Ridings Page

        2010 - "Ridings" appeared at the Huddersfield Railway Modeller's Exhibition in Holmfirth on the 30th/31st October and was voted Best in Show - see photos below.
       2009 - "Ridings" appeared at the Bradford Model Railex on 18/19th April. It was very well received, and indeed won recognition by taking the Chairman's Choice Shield. It also appeared at the Sheffield Model Railway, Bus and Tram Exhibition on 20th June 2009.
        2008 - "Ridings" appeared at the Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft's Model Weekend on the 13th &14th September and also at the Model Bus Federation's AGM in Sheffield on the 4th October.
         2007 - "Ridings" appeared at the Sheffield Model Railway, Bus and Tram Exhibition on 23rd June 2007 complete with the new extension (albeit in its early stages).
         2006 The first full year "Ridings" was exhibited turned out to be quite busy! It was at the Model Railway, Bus, Trolleybus and Tram Exhibition in Sheffield on the 17th June. It also appeared at the Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft's Model Weekend on 16th/17th September where it worked very well. "Ridings" was also invited to the Huddersfield Railway Modellers Exhibition on 28th/29th October 2006, where it caused quite a stir amongst the traditional railway layouts!

Click here for pictures from the above events, and of the layout at previous stages for comparison (bottom of this page). Click on any of the photos for a larger version.

LATEST: The building of the Extension continues with the scenery. The Extension makes Ridings around 50% bigger, and gives more operational variety to both the railway and the buses - see Extension Pages (link above left). The latest is the addition of DCC control for the trolleybuses, the addition of a Huddersfield Park Royal trolleybus, and new overhead has been erected to enable trolleys to get to the town centre via the front road.
Click here for Videos of Ridings! (Now working again)

Latest Awards: Best Layout in Show - Holmfirth 2013	This project started some years ago - too many to remember actually. The idea was to build a 4mm scale (1:76) layout with working trolleybuses on it. A railway as well was a natural addition as items for these are readily available, although I took the decision to operate 'unusual' stock, as opposed to those easily obtained, so long as they operated in the Yorkshire area of England. It is based in the mid-1960's, when trolleybuses still plied the streets in great numbers, but the cut-backs on the railways had already led to some line closures and diesels were complementing steam operation. Obviously the idea relied on steering the trolleybuses. At first, I tried electronic guidance from a wire carrying a high-frequency signal - even having to obtain a radio licence to do so - but eventually settled on a magnetic method. The railway part has been constructed for a while, but the technical problems with building the working trolleybuses were too great to overcome with the limited engineering tools I had at my disposal. However, the resurgence of my interest in trolleybuses led to intense activity on the layout, and then the Faller road guidance system became more readily available, and this was used to supersede my own vehicle steering system. Why "Ridings"? Well, the connotations with riding on trolleys were too great to resist! In addition, Huddersfield is in the old West Riding of Yorkshire, and the layout pinches bits of the scenery and buildings from around the Ridings of Yorkshire. For example, Ridings Station is based on Armley (Canal Road), the Town Hall and the roundabout in front of it is based on Bradford, the moors are based on the Pennine moors above Huddersfield, and the canal is based on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal which disappears into a tunnel at Standedge. In this section you can the follow the links above left to views of the layout under construction - firstly the main layout and then the extension which carries the canal part, and also to the vehicles and the locomotives. Below are wider-angle photographs from events visited. Questions? Comments? Exhibition Manager? You can contact me at An interesting shot taken at the Sheffield 2013 exhibition, showing the layout before the scenic items have been positioned. (>>)
The Lockwood Trophy for Best Layout in Show - Holmfirth 2010.
The Chairman's Choice Shield - Bradford 2009.

Photographs of the Ridings extension at the Model Exhibition in Sheffield, June 2007. The newly-built Extension was taken for trials, even though it wasn't finished scenically. The operation of it went very well, and lessons learned were acted upon after the exhibition.

Photographs of Ridings at the Huddersfield Railway Modellers Exhibition in October 2006:

Photographs of Ridings in very basic form at the Model Exhibition in Sheffield, June 2005:

Picture of the Town Centre and new Extension taken at the Huddersfield Railway Modeller's October 2010 Holmfirth Exhibition.	An atmospheric shot of the station area with the Huddersfield trolleybus and new Bradford trolleybus.
A view looking back down the developing extension.	The layout won the 'Lockwood Trophy' for Best layout in Show, by public vote.


	The 2015 show was the first time the new Huddersfield trolleybus was running. This can be seen above and below.

Views of "Ridings" at the Bradford Model Railway Club's Exhibition in April. Above - the Extension end of Ridings, with the Chairman's Choice Shield.	A long view from the moors end of the layout at the Bradford Exhibition.
At the Sheffield Model Railway, Bus and Tram Exhibition in June 2009, showing the Town Centre from a different angle.