Month: April 2022

A video from the EM version of South Pelaw showing the change it motive power for the iron ore trains through the 1960s from the once dominant 9Fs to the introduction of diesels and the eventual takeover of the Type 2 diesels..

In contrast to the photos of South Pelaw in 1985, here’s what it looked like in it’s heyday of the late 1950s/early 1960s on the EM gauge layout of the location with a small selection of coke and coal trains passing through the junction:

By 1985, the last train had run and the steelworks at Consett had been demolished and carted away so the railway had no further reason to exist. Here are five photos of South Pelaw as it was c1985 from Craig Oliphant. By the end of 1985, what little remained of the junction had been lifted…

Three years after I built the first of the baseboards, the final piece of rail has been laid. All the track now has power so I’ve finally been able to run something over the junction. Still a load of work to be done to get all the turnouts working but it’s good to be able…

A video showing the construction of the Hownsgill Plate Mill at Consett in 1959. The end of the video shows a train of wagons taking steel plate from the mill. Here is a representation of one of those trains on the EM Gauge layout of South Pelaw:

From Craig Oliphant, four new photos of scrap trains in the Low Yard during the demolition of the steelworks.