by Paul Lucas

Size: 12' x 3'

Hasford Blacklock is a large fictional town located on the East Coast Main Line somewhere between Peterborough and York, nestled in unusually hilly countryside for this side of England!!

The scenic area as shown runs the entire length of the boards, and about two-thirds of its width, the top 1/3 as shown being the Fiddle Yard. The sharp curves at the “north” end are hidden by hills, and at the “south” end by the town. The dominating feature of the south board is the typical ECML station with two platforms and two central through-lines for high-speed traffic. Some trains to/from the branch terminate at Hasford Blacklock using the two bay platforms, others at peak times run a through-service using the mainline platforms. To avoid slow southbound trains from the branch crossing the mainline, an overbridge allows them to safely reach the mainline platform London-bound. The industrial building (in blue) is possibly the last rail-fed dairy in Britain! Road traffic to and from the dairy must pass under the branch-line to reach the main road into the town.

It is proposed to run the layout on DCC, with all track being Peco Code 55 and rolling stock consisting initially of RTR items as follows:-

 
• Class 43 HSTs in Intercity Swallow livery
• Class 47 hauled passenger train in Intercity livery
• Class 150 DMUs in Regional Railways livery (mainline)
• Class 101 DMUs in Regional Railways livery (branchline)
• Dedicated freight train with 6-wheel tankers for the dairy, plus shunter
• Other passing-through freight trains to be decided. 

History

The settlement at Hasford, as with many other towns ending in -ford, was born out of its early origins as a convenient crossing point for trade from one side of the river Hase to the other. This settlement grew slowly and steadily until barge-trade along the river during the Industrial Revolution really brought much prosperity to the area. Unfortunately the meandering nature of the river didn’t lend itself to heavy traffic-flow, so a separate navigation spur was constructed to the north of the then-small town to enable easier barge movements to and from the Midlands. The undulating nature of the landscape dictated that a series of locks be built along the new route to cater for the differing land-levels. As there weren’t really any other sizeable villages to name the locks by they were given a simple “colour-coding” designation easily identified by the colours the ends of the balance beams on the lock-gates were painted, so the barge pilots and the waterway authorities could relay to each other their position if any difficulty occurred. So from east to west the locks were as follows:-

Green Lock
Blue Lock
White Lock
Red Lock
Yellow Lock
Black Lock

As the town grew under its new prosperity it spread westwards along the original river route where flat building land was the most plentiful, eventually engulfing the junction between the natural river and it’s now-quiet navigation-spur just south of the Black Lock. By this time a small hamlet had sprung up around the old lock-keepers cottage consisting of a number of farm-workers houses, a small chapel, and a serving village shop. Rather than just amalgamate the village into the growing town, the Town Council decided to mark its historical importance as a major transport route by suffixing “black lock” to the town name – hence “Hasford Blacklock”.

The Dairy

There has been a dairy on this site serving the inhabitants of Hasford since its pre-industrial growth, local milk supplies being sufficient for the then-small town. However, with the post-industrial boom and the resultant growth in population it was becoming more difficult to obtain enough milk from local herds to meet demand, the hilly landscape around Hasford being more suited to sheep grazing than heavy cattle! The railway had already come to Hasford years earlier as a major North-South route, so the natural solution was to bring milk in by rail from further south where the flatter land better suited cattle-farming. A set of sidings was taken off the main lines where raw milk could be brought in by rail-tanker early in the morning, and processed for delivery the same day. Obviously this was more expensive than local milk so road-tankers were still used as much as possible to keep costs down.

Although most goods transport has since moved from rail to road, Hasford Blacklock - as it was now called - kept its rail deliveries as road links into the town were deemed unsuitable for constant heavy-goods traffic. And so it remains the last surviving dairy in the UK to rely on rail transport to keep the inhabitants of Hasford Blacklock supplied with fresh milk for their morning cuppa!!!

The Branch Line – Hasford Blacklock to Great Cossingworth

The single-line branch to Great Cossingworth some 45 miles away was constructed in the early 1900’s to bring sheep-livestock and other goods from the farms and surrounding small industries into Hasford where the main rail-link was, and return with fuel supplies such as coal and other foodstuffs as arable farms were almost non-existent in the area. Again the later growth in road transport made the line redundant in freight terms but by then it was also running a small commuter service for the inhabitants of Great Cossingworth and the various villages along the route into Hasford Blacklock. As Great Cossingworth grew as a town in its own right and commuter journeys became longer the peak-time service was extended to include direct services from Great Cossingworth to the major city of Exarton to the south, stopping at Hasford Blacklock as a connection instead of terminating there, negating the need for passengers to change trains. At Exarton passengers can connect with the mainline Intercity services for onward travel.

Page last updated: 3/12/07