That's a skin hole where I was. So they have got a very pleasant track. Oh, it's the summit here. I just show you this. See there? Look, one in 950. And it's a one in 13 down. And behind there's Todd Moore where I walked across to get here. So, I'm going to get a few more shots. I can't go too long because I can't miss um my bullet Pacific h train back to London. So, let's wait here and we'll just see what comes along. Whatever. All right. Heat. Yeah. Oh my god. That's been a very pleasant afternoon here. I haven't been here particularly long. I've only had a couple of hours. I've now got my walk back to York Station. But perfect way to spend my few hours here in York this afternoon. Bit unusual when I didn't have a ride, but then a ride wasn't what was on offer today. So, you know, it was it's ground level. Quite a goes running. So something just a bit different and not having a ride has been more made up for it in seeing these little goods trains running around. Something you don't normally see whilst you're no doubt always going to see a variety of locos and model engineering societies. You don't often see long goods trains like that go around or there might be one but everything else is passengers. So it's made a really quite a novel interesting visit. I'm hoping you might finish with a train on the east coast mainline. You can hear a load of talking in the background. That must be York raceourse cuz over there behind those houses is uh York raceourse. So I'm probably going to go back across walk. It's probably going to be very busy. Hoping a train will come on the main line. But um although there's one due I'm not going to stand here forever waiting. So I hope you enjoyed this video. If you'd like to come and visit them um just do check when they're running I think is the best thing for me to say. um don't just turn up and expect them to be running cuz quite often you know they're not running or it's not a public event. So do just check other that thank you very much to the club. They've been very welcoming. Let me have a a look around which is always really nice. So thank you very much for watching. Please do feel free to like, share, comment and subscribe from the East Coast Mainline and York City and District Model Engineering Society. Goodbye.