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A Brief History of the Club
A Brief History of the Club
B&DSME was formed in 1924 by the owner of the Tarragona Hotel in Bournemouth.
Meetings were held in the basement of the hotel.
The photo shows a letter published in the Model Engineer & Electrician magazine on the 13th March 1924, from a Mr L. Bass, announcing the inauguration of the Bournemouth society.
Later before WW2, meetings were held in St Peter's Hall in Hinton Road.
After the war meetings were held at the Pembroke Shades Hotel at the top of Poole Hill.
The first track was in Southbourne, in the grounds of a school at the top of Tuckton Road.
The photograph is a very early photograph of the Southbourne track taken around 1948. The three boys are from the Mortimer family. The loco still exists and is called 'Falcon'.
By this time recognisable names, D.E. 'Laurie' Lawrence, Lyn Wright and Tony Cuff were involved.
During 1954/55 it was realised that the track at Southbourne was unsuitable, and so a move from the Tuckton Road site was planned, eventually a new track was built within the sports ground at Pelhams, home of the Civil Service Club in Manor Farm Road, Kinson. As Mr Lawrence worked for Post Office Telephones, the use of the CSSA site was assured. The railway was officially opened on Saturday 27th September 1958.
Around 1962/63 the Civil Service Club wanted the land for other purposes and the railway had to go.
It was decided by the committee to approach Bournemouth Corporation with a view to building a track on common land. The Director of Parks for the corporation was a go-ahead young man called Ross Young, he was taken to the Southampton track and shown what a model railway in a public park was like, he took to the idea and various sites were considered including Turbary Park, Iford Field and Redhill Park but finally Kings Park was agreed as the best location.
So on the 3rd April 1965, work started on the Kings Park track, which was opened the following year. The track was situated between the athletic stadium and Dean Court football ground, home to AFC Bournemouth. It was a 1/3rd of a mile long, and had large radius curves and a station building constructed of stone. Steaming bays were provided with a spur line leading to a traverser and access to the main line.
After 37 years in Kings Park we were asked to leave the site due to the football ground expansion, which was going to swallow up our track. Lengthy discussions ensued with Bournemouth Council and the football club, and we were offered a lovely position in the Littledown Park, with a track of similar length to Kings Park. And so the new track was officially opened by the Mayor of Bournemouth on 11th April 2004.
The Bournemouth & District Society of Model Engineers has had many ups and downs over it's long history, but today it is still promoting our wonderful hobby.
This short history page is only a brief outline of the society, if you have any more information, especially about the early years, please let us know.
Laying the Track
Laying the Track
With over 35 years of experience at Kings Park it was decided to continue with a concrete beam and steel rail. The beams are supported at each end in galvanised steel trays, jig-welded onto substantial galvanised steel stanchions concreted into accurately augured holes just over 1m deep. Each beam sits on a hard rubber pad fitted into the steel tray and it is fairly easy to adjust the level of the beams by inserting extra rubber pads. Each beam weighs around 700kg and is held in place by gravity. However, all the curved beams have had special clamps fitted as an extra precaution.
The land slopes rapidly down to the lake and parts of the track ended up over 1.4m above the ground so the Council decided to do some extensive landscaping to bring the ground level up to 150mm below the bottom of the beam.
The curves are standardised at a radius of 17m and super-elevation is built into the concrete beams. This was designed for a balancing speed of around 6mph and is 18mm over the 270mm width of the beam. The transition beams ensure a smooth entry and exit.
For the sleepers, Rr-cycled plastic offered a long-life 'fit and forget' alternative to wood - if it would stand up to having hot cinders dropped onto it. Tests were carried out on samples obtained from a Scottish company by playing a flame from a blowlamp onto a sleeper to see what happened. As long as the flame was kept on the plastic sleeper it burned, but very slowly. As soon as the flame was removed any residual fire went out and the plastic solidified. Tests also showed that the material could be sawn using a fast running carbide tipped saw blade and drilled using special fast flute drills, again run fast. The material was obtained in plank form and it took two Sundays in a commercial woodworking shop to saw up the 4,000 sleepers ready to be farmed out to volunteers to have the nine pilot holes accurately drilled using drilling jigs specially made for the job by a member.
The track made up in panels, each 3m long using 1kg/m steel flat bottom rail. As the railway caters for 3.5, 5 and 7.25 in gauges there are four rails to be laid and this works out at some 2.5 tonnes of rail. The rails are carried on plastic baseplates and fastened to the sleepers by 4.2mm dia. hex-headed, self-tapping screws with large washers. The sleepers are spaced at 150mm centres and every joint is supported for extra strength.
The contractor used by the Council to carry out landscaping work managed to crack one of the curved beams with his large tracked excavator! A replacement beam was cast, at his expense of course, and the broken beam lies alongside the new one awaiting future burial. The construction of the concrete beams and supports can be seen in this picture.
A simple jig was built to make the construction of track panels relatively painless and this allowed two straight panels to be built simultaneously. A production line was established with members carrying out the menial tasks such as putting a washer onto all 32,000 screws! Others then loaded the 4,000 sleepers with screws and baseplates ready to be put into the jig and the rails, which had been cut to length and jig- drilled at each end for the fishplate bolts, slid into place. The screws were than tightened using cordless electric screwdrivers and the completed panel put onto the growing stack in the Engine Shed ready for laying.
The track panels were fastened onto the concrete beam using stainless wood screws into plastic plugs in holes drilled through the pilot hole in the centre of the sleeper and into the beam - a cheap SDS Plus hammer drill making easy work of this task.
There has to be a means of getting trains on and off of the track and at Kings Park a massive, two-track traverser 20 ft long was the solution. However, it had become more and more difficult for an ageing membership to operate, so various ideas were investigated for the new track. Guildford had installed an ingenious flexible beam and they offered us a set of drawings. A visit was arranged to see the operation at close quarters and the design was modified to take into account our extra rail. The heart of the 'Bendy Beam' is the 2m long flexible section. This is built on two 12mm thick steel plates carrying a series of specially machined steel sleepers that are able to slide in a controlled manner. These sleepers carry four flexible 'rails', each made from four stainless steel strips that are segmented to allow the rails to lengthen or shorten as needed as the beam is curved. These strips were laser cut by a local company from 1.6mm thick 316 stainless steel sheet, this being the easiest way of ensuring that the strips were consistent and had accurately positioned obround slots. The old traverser salvaged from Kings Park was modified to provide the swinging beams and the 'Bendy Beam' was the last part of the main line to be fitted.
The 'Bendy Beam' set for the main line.
The 'Bendy Beam' in the curved position. The hinged section of the spur road gives the necessary clearance from the main line when in the straight position. Without this feature the rigid part of the 'Bendy Beam' would have to be almost 10m long!
Station Construction
Station Construction
Although the main buildings previously used at Kings Park were transferred to Littledown, a new station platform and building were required. The images below show the construction of the new station.
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