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Holmfirth

This layout represents the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway’s Holmfirth branch, which ran for 1.75 miles from a junction at Brockholes on the Huddersfield to Penistone line. There was an intermediate station at Thongs Bridge, and the line was double-track throughout, apart from the single platform terminus.

The layout includes a short section of the Huddersfield to Penistone line with “hidden sidings” at both ends. There are working lever frames at Brockholes, Thongs Bridge and Holmfirth, and a simple ground frame at the buffer-stop end of Holmfirth station.

The signalling at Holmfirth is taken from a diagram of the station in 1958 published in Model Railway Constructor, June 1977. Note that only the main goods siding was still in use at this time. I have left the others in place in case anyone wants to go back to an earlier date.

Train working

  • Trains with 2Hxx codes are Huddersfield to Holmfirth all stations services worked by dmus.
  • Trains with 2Jxx are loco-hauled through services from Bradford to Holmfirth, which don’t call at Thongs Bridge.
  • 7H01 is a local goods train. On arrival, run the engine round in the platform road, shunt the wagons into the goods loop for loading, and then uncouple and send the engine back to Huddersfield.
  • 0Z01 is a light engine working returning to pick up the wagons.
  • All other trains shuttle back and forth between Penistone and Huddersfield.

Download

This layout is also available via the Rail3d home page

holmfirth_branch.trp 3.2 mb, updated 30 November 2007

Sources

General topography is from os maps and srtm elevation data, as usual; everything else is freely invented.

Pedantic note: Thongs Bridge became Thongsbridge at some point that I haven’t been able to pin down precisely: the mrc article, the 1855 os map and Jowett both have the two-word form, but other sources all have one word.

The branch closed to passengers in 1959 and to goods traffic in 1965. Had it not done so, it would almost certainly have suffered the indignity of being marketed by br as “the Nora Batty Line”…

Mark Hodson May 19, 2006, at 11:02 pm

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